Suburbanisation

• Urban areas first appear because of agglomeration (stage 1), this is the growth of people and the economic activity. This depends on where the settlement is.
• some key settlement areas are:

  1. ports on the coast are important for export and trade (e.g. liverpool)
  2. river crossing points (e.g London)
  3. close to resources like coal or iron (e.g south wales)
  4. trading routes or market towns
• towns expand outward from the town centres, this is called suburbanisation(stage 2)
• Suburbanisation happened because of expensive land, overcrowding, congestion and the decline in quality of housing near city centres (inner city)
• Suburbanisation can only work when there is a good transport network to be able to get people in and out of the city centres and have to be affordable.
• agglomeration and suburbanisation can leas to cities spreading out and become conurbations engulfing villages and towns to make huge urban areas.