The main issues of metropolisation
THE EMERGENCE OF MEGACITIES
URBAN SPRAWL, THE DISEASE OF ANY METROPOLIS
What are the main characteristics of megacities ?
What's a megacity ?
Where are megacities located ?
The pie charts (doc 3, student 1) show where the most populated cities were in 1950, 1990 and 2016. In the 1990's, there was a shift south : the number of megacities in the Global South had already increased a lot and represented 42% of all megacities. Till 2016, this number kept increasing and the Global South accounted for 67% of all megacities.
To conclude, between 1950 and 2016 the configuration of the world completely changed. Now only 33% of megacities are located in the Global North, that is to say in developed countries.
A megacity is a city « which accommodates a population of several million inhabitants ». According to the United Nations it’s a city with more than 10 million inhabitants.
Positive characteristics
Negative characteristics
Megacities are hot spots, buzzing with the energy of million of people. It's the most exciting places on earth.
It centralized infrastructures and government, political, education, social and health services
Better standards of living
Megacities are sprawling "crammed with 10 million, 15, sometimes even 30 million people".
It's seething, noisy, polluted places.
It suffers from urban poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, health disparities.
What are the avantages of urban sprawl ?
What are the drawbacks of urban sprawl ?
What's urban sprawl ?
It's an unrestricted growth in urban areas of housing, commercial development, and roads over large expanses of land. It offers a low density housing with gardens. Urban sprawl is due to the fact that people want more space, so probably a house with a gardens and sometimes a swimming pool. It is also due to economic prosperity.
IS THERE ANY SOLUTION ?
Inhabitants live away from the pollution of megacities
It's more pleasant to live in low density areas
Inhabitants can have a private garden
Inhabitants depends on the cars for transportation. The impact on environment is higher.
It uses farmlands
Its development is often out of control
Living in a compact city ?
This is a more sustainable project because public transport is available everywhere, cycling and walking are possible as all the facilities are within reach. In a compact city, there is no need to have a car.
But it causes rise in land prices which encourages informal sprawl and inequity.
A compact city is « a high density urban settlement ». It means that urban planners try to house a high amount of people in the smallest space. It's a way to revitalized town centres.
What are the main challenges of megacities ?
Climate change will affect food security and water access in areas that are already currently vulnerable like megacities.
Problems to access fresh food.
More susceptible to natural and human-made disasters (floods, droughts, and pollution).
The solution for difficulties to access fresh food can be urban orchards in streets, vertical farming on buildings and rooftop gardens.