geography paper 2

• Urbanization


  More people moving into towns and cities
• In 2007, the UN announced that more than 50% of the world's population live in urban areas
• Causes of urbanization


  • Rural to urban migration
  • Natural increase (birth rate exceeding death rate)
• Push factors


  Things that make you want to leave a place
• Pull factors


  Things that draw you into a place
• Mega city


  An urban area with 10 million people living there
• More than two-thirds of current mega-cities are located in LICs and NICs
• Keywords for urban issues

  • Integrated transport system
  • Brownfield sites
  • Greenbelt land
  • Regeneration
• Ways to generate sustainable urban living

  • Water conservation
  • Energy conservation
  • Waste recycling
  • Creating green space
• Tempo housing


  Homes made from recycled shipping containers, 25% cheaper than conventional homes, providing jobs
• Tempo housing


  Helps cope with Lagos's rapidly rising population and improve quality of life
• Tempo housing has downsides like being still expensive, stigma, and heat conduction issues
• Problems caused by urban traffic

  • Environmental (air pollution)
  • Economic (people late for work)
  • Social (greater risk of accidents)
• Solutions to urban traffic problems

  • Widening roads
  • Building ring roads and bypasses
  • Introducing congestion charges
• Kuritiba's solutions to urban traffic

  • Articulated buses taking 4,000 passengers a day
  • Green exchange where people swap rubbish for food
• Gentrification


  An area becoming more affluent and popular, with house prices rising
• Crossrail is bringing an extra 1.5 million people within 45 minutes of London, but pricing out first-time buyers
• The Garden Bridge project in London was cancelled due to high economic costs
• Development


  Improving living standards through better access to resources
• Branches of development


  • Economic
  • Social
  • Environmental
• Country groupings by level of development

  • LICs
  • NEEs
  • HICs
• Economic indicators of development

  • Employment type
  • GDP
  • Average income
• Social indicators of development

  • Infant mortality
  • Literacy rate
  • Life expectancy
• HDI (Human Development Index)


  A mixed indicator using both social and economic measures to rank countries by development
• Demographic Transition Model


  Plots a country's development across 5 stages of changing birth and death rates
• Stages of Demographic Transition Model


  • Stage 1 (high birth/death rates, steady population)
  • Stage 2 (birth rate dropping, death rate high)
  • Stage 3 (rapidly falling death rate, low birth rate, high population)
  • Stage 4 (low birth/death rates, steady population)
  • Stage 5 (low birth rate, falling death rate, negative population growth)
• Factors causing uneven development

  • Physical (access to resources, climate, natural hazards, location)
  • Human (aid, trade, migration)
• Physical factors


  Access to natural resources, climate, natural hazards, location
• Physical factors can limit development, e.g. frequent volcanic eruptions, being landlocked
• Human factors can aid development, e.g. aid improving infrastructure and services, but can also hinder development, e.g. reliance on aid, difficulty establishing trade links
• Consequences of uneven development include wealth inequality, healthcare disparities, and migration
• Solutions to reducing the development gap

  • Microfinance loans
  • Aid
  • Foreign direct investment
  • Debt relief
  • Fair trade
  • Technology
• Microfinance loans


  • Provide small grants to help people set up businesses, but may not work at larger scale
• Aid


  • Can invest in development, but may be wasted due to corruption
• Foreign direct investment


  • Provides access to finance and investment, but may come with strings attached
• Debt relief


  • Allows more money to be spent on development, but local people may not always get a say
• Fair trade


  • Ensures farmers get a fair price, but only a small proportion of money reaches the producer
• Technology


  • Enables renewable energy which is less expensive, but requires high initial investment
• Case study: Nigeria


  • Political, social, cultural, and industrial influences on development
• Transnational corporations (TNCs)


  Shell oil has invested heavily in Nigeria, but profits have leaked out and caused environmental damage