Opportunities and challenges of rapid urban growth (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE Geography): Revision Note

Inequality in urban areas

• Rapid and unplanned urbanisation creates a range of problems, including

  • Inequality

  • Poor housing

  • Unemployment

  • Environmental issues

  • Congestion

  • Crime, etc.

• Inequality is the unequal access to resources, services and opportunities between people living in towns and cities

• It is more than just not having enough money and includes:

  • Levels of education

  • Access to technology

  • Housing quality and affordability

  • Infrastructure

  • Healthcare

• All cities have levels of inequality, but LICs are amongst the worst affected

• Many low-income families are 'pulled' to informal settlements around towns and cities looking for a sense of 'belonging' with others in the same situation

• For other people without a strong social network or in cities with many new migrants, it’s more common for them to become involved in crime, begging, and petty theft

• Overall, this creates urban poverty that causes a breakdown of both the physical and social environment

  • This makes it difficult for people to escape from poverty and they fall victim to the vicious 'cycle of poverty,’ and urban poverty becomes ingrained within the city

• Combined with a lack of suitable work, housing, water supply, sewerage, solid waste disposal and pollution, the quality of life for some people in cities is low

Services in urban areas

• Electricity supplies are often inadequate and unreliable in megacities

  • This results in frequent blackouts and brownouts

  • Power outages reduce foreign investment and quality of living for residents

• Power theft is also common in megacities

• Without electricity for cooking, biomass (such as wood or dung) is often used by the poorest households

  • This contributes to low air quality and greater household fire risk

• Sanitation and water supplies vary among cities and the UN estimates that in cities:

  • Over 1 billion people do not have access to adequate supplies of fresh, clean drinking water

  • Approximately 2 billion do not have adequate access to sanitation facilities, organised sewage disposal or waste collection

• Water shortages are common due to over-abstraction

• Water quality is often poor

  • This forces people to buy water from sellers at a high price

• The lack of safe water means that people have to find alternative sources, which may lead some people to drinking from pools of water on the ground 

  • This is a health risk, as it is a perfect breeding ground for diseases such as cholera, and accounts for 2 million deaths each year worldwide

  • Open water attracts mosquitoes which may lead to the spread of malaria

Waste management in urban areas

• Waste products and disposal of waste are major issues

• Every person and business produces waste, making the combined rubbish of a city, huge

• Much of this waste will end up going to landfill

  • This is both expensive and wasteful

• Space is running out and new laws restrict the dumping of certain wastes in landfill sites, adding to a city's problems in dealing with its waste

• Rubbish dumps are usually just outside city limits with limited or no collection of waste leading to rats, etc. 

  • Many of these rubbish dumps contain toxic waste

  • People pick over the waste to make a living

  • Many of these people have no formal training or protective clothing and are exposed to unsafe material

    • In Lagos, Nigeria, just 40% of the 10,000 tonnes of daily waste produced is collected and taken to large rubbish dumps

• Most LIC cities have no adequate sanitation or sewage disposal

  • Open defecation is common in local rivers, which increases the spread of diseases

• Water pollution is widespread as rivers are used to dump chemicals and other toxic wastes due to a lack of regulations

Employment in urban areas

• Rapid urbanisation means that job creation cannot match the pace of growth

• As a result, unemployment and underemployment are not unusual 

• People will often work on street corners and do informal work, including:

  • shining shoes

  • giving haircuts

  • para-transit – including rickshaws and tuk tuks

  • selling water or food 

• It is estimated that more than 60% of the world's employed population work in informal employment

  • As much as 93% of informal employment is in MIC and LIC cities

• These jobs are often unskilled and labour-intensive and require little money to set up 

• The informal economy leaves cities without revenue to provide adequate services, as workers pay no taxes

• It also makes wages and working conditions difficult to regulate

• Most informal employment is work in the tertiary sector

Transport in urban areas

• Rapid development leads to these transport systems becoming easily overloaded and overcrowded

• Therefore, roads and public transport tends to be poor in quality, size, and reliability, which contributes to congestion

• Urban congestion varies over the week, time of day, the weather, and the season, which affects the levels of pollution

Urban pollution

• Urban pollution kills thousands of people each year and includes

  • air

  • light

  • noise

  • visual

Air pollution

• High numbers of vehicles emit high levels of atmospheric pollution

  • Smog

  • Carbon monoxide

  • Nitrous oxide

  • Sulphur dioxide

• This leads to breathing issues and cardiac and lung problems

Noise pollution

• Noise pollution is high in cities and comes from

  • traffic

  • construction

  • people talking

  • music in public places, etc.

• Noise pollution has been associated with

  • heart disease

  • sleep problems

  • mental health issues

  • physical stress

Light pollution

• Light pollution comes from

  • street lighting

  • homes

  • shops

  • factories

  • offices

• Light pollution has been associated with

  • eye problems

  • sleep disorders

  • increased stress and anxiety

Visual pollution

• Visual pollution from graffiti, slum housing, traffic congestion, advertising, etc.

Effects in LICs

• These issues tend to be worse in LICs, as there is usually little regulation or enforcement

• Air pollution from using old, un-serviced vehicles that emit dirty and harmful fumes adds to serious health problems such as asthma and bronchitis

• Unregulated factory emissions pollute not only the air but water sources as well

• Roads in LIC cities were never designed to take large volumes of traffic

• A drop in the rate of extreme poverty around the world makes vehicle ownership possible

  • This worsens congestion and pollution

• It is not uncommon for 2-stroke engine taxis (such as auto-rickshaws or 'tuk tuks'), cycle rickshaws, bullocks, elephants, motorcycles, cars, buses and trucks to all share the same roads

  • These forms of transport move differently, which often leads to them getting in each other's way

  • This causes traffic jams and pollution, both noise and air

• Many LICs have inconsistent driver training

  • A lack of consistent road rules leads to gridlock, stress and road rage

  • This adds to pollution through exhaust emissions (smog)