Changing Urban Environments Trivia Quiz

Answer: An increasing proportion of the population live in urban areas

Urbanisation is the process by which an increasing proportion of a country's population lives and works in towns and cities.

The two main causes of urbanisation are rural-urban migration and natural increase. People move from rural to urban areas for a variety of reasons, usually because there are fewer services and opportunities in the countryside, or because healthcare, education and employment is of a higher quality in urban areas. Natural increase, where the birth rate exceeds the death rate and the population grows, occurs at a greater rate in urban areas because most rural-urban migrants are young people at reproductive age. In addition to this, people are more likely to have children in urban areas because there is increased financial and social security.

Answer: Central Business District

The acronym CBD stands for Central Business District and is commonly used to describe the innermost area of a town or city where land is of a high value and businesses and shopping malls flourish. However, the residential aspects of a town are generally concentrated in the inner city and suburbs, where land is cheaper and it is convenient for commuters. The general rule is that farther away from the CBD the land use is more residential and land plots are bigger so houses and gardens grow in size.

Before the recent revival of the CBD, problems included a lack of investment kick-starting a cycle of decline and causing people and businesses to move away from central areas. A variety of initiatives have been used to improve the image of CBDs and help them to become more vibrant, appealing places to work and shop.

Answer: There is competition between businesses and agriculture

There are five main issues experienced in urban areas. High-quality housing is often in short supply, pushing up prices and meaning that many people are unable to live in a convenient place for their employment and leisure. An increase in car ownership has led to a subsequent increase in congestion, causing problems including road rage and environmental pollution.

Inner city areas can experience a spiral of decline where a lack of investment causes movement out of the inner city and crime increases.

The Central Business District can also experience this decline, although due to a range of initiatives the image of CBDs has improved. There are often issues with the integration of different communities and religions in urban areas, leading to racial prejudice and associated difficulties.

Answer: Land is cheaper on the outskirts and therefore plots and gardens can be bigger

The number of UK households has risen by thirty percent since 1971. Demand for housing is particularly high because of population increase and an additional rise in the number of people living alone. A third of single person households are over the age of sixty-five and seventy percent of new homes are wanted by single people.

Although there are plans to build new houses, there is opposition as many will have to be built on greenfield sites. Although plots and gardens can be bigger, there is no existing road network to work around and there are some local facilities, many people believe that protecting the countryside should be a priority.

There are also advantages for building on inner city, brownfield sites, where there are existing utilities, commuting times are cut and derelict sites are recycled.

However, brownfield sites can be more expensive to prepare than greenfield sites and situated in areas undesirable for potential buyers.

Answer: 9 new training colleges in Glasgow

The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) was established in 1981 and ran until 1998. It was one of the first of a number of Urban Development Corporations (UDCs) introduced in a variety of different cities. The main aims of UDCs were to regenerate areas by putting land and buildings to effective use, developing new investment and industry and creating a pleasant environment in which to live and work.

During its seventeen year lifespan the LDDC generated over £9 billion in public and private sector investment, built over 24,000 new homes and put in place 144 kilometres of new and improved roads. Other achievements included the construction of the Docklands Light Railway and funding for 11 new primary schools, 5 new health centres and 9 new vocational colleges.

Answer: Modern tenements replaced unsanitary pre-war terraces

The Hulme City Challenge began in the 1960s, when the pest-riddled, unsanitary pre-war terraces were torn down and replaced with modern tenement flats. However, there were many issues with the new tenements when communities that had grown up during the previous decades were suddenly torn apart as the views of residents were not taken into account.

The new flats were often poor quality and had not been properly assessed for safety concerns. There was a considerable lack of planning: disabled people were given flats at the top of several flights of stairs, and the elevators installed were often unsafe or defunct.

Many people felt isolated and the rates of crime and mental health issues in the areas rapidly increased. Because of this, in the 1990s new accommodation was created, establishing a move away from the policy of housing people in tenements.

The new plans followed the original road layouts and aimed to encourage a feeling of community. This time, the views of residents were taken into account. New homes were designed to be pleasant to inhabit and to conserve energy and make efficient use of space.

Although Hulme still has many issues with crime, because of City Challenge it has eventually become a better place to live.

Answer: Pedestrianised zones are usually ignored

The problems with traffic congestion include vibration and discolouration of buildings, various forms of pollution and health problems. An increase in car ownership and usage has meant an increase in accidents, road rage and respiratory illnesses. However, there are strategies for coping with traffic congestion in place in many urban environments worldwide.

Many towns, including Cheltenham, UK, have introduced pedestrianised zones to reduce congestion in shopping and leisure areas. In some cities, for example Amsterdam, the Netherlands, education programs have been introduced in an attempt to demonstrate the health and environmental benefits of bicycle riding and thus encourage commuters to use bicycles to get to their place of employment. London, UK, has a congestion charging zone, which has had documented success at reducing emissions and cutting down on congestion in the British capital.

Another way to ease congestion is by improving the public transport services as they have done in Chamonix, France, where not only is public transport inexpensive but it is also almost entirely carbon neutral.

Answer: Providing a variety of neutral meeting halls to encourage cultural mixing

Segregation of minorities happens for a variety of reasons. Many immigrants choose to live in areas where a high proportion of the population is from their own ethnic background because of specialist services such as religious meeting places and food shops that may be available, and also because the culture is familiar to them. This is exacerbated by the "safety in numbers" theory; in short, immigrants often feel that they are less likely to experience racism among their own culture. In addition, segregation often happens by necessity: immigrants usually either hold poorly-paid, menial jobs or are unemployed, therefore they can only afford housing in certain areas of the city.

In order to reduce the effect of segregation in their city, Leeds City Council have established education programs in order to increase the literacy rate among children for whom English is not a first language, and this in turn has boosted the performance of these children at school, making them and their families feel more involved in the community. Training schemes aim to give the immigrants a higher standard of skills so that they can find better-paid employment. Meeting halls with no religious affiliation have been set up to encourage cultural mixing and the council is working with communities to better understand their religious and social needs.

Answer: Often on derelict land; shelters are made with any available materials; there is often no power, water or sewage system

Squatter settlements, or shanty towns, are often on the outskirts of the urban area and are usually situated on derelict land, for example next to a railway line or rubbish dump. The settlement grows gradually. Shelters are initially made out of whatever the inhabitants can find: corrugated iron, plastic sheeting, or thin boards. Families live crammed together and children do not usually attend school.

Initially there are no services at all and crime rates are extremely high. The housing and environment lead to a very low quality of life for the residents as most people earn very little from working in the informal economy.

In addition, the poor sanitation and lack of privacy leads to diseases spreading very quickly. However, there can often be a strong sense of community and charity and government initiatives can often improve conditions.

Answer: Often led by the government or an international charity; more formal; new, organised settlements are built or existing settlements undergo large-scale improvements

Sites and services schemes are a formal way of helping shanty town dwellers and are usually led by charities, non-government organisations or the government themselves. The organisation may pay for major services to be introduced or large-scale improvements made in the original settlement, or to formally plan a new settlement, putting services and infrastructure in place before the new residents move in.

The other main type of scheme is usually termed a "self-help" scheme. Local authorities fund small-scale improvements and there is cooperation between residents to clean up graffiti and organise rubbish collections. The local authority may offer low-interest loans and in some cases legal ownership of the land has been granted to encourage improvements.

Answer: Sixty percent

Approximately sixty percent of Nairobi's population is made up of slum dwellers. Kibera is one of the major slums, with around 800,000 inhabitants in 255ha: each person has around one metre squared of floor space. Over one hundred thousand of the children living in Kibera are believed to be AIDS orphans and most people live in squalor.

The homes are made of mud and iron sheeting. A ditch down the centre of the streets serves as a sewage system and the area is littered with decomposing rubbish and human waste.

Although there is water available, it is controlled by private operators and sold for double the going rate. Vigilante groups have been created to offer expensive security in a crime-ridden area; the police are unwilling to get involved in disputes of any nature.

Answer: Communities have been broken up

The UN-Habitat scheme was introduced in 2003 and involves residents, international organisations and the Kenyan government working together. Although residents have been rehoused in modern flats with vital services communities have been broken up and the people remain poor.

It has been suggested that although the scheme had good intentions, it has merely succeeded in converting the slums on the ground into slums in tower blocks. Other schemes on a smaller scale have had more success. UN-Habitat has also provided affordable electricity to some areas of the Kibera slum and two mains water pipes have recently been established, one funded by the council and the other by the World Bank.

A British charity called Practical Action is working with gap-year students to develop low cost, sustainable roof tiles.

Answer: Unsustainable decreases in population

Waste disposal, air and water pollution and overcrowding are all major problems in less economically developed countries (LEDCs). A decreasing population is certainly not a problem in poorer countries; however, a rapidly increasing population can cause major issues, one of which is overcrowding.
The importance of effective waste disposal was highlighted by the world's worst industrial accident ever, when in December 1984 poisonous gas escaped from an industrial plant in Bhopal, India, killing over 4,000 people and causing a further 50,000 people to suffer from lifelong disabilities. The lack of regulations and ineffective disposal of sewage and other waste leads to water pollution; although the Huangpu River is Shanghai's main water supply, four million metres cubed of human waste are released into it daily. China's growing industry accounts for more than seventy percent of the country's carbon emissions and four hundred thousand deaths every year. Electrical waste is a growing problem as many people living in poverty scrape a living by taking apart electrical components and selling the minerals within them, but are unaware of the risks the dangerous chemicals pose.

New laws and limits on pollution are desperately needed, but the money required for change often has to come from non-government organisations. For example, in 2002 the World Bank loaned $200 million to improve water quality in Shanghai.

Answer: How to forcibly prevent the population from growing unsustainably

Conservation of historic areas, efficient infrastructure, public transport and involving local people are all key aspects of sustainability. Other important aspects are effective waste disposal and making sure that all developments are long-lasting and will benefit future generations. The three central points to consider when identifying a sustainable settlement are economic, environmental and social sustainability.

Recycling waste, reviewing packaging policies, preserving green spaces, funding museums and encouraging use of public transport by introducing CCTV to make people feel more secure are just some of the many ways in which a town, city or country can become more sustainable.

Answer: Introduction of a One Child Policy in an attempt to reduce its rapid growth

Curitiba's Bus Rapid Transport System is the first of its type in a Brazilian city. It involves direct line buses that operate from key stops, speedy buses that operate on five main routes directly into the city, inter-district buses which join districts without crossing the centre of Curitiba and feeder minibuses which operate in residential areas. The system ensures that there is a solution to suit the transport needs everyone, reducing the need for cars and thus limiting congestion and pollution issues.

The COHAB housing program aims to create "homes- not just shelters" and the council have recently introduced a housing policy that should provide 50,000 new homes for the urban poor.

Effective waste disposal systems have also been introduced and recycling is actively promoted in a bid to help the environment.