This film explores urbanisation: how rapid urbanisation impacts both urban and rural areas and the challenges this presents.
Urbanisation is the movement of populations from rural areas to towns and cities. It tends to happen when a country's economy changes and new industries develop.
In recent years, several countries in Africa and Asia have seen rapid urbanisation and around the world the pace of urbanisation is getting ever faster. So why is this happening?
There are push and pull factors that affect people's decisions to move to towns and cities.
In many countries climate change is making farming in rural areas more difficult, leading to food and water shortages and a lack of shelter. These factors push people out of rural areas and towards towns and cities.
Job opportunities, higher standards of education and easy access to services like healthcare, pull people towards towns and cities, particularly young people in search of a different way of life.
But rapid urbanisation is happening faster than governments can plan and prepare for. This puts pressure on urban infrastructure, the housing, schools and other services required by an increasing population.
Slums and shanty towns have grown up in many of the huge cities of the developing world, like Cape Town, Nairobi and Mumbai, with no access to decent housing, fresh water or sanitation.
Rapid urbanisation has also had an impact on rural areas. They've seen a decline in population, particularly of younger people.
In order to protect these rural areas, which are still vital for food production, environmental protection and as a source of sustainable energy production, governments need to plan for their future viability.
According to United Nations statistics, more than half the world's population now lives in urban areas and it's predicted that this figure will grow to over two thirds by 2050.
Rapid urbanisation is a sign of the development of the economy in most countries, but governments need to manage urban growth to ensure that the positives outweigh the negatives.
Video summary
Download/print a transcript of the video.
This short film for secondary schools gives students an understanding of urbanisation, how rapid urbanisation impacts on both urban and rural areas, and the challenges this presents.
It can help provide an effective introduction to the AQA GCSE geography specification.
Teacher Notes
This short film is an ideal tool to introduce students to the processes of urban and rural development, and particularly how rapid urbanisation affects countries around the world today.
It gives the students the opportunity to explore why people move from rural to urban areas and the positive and negative impacts and the challenges that such movements create.
Points for discussion:
- What is urbanisation?
- How does rapid urbanisation differ from urbanisation?
- What challenges does rapid urbanisation present for urban areas?
- What challenges does rapid urbanisation present for rural areas?
- How can governments turn these challenges into opportunities?
Suggested activities:
After watching this short film, students could explore case studies and further examples of rapid urbanisation and how it impacts on countries, particularly less economically developed countries.
Students can develop maps to show the movement of populations and consider what mitigating factors government can take to realise the benefits and mitigate the drawbacks of rapid urbanisation.
Students could explore how urbanisation patterns have changed over time, and whether or not the pace of urbanisation slows over time as countries become more economically developed.
This short film is relevant for teaching geography at KS3 in England and Northern Ireland, 3rd and 4th Level in Scotland, and Progression Step 4 in Wales.
Students and teachers over the age of 16 can create a free Financial Times account. For a Financial Times article about urbanisation in China and India from 2015, click here.
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