Urbanisation Trends
The world is moving to the city. Plot the rising urban trend, sort the push and pull factors, and weigh the challenges of rapid urban growth.
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The world moves to the city 🏙️
For the first time in history, more than half the world lives in **towns and cities**. This shift is called **urbanisation**, and it is happening fastest in poorer countries. Why do people move, and what challenges does rapid growth bring?
Key terms 🗂️
Learn these before you read the trend:
Plot the rise
An interactive activity.
Read your graph
Your graph shows that the percentage of people living in cities is...
- Rising over time
- Falling over time
- Staying exactly the same
- Changing randomly
Push and pull 🔄
People move to cities through **rural-urban migration**, driven by two kinds of factor. **Push** factors drive people away from the countryside: few jobs, poverty, poor services. **Pull** factors attract them to the city: jobs, schools, hospitals, a better life.
Match each term to its meaning
- Push factor
- Pull factor
- Natural increase
- Megacity
- Something driving people away from the countryside
- Something attracting people to the city
- Growth from more births than deaths
- A city of over 10 million people
Pull factors
Select the TWO pull factors that attract people to cities.
- More jobs
- Better schools and hospitals
- Drought and poor harvests
- Few services in the village
The strain of fast growth 💡
Rapid urban growth brings challenges: - **Squatter settlements** (slums) with poor housing; - **unemployment** and the informal economy; - **congestion** and air **pollution**; - pressure on water, power and waste services.
Match each challenge to its description
- Squatter settlement
- Informal economy
- Congestion
- Pollution
- Poor, informal housing built by residents
- Unofficial jobs with no security
- Too much traffic on the roads
- Dirty air and water in the city
Urbanisation frame
_____ is the rising share of people living in cities. It is driven by rural-urban _____ and natural increase. A city of over 10 million people is a _____. Rapid growth can create _____ settlements with poor housing.
Push, pull or place?
An interactive activity.
The jargon
What is a megacity?
- A city with over 10 million people
- A small market town
- Any city by the sea
- The capital city only
A challenge and a fix
An interactive activity.