Quick questions on Urbanisation and mega-cities: HSC Geography 2022 Focus Area

The spatial distribution shifts. Early industrialisation produced urban growth in Europe and North America. Late-20th-century urbanisation centred on East Asia (Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Manila). Current and projected growth is concentrated in South Asia (Delhi, Karachi, Dhaka, Mumbai) and sub-Saharan Africa (Lagos, Kinshasa, Cairo, Luanda).

People move to cities for economic opportunity, education, health services, escape from rural conflict or environmental degradation. The dominant driver in late-industrialising economies.

Birth rates in urban populations often exceed death rates, particularly where rural-urban migrants are of reproductive age. Especially significant in sub-Saharan African mega-cities.

As economies move from agriculture to manufacturing to services, the spatial logic shifts: services and high-productivity manufacturing concentrate in urban centres, pulling labour.

Some urbanisation is statistical: rural settlements grow to qualify as urban without people physically moving. This is a real driver in China's data.

Approximately 1 billion people globally live in informal settlements (UN-Habitat). Lagos Makoko, Mumbai Dharavi, Rio Rocinha, Nairobi Kibera are flagship examples. Informal settlements typically lack secure tenure, sanitation, formal water, electricity, paved roads, and emergency services.

Water supply, sanitation, electricity, transport and waste management struggle to keep pace with growth. The result: shortages, congestion, disease.

Air pollution (Delhi, Beijing, Lahore among the world's worst), heat island effects, lack of green space, long commutes.

Mega-cities concentrate wealth alongside extreme poverty, often spatially close (Sao Paulo's Paraisopolis favela borders the wealthy Morumbi suburb).

Cities account for approximately 75 percent of global energy use and around 60-80 percent of CO2 emissions (varying by methodology). Mega-city emissions footprints have global climate implications.

Many mega-cities are coastal (Jakarta, Mumbai, Lagos, Manila, New York) and face combined sea-level rise plus storm surge plus subsidence. Jakarta is partially relocating its capital function to Nusantara in Borneo, citing climate and sinking-land challenges.

Urban planning law, infrastructure investment, decentralisation policy (encouraging growth in second-tier cities).

Master plans, public transport investment, slum upgrading programs, climate-adaptation infrastructure.

UN-Habitat's New Urban Agenda (2016) framework; Sustainable Development Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities); World Bank urban lending.

Resident associations, NGOs working on slum upgrading and tenure security.