World Cities
What is a city?
• This is always a tricky definition and not
very straight forward
• Is it based on population?
• Is it based on what is in the city?
• Does it have to have a cathedral? (a
really common misconception!)
Different types of City
• Super city – population over 5 million
York and Tokyo are
both 10 million
• MegacityNew
– population
over
megacities and world cities. But what
about
It is a super
city (not based
• World city
– London?
are cities
of power
mega) but many people consider it to
on trade,
strength,
innovation
bepolitical
the world’s most
important city
because of its connections through
and communications
commerce, trade, service provision and
flowsto
justbe
to name
a few factors to be a
• Do youtravel
have
a megacity
world city?
World cities are connected to other places all over the world. However the
places that they are connected to are not random, but are strategically
located either for travel reasons, or for economic and political reasons.
Places that are not connected to world cities (or even secondary cities)
could be left out of the globalised world in a number of different ways
What can maps like this tell us
about different cities around the
world and their connections?
How are cities growing
• There are 2 main processes:
1. The first is internal growth (natural
increase). This happens because city
dwellers (particularly in developing
countries) have high birth rates
2. The second is those who move to the
cities from the countryside. These
tend to be young, fertile people who
cause this high birth rate within cities
Urban Growth
• The poorest parts of the world have
become the fastest growing, with
migration dominating this growth
• In some countries, this growth can be
as much as 6 – 8% with much of this
growth in slums
• By 2020 the amount of people living in
slums around the world will reach
between 1.3 – 1.4 billion
Rural to Urban Migration
Pull factors
Push factors
• Jobs
Town
• Poverty
• Health care
•Conflict
• Natural
disasters
• Crop failure
•Land subdivision
• Education
Rural
areas
• Safety
Small
towns
• Housing
• Bright lights
Why do rural dwellers migrate?
• Most people who migrate to urban slums
are not moving blindly (unless its through
war or a natural disaster)
• People are well aware of the problems living
of living in the city as they will have likely
made arrangements for accommodation
and jobs with family or friends
• Despite the living conditions, they know that
in the long run their prospects are better
than in the rural area
Problems created by urban –
rural migration
• Strain on services e.g. education,
transport health care
• Water supply
• Food
• Job supply
• Housing provision
• Next lesson we are going to look at
what is being done to solve this!
Urban Processes
• Many developing cities are continuing to
grow though a number of processes:
• Urban sprawl: Urban areas growing
outwards in an uncontrollable way. In the
developing world this results in slums
• Suburbanisation: The wealthy choosing to
live on the city edge to escape poverty,
crime, congestion and pollution in the city
centre. A new trend is the gated community
In the developed world
• Counter urbanisation: Movement of
people out of the cities and into rural
areas
• Re-urbanisation: This is the
regeneration of urban areas that have
declined over previous year
Mumbai: An example of a
rapidly urbanising megacity
• Commercial capital
of India
• Home of Bollywood
• Seen as the
technological hub
of India
• Some rents here are
more expensive
than in London and
New York
A city of contrasts