a) Briefly discuss the effects of gentrification [9m]
Effects
 Social and economic polarization
 The upward spiral of desirability and increasing rents and property
valueserodes the qualities that began attracting new people in the first place
 Displacement of that communityrentersprices go up, tenants are pushed out
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Arrival of new investment, new spending power, and a new tax baseincreased
economic activity
Rehabilitation, housing development, new shops and restaurantshigher-wage
jobs previous residents may benefitbut mostly to well-educated
newcomers
Some local economic activityforced out either by rising rents or shifting
sensibilities
Industrial activities that employ local workersviewed as a nuisance or
environmental hazard
Local shops may lose their leases under pressure from posh boutiques and
restaurants
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Physical changesolder buildings are rehabilitated and new construction occurs
Public improvement to streets, parks, and infrastructurenew arrivals often
push hard to improve the district aestheticallycodify new standards through
design guidelines, historic preservation legislation, and the use of blight and
nuisance laws
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The social, economic, and physical impacts of gentrificationserious political
conflictexacerbated by differences in race, class, and culture
Earlier residents may feel embattled, ignored, and excluded from their own
communities
New arrivals are often mystified by accusations that their efforts to improve local
conditions are perceived as hostile or even racist
Low-income people are rarely the winners
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b) Compare and account for the different landuse zone in EMDCs and ELDCs
[16m]
Commercial zone/CBD
 Retailing, office, service, commercetogether with government, public, church,
education
 Major retailbiggest threshold population
 Highest human and motor traffic
 High accessibility
 Retail sometimes found in city fringesdecentralisationhypermarts
Transition
 Functions overflowed frm CBD
 Vacant lots and derelict sites
 Poor quality residential areas
Industrial zone
 Used to be in city center in 1900s because of poor transport networks
 Gradually moved outdecentralized
 Most in industrial parks outside city
 Light industries still exist in city centers or suburbs
 ELDCsstill in CBD
Residential
 Higher income further away from city center
 Old houses in inner city occupied by the low income
 Better living conditions further from citymiddle and high
 Pattern reversed in ELDCs
Discuss and compare the segregation of social groups in urban areas. [16m]
Case Study of Latin American countries
 The significant spatial concentration of upper class groups and the ascending
middle classes to an extreme in only one zone of the city, with its apex in the
historical center, and a clear direction of expansion towards the periphery.
 The conformation of ample housing areas for the poor, mainly in distant and
poorly serviced peripheral areas, but also in deteriorated sectors close to the citycenter.
 The significant social diversity of the “high-income neighborhoods”, where, along
with virtually all of the upper class, certain middle and low class groups live, with
the important exception of “laborers,” “informal dwellers” or “marginalized
groups,” as they have dominated the poorest groups in different periods.
 The social diversity of the “high-rent neighborhoods,” it is important to contrast
the situation of segregation in Latin American cities with cities in the United
States. In the US, suburbs tend to be more homogenous in social terms.
 The homogeneity is clear in racial terms: on average a white resident of a
metropolitan area of the United States lives in census tracks where 83 percent of
the population is white, whereas the typical black resident lives in census tracks
where only 54 per-cent population is black.
 The Latin American cities demonstrate an inverse situation: the areas inhabited
by the very poor are much more socially homogenous than the residential areas
of the upper class.
 In Mexico City, the upper class (7.5 percent of the population) represented only
one third of the population of the 23 delegations and richest municipalities of the
city (out of 183). However, the poorest social layer (18 percents of the population)
represented 79.4 percent of the occupants of the 35 delegations and poorest
municipalities of the city
 There are racial, ethnic and age differences in the urban population that have
some manifestation in special terms.
 In comparison with the United States, where ethnic and racial residential
segregation is very marked, Latin American cities present a different panorama.
 With respect to differences in age groups, the analysis of the complete census
information demonstrates a greater presence of children living in the periphery
and the elderly living in the central areas.
Case study of North American countries
 The Urban Ghetto
o Public improvement projects, redevelopment projects, public housing
programs, and urban renewal policies were utilized to accomplish racial
segregation.
o Other factors also contributed to the formation of the urban ghetto.
Manufacturing jobs were lured away from the inner city with cheap land
and low taxes.
o Segregationist zoning ordinances, which divided city streets by race,
coupled with racially restrictive covenants between private individuals
became the common method of legally enforcing racial segregation.
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Housing Segregation
o The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) adopted the practice of "redlining," a discriminatory rating system used by FHA to evaluate the risks
associated with loans made to borrowers in specific urban neighborhoods.
o The FHA was operated in a racially discriminatory manner since its
inception in 1937 and set itself up as the "protector of all white
neighborhoods," using its field agents to "keep Negroes and other
minorities from buying houses in white neighborhoods.
o The federal government used interstate highway and urban renewal
programs to segregate those blacks that had previously lived in more
racially diverse communities.
o Consequently, these schemes increased the concentration of poverty
where it has festered ever since and has caused the federal government
to be labeled as "most influential in creating and maintaining residential
segregation.
Using relevant examples, compare and contrast the nature and causes of urban
segregation in cities of DCs and LDCs [9m]
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Nature and causes of urban segregation (E.g. residential landuse patterns)
Nature
DC
High income residential areas
located furthest from city
Low income residential areas
located in city centre (inner city
decay)
Reasons 
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Sub-urbanisation
Counter-urbanisation
Inner city decline
Filtering
Public/Private initiatives to
build new developments
LDC
High income residential areas
located closest to city
Low income residential areas
located further away from city
centre
 Agglomeration and
dominance of primate cities
 Rapid rural-urban migration
 Inability of government to
provide adequate housing
1) With reference to examples, compare the urbanization trends in DCs and
LDCs. [16m]
In both LDCs and DCs, urbanization takes place predominately in or around
important cities, this is especially so for LDCsurban primacyboth LDCs and DCs
have urban growth concentrated in different places and in varying degrees
In DCs such as UK, the processes such as counter-urbanization, re-urbanisation and
decentralization are predominant processes. In UK they have lead to the emergence
of periphery cities and growth poles that surrounds a main city
8 Towns were created around London to provide alternatives to London in terms of
housing and employment
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Self contained with jobs, retail and offices
Reduces commuting to cityreduce congestion
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Predominately middle and upper class phenomenonbut increasingly also for
those who lived in inner citiesmoved out of cities due to gentrification
Govan Initiative in Glasgowdecentralization to industrial estatessectoral change
in cityprimary and secondary to tertiary and quaternaryknowledge based with
high economic returnsprovide jobs to upper middle class population that they wish
to attract to reverse outward movement
Counter/sub-urbanisation are not necessarily government initiatives.
OTOH, these processes occur at much smaller scales in LDCspredominantly
upper classcity fringes provide higher standards of living.
In India, movement of people into the city is far greater than that of out of the
cityrapid expansion and uncontrolled growth of citiesnegative consequences in
cityfurther cause the movement of rich out of city
Rural-urban migration ois the dominate processmost of the migrants live in slums
and squatter settlementsrapid expansion of cityincease in level of urbanization is
more than 20% in India.
Decentralisaiton is an unlikely process in LDCs due to limited
resourceseconomically more viable to have main economic activiteswith existing
infrastructureresulting in urban primacy more often than notBangkok, 40% of
country’s GDP
In DCs, rural-urban migration occurs in much smaller scales due to the smaller
disparity of growth across the countryinward movement of peopleusually reurbanisation which includes re-imaging the city
As cities begin to experience loss of population due to decline some form of
redevelopment, often by the government, is initiatedreverse the decline and
increase attractiveness of city
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Gentrification and reimaging city
Solving existing problemsesp pollution, housing, transport
Eg. Singapore
Greatest difference between LDCs and DCs would be
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Urbanization trends in the former are usually uncontrolled and the later are
usually controlled.
Difference in magnitude and spatialitylarger and more concentrated in LDCs
and smaller and more evenly spread out in DCs