Contemporary Urban Environments

• Urbanisation: The proportion of a country's population living in a town or city
• 2014 urbanisation stats: 85% of the UK's population lived in urban areas. In europe it is 73%
• By 2050 how much will India, china and Nigeria account towards urban growth: 37%
• Urban growth in India 2050

  404m
• Urban growth in china in 2050

  292m
• Urban growth in Nigeria in 2050

  212m
• What % of urban areas in 2040 aren't in existence (predicted)? 70%
• Suburbanisation: The movement of people, employment and facilities from inner to outer urban areas.
• Counterurbanisation: People move out to rural areas due to push and pull factors
• Urban resurgence: When people move back for the 24hr city, this tends to be linked to the regeneration of CBD and inner city areas.
• Urban resurgence - Ubisoft: Ubisoft located in Montreal, Canada due to the 24 hour city with good access to shops and services and short commute
• Push factors: population growth

  Agricultural problems

  Disease and inadequate medical provision

  Rural communities driven away by larger firms

  Natural disasters

  Wars and civil strife
• Pull factors: Employment in factors and service industries

  Earning money from the informal sector

  Better quality social provision

  A perceived better quality of life, fed in part by the media
• Megacities


  cities with more than 10 million people
• How many mega cities will there be in 2025 and where will they be? There will be 37, mostly concentrated in Asia
• China's plan to create a mega city: Cities on the pearl river delta are to be merged to create a city 26x the size of London
• What % of urban growth will be in LICs and NEES: 95%
• What are world cities: Cities that have great economic influence and worldwide commercial power
• Wld cities examples


  London, New York, Tokyo
• Why do problems occur in megacities: As the growth in population is not matched by a growth in resources and infrastructure
• Characteristics and benefits of urbanisation: 1. Offer opportunities to expand services

  2. Less damaging to the environment to provide public transport

  3. Access to larger and more diversified employment

  4. Better education and healthcare

  Centres of innovation
• Characteristics of a world city: Multifunctional infrastructure

  High quality public services

  Headquarters of TNCs

  Innovation centres

  Greater internal signification

  Higher education services

  Centres of media and communications for global networks
• Globalisation and world ranking cities: Alpha++

  Alpha+

  Alpha/Alpha-

  Beta

  Gamma
• Alpha++ cities: More interrelated than all other cities, constitution their own high level of interpretation
• Alpha+ cities: Highly integrated cities, largely filling in a need for services in pacific asia
• Alpha/alpha- cities


  Important world cities linking major economy regions
• Beta cities: Cities that are important in linking their region or state to the world economy
• Gamma: Link smaller regions, major global capacity is not in advanced producer services
• Agglomeration economics: The idea that the presence of money people, services, industry in a small area has production gains
• Why do world cities succeed: Because of good governance structures
• Deglomeration: The movement of activity, usually industry, away from areas of concentration
• 4 parts of economic activity: - production

  - business transport and trade

  - political decision making

  - migration
• World cities and production: Most manufacturing takes part in LICs or NEEs, but the decision making is done by TNCs who normally locate in world cities
• How does migration affect economic success in Shanghai: More than 10,000 graduates, the majority of the labour force is educated at higher levels
• How does production affect economic success in Shanghai: The creation of several open cities along the Yangtze River has allowed for a line of production, supporting the export ordinated economy and allowing it to become export centres
• How does political decision making affect economic success in Shanghai: 1984 set up as an open city and economic and technological development zones were established. In. 1990, pudding new zone was created on an impoverished farmland and became home to financial/commercial centre
• Deindustrialisation


  The decline of manufacturing
• UK cities that have had deindustrialisaiton: Manchester - textiles

  Sheffield - iron and steel

  Glasgow - ship building
• Three favours leading to deindustrialisation: 1. Mechanisation

  2. Completion from abroad

  3. Reduced demand for traditional products
• What factors affect the impact of deindustrialisation? 1. City size

  2. Composition of the urban economy

  3. Actions of the local government