S+-+Urban+zones+and+urbanisation

Settlements in MEDC can be separated into a variety of different zones. Each zone has its own special caharacteristics and you need to be able to descirbe what they are and also recognise the zones from OS maps.

Many of you will have seen this video before but it is very useful at identifying the different zones and their characterisitcs in MEDC cities. A good idea would be to make a list of the five zones as idenitfied in the video and then fill in the information.

media type="youtube" key="SWv1qDC6LkM" height="344" width="425" Urbanisation

Urbanization is the expansion of a city or metropolitan area, namely the proportion of total population or area in urban localities or areas (cities and towns), or the increase of this proportion over time.

The graph to the left shows how the world's population has chnaged over time and is expected to change over time (the black line). The red line shows the number of poeple living in urban areas. As can be seen from the red line it is expected that the number of people who live in urban areas to rise to as many as 5 billion people living in urban areas. On the other hand the green line which represents rural areas is expected to stop rising at 2010 and then start to decrease from roughly 2020.

The intial reasons for this increase in urbanisation is rural-urabn migration. This is down to push/pull factors. In the UK urbanisation occurred in the 19th century due to mechanisation of farming as this to led to many peopel becoming unemployed. As a result people moved to the cities. People in LEDC's still ove for the same reason but also looking for a better quality of life and the 'bright lights of the city'. A more detailed breakdown of push and pull factors can be found at the following link.

Generally younger people migrate to the cities and this results in a high level of natural increase of the populations. This id due to falling death rates due to improved medical care.



The map above shows cities and the size of their urban populations. You hould notice that the majority of cities which have an urban population of over 10 million are located in LEDC's. This is as a result of high birth rates, falling death rates and increasing rural-urban migration.