Cities - Urbanisation

Urbanisation- growth of towns and cities

Causes

• Trade
• Ports e.g. Shanghai
• Colonies e.g. Lima
• Industrialisation
• Settlement laws
• Natural population growth
• Globalisation
• Reassignment of capital cities 

Positive effects

• Reduced transport costs
• Exchange of ideas
• Sharing of resources 
• Higher standard of living
• Lower fertility rate
• Rise in tourism
• More labour

Negative effects

• Water contamination
• Air pollution
• Easy spread of diseases
• More crime
• Traffic congestion
• High cost of living
• Difficulty with administration
• Overcrowding

Economic development and change related to urbanisation

• Growth of cities in MEDCs increased rapidly in the 18th century with the industrial revolution and growth has now stabilised or is in decline.
• In the past 50 years NICs and LEDCs have experienced a growth in urban areas bringing many issues due to poor planning like with slums.
• In some developing cities, like Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, crime is so bad that is is hindering development.

Cities - General

Millionare city- over a million inhabitants
Mega city- over 10 million people, can be made up of two or more metropolitan areas that converge
World city- city that acts as a major centre for finance, trade, politics, culture and science

The emergence of these very large cities is due to:

• Globalisation
• Shift from manufacturing to service based cities

Global cities are centres for finance, headquarters for TNCs, have large levels of tourism. They are centres for knowledge and culture.

Cities have polarised labour forces with many jobs at the high and low end of skill and pay.

New York

• All major media industries in the USA are there
• Major tourist attractions
• Largest number of corporate HQs in US
• Home of New York stock exchange
• Grid system and subway system makes everywhere accessible 
• Green spaces e.g. Central Park
• Large levels of migration- diaspora e.g. Little Italy

Ecosystems - Protecting global ecosystems

Ecosystems are very fragile and need to be protected. These are some ways to protect them

Government intervention

Kyoto Summit 1997

• Made up of most industrialised nations
• Agreed to cut CO2 emissions by 30% by 2010.
• Most fell short of their targets.

Johannesburg World Summit 2002

• Wanted to halt biodiversity loss by 2010.
• Limited success

UK Biodiversity Action Plan 1994

• To protect the most important wildlife site (10% of UK land is now an SSSI or ASSI)
• Target action on priority species and habitats (in 2007 a list of 1149 species and 65 habits were selected)
• Encourage people to change their behaviour in relation to environmental issues.

NGOs

Small scale management

Development - Trade and Aid

Trade

Trade is the exchanging of goods and services between countries.

Most MEDCs and NICs import primary products which have low value and export high value manufactured goods an even higher value services.

Most LEDCs export lower value primary products, this means that they struggle to raise standards of living in their countries because they do not have much foreign money coming in from trade.

Positives

• International cooperation is promoted in the long term
• Boost employment
• Multiplier effect
• Spreads technology
• Help countries bring themselves out of poverty

Negatives

• Free trade can be risky for vulnerable economies
• Trade requires investment first
• Can lead to race to the bottom with cost

Case studies

• NICs like the Asian Tigers grew through trade.
• TNCs impact e.g. Coca Cola
• Trading blocs e.g. EU

Aid

Aid is money and support given to a country or region. 

Types of aid:

- Bilateral, when one country gives direct aid to another

- Multilateral, when aid is given through international agencies like World Bank

- NGOs and charities

- Emergency aid

Positives

• Usually focused on targeting a problem
• Can be given in different ways
• Sustainable with bottom up projects
• Aid can stimulate trade

Negatives

• Countries can become dependent on aid
• Can be unsustainable and inappropriate
• Hard to manage
• Corruption can lead to money not going to the right places

Case studies

Small scale - Mazoria, Ethiopoa

• Water Aid installed 8 new water pumps in the community 
• 2 people have been trained to maintain the pumps
• Provides better sanitation and health for the area
• Less time spent collected water (2-3 hours)
• However, in the long term the water supply could deplete and the pumps may not be able to keep up with increasing population.

Large scale - Cahora Bassa, Mozambique

• Located on the Zambesi river
• 85% financed by the Portugese 
• Full operation started in 1997
• Most energy is sold to South Africa because rural homes do not get electricity from the grid
• Local shrimp industry has been destroyed but there has been a large growth in Kapenta with 10,000 tonnes harvested a year

Development - TNCs

Transnational corporations are firms that operate in more than one country. The headquarters of these firms are usually in developed countries while the manufacturing of their goods occurs in developing countries. They Bring FDI into these developing countries.

Coca Cola

Advantages for host countries

• Creates jobs - 140,000 across the world
• Many bottling firms are local companies so all the profits stay in the host country
• They offer training and education
• Run community schemes
• Provided 4000 vietnamese women with training and equipment to start selling coke
• TNCs attract other TNCs to the host country
• Coca cola has invested $3.5bn into the russian economy, including training, construction of factories and improvements to infrastructure.
• Spread of technology

Disadvantages for host country 

• Work is low paid and usually unskilled
• Factories can close very quickly if somewhere cheaper is found
• TNCs take advantage of low environmental laws
• Profits returned to shareholders and not kept in the country
• Harsh working conditions in factories

Rio Tinto

Largest mining TNC.

77,000 employees worldwide.

Advantages

• Implementing health and safety, education and sustainability in African mining.
• Supporting Guinea's Classified Forest project
• $130m used to ensure sustainable water supply for iron ore mining in Australia, with excess water used to cultivate crops needed to feed 20,000 cattle.

Disadvantages

• Poor working conditions in Namibia leading to strikes
• Uranium miners exposed to radiation levels 7 times higher than limit
• Contamination of rivers in UK from poisonous metals