7.2 Opportunities and challenges of urbanisation
7.2.1 Opportunities of urban living, for example, culture, housing, services, leisure, consumption, economic
development.
7.2.2 The opportunities and challenges of rapid urban growth: inequality, service provision, housing,
employment, transport, waste management, unplanned settlements.
7.2.3 The impact of urban sprawl on the rural-urban fringe/surrounding areas.
7.2.1 Opportunities of urban living, for example, culture, housing, services, leisure, consumption, economic
development.
7.2.2 The opportunities and challenges of rapid urban growth: inequality, service provision, housing,
employment, transport, waste management, unplanned settlements.
7.2.3 The impact of urban sprawl on the rural-urban fringe/surrounding areas.
7.2.1 Opportunities of urban living.
This sub unit explores the opportunities that cities can provide for people who live there. Urban areas often offer better access to jobs, housing, services and infrastructure. Cities are also centres of culture, leisure and consumption, where businesses, entertainment and education create economic growth and improve quality of life.
Why do people move to cities?
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Starter Task: Study the images above carefully by clicking on them to enlarge. The first is a village called Staylittle in mid-Wales and the second is the CBD of Sydney in Australia.
i. Write three reasons people might prefer living in the city.
ii. Discuss your responses with the rest of the class.
iii. What was the most popular reasons given?
Task 1 - You are going to complete some paired work studying the opportunities caused by urban living. Click on the orange tab below to access your Google slides presentation and then save a copy to your own folder and share with your partner.
Make sure that you now download a copy of the slides as a PowerPoint or a PDF and save into your IGCSE Geography folder.
Task 2 - Once you have finished all activities in Task 1, consider the following question:
Are cities always better places to live?
Please vote:
- yes
- sometimes
- no
Discuss the result. Were there common reasons for each of the responses?
7.2.2 The opportunities and challenges of rapid urban growth
This sub unit explores how rapid urban growth can create both opportunities and challenges for cities. Expanding urban areas can generate employment, investment and economic development, but they can also place pressure on housing, services and infrastructure. Problems such as inequality, transport congestion and unplanned settlements may develop if growth is poorly managed.
"Concrete jungle where dreams are made of.."
Starter: Take a look around the Google Streetview image above. It shows one of the most famous urban areas in the world, and some of you will have been there before. Thinking back to our last piece of work, what opportunities can you see that have brought people to this place?
Task 3 - Watch the music video collaboration above from Jay Z and Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind. This version has the strong language muted and so is ok to watch in class. Watch the video carefully and listen out for some of the lyrics. Once it it finsihed, click on the worksheet below and complete the tasks.
Task 4 - Watch the AI video below showing the urban growth of New York over time. There are some scale errors on it, and some of the landscapes that are labelled as 1900 are more likely to have been in 1930, however it effectively shows the growth of the city over time.
Task 5 - You will now be working as part of a group to research and give examples of how New York's rapid growth has led to a range of both opportunities and challenges. Please use the video wall below and the link to the Google Shared Doc to complete this work. Target - 1 hour.
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Resource 1 - Inequality in NYC
Resource 4 - Employment in NYC
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Resource 2 - Service Provision in NYC
Resource 5 - Transport in NYC
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Resource 3 - Housing in NYC
Resource 6 - Waste Management in NYC
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Task 6 - Once complete, please download the Google Doc as a Word or PDF and save into your Geography folder. Then, on your individual copy, complete the DME style exam question at the back on the worksheet.
Unplanned Settlements
To complete this last section of work, we will be moving from North America to South America and specifically to Rio de Janeiro to look at the issues caused by informal settlement growth. These settlements are known as favelas and surround many Brazilian cities.
Starter: Click on this link to be taken to a rooftop view over the informal settlement (favela) of Rocinha close to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The people look a bit strange, but check out the view in front of you and behind you. What can you see and how do you know that this is an informal settlement? You can also check this one out from a bit higher up the mountain.
Task 7 - This link will help.
Complete the tasks below on the worksheet
Task 8 - Watch the Ross Kemp on Gangs video below. Note that there are some scenes of gang violence and some strong language. Viewer discretion required.
Please complete the note taking tasks from the video on the worksheet below
7.2.3 The impact of urban sprawl
This sub unit explores how urban sprawl affects the rural–urban fringe and surrounding areas. As cities expand outwards, new housing, roads and services are built on previously rural land. While this growth can bring economic opportunities, it can also lead to loss of farmland, environmental pressure and changes to rural communities.
Defined as the spreading of urban developments (as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city.
Task 9 - Complete a mind mapping exercise with you teacher using your local city as the example of Urban Sprawl.
Task 10 - Use Google Streetview to explore an area around your city and how it has changed in recent years.
See street-level imagery from the past. You can see old street-level imagery from the Street View's archives in the full version of Google Maps. For example, see how your neighborhood has changed over time.
You can also check out this before / after mapping site from IGN (France) to show you what our school area (and your home area) used to look like in the 1950's compared to today using a simple slide tool.
Task 9 - Complete a mind mapping exercise with you teacher using your local city as the example of Urban Sprawl.
Task 10 - Use Google Streetview to explore an area around your city and how it has changed in recent years.
See street-level imagery from the past. You can see old street-level imagery from the Street View's archives in the full version of Google Maps. For example, see how your neighborhood has changed over time.
- Drag peg person onto the map.
- Click the 'see more dates' in the small black box in the top left of the screen
- At the bottom, use the slider to go further back in time.
- To exit Street View, go to the top left and click Back .
You can also check out this before / after mapping site from IGN (France) to show you what our school area (and your home area) used to look like in the 1950's compared to today using a simple slide tool.
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Task 11 - **Toulouse Students** - Take a look at the two embedded Google Streetview tracks from recently. They are taken in the immediate vicinity of our school. In both cases there is evidence that the surrounding area has developed and urbanised in the last 10 years. Click on the 'view on Google Maps' link in the top left corner and then rewind the time back to 2008.
Use the worksheet below to take a 'before and after' screen shot using both the 2008 and most recent Streetview imagery (see instructions above). Annotate on both the features of urban sprawl using information from the mind map in Task 9.
**Non Toulouse students and teachers - try something similar in your locality, or in a city that has grown a lot recently.
