Urban Change in HICs (AQA GCSE Geography)

Distribution of Population & Cities in the UK

• Distribution of the UK population is uneven 

• The highest population densities are found within the major cities, which tend to be located in flat, low-lying parts of the country, particularly on the coast or near major rivers

• The fastest growing cities are in the southeast of England, where many cities have developed into conurbations 

• This is also the region with the fastest growing economy at present

• In the past mineral wealth (e.g. coal, lead, tin and iron ore) led to many cities developing near them e.g. coalmines of Newcastle, leading to rapid population growth

• Population density is affected by relief as it harder to develop on mountainous terrain than lowland areas such as Birmingham, London and Cardiff

• Certain coastal areas have a higher population density distribution particularly where estuaries are sheltered allowing key ports and harbours to be built 

  • Fishing ports of Grimsby, Whitby (England) and Portavogie in Northern Ireland

  • Liverpool, Bristol, and Southampton as key trade ports

•  London is not only the capital but is the UK’s biggest city with 9.5 million people and a global financial centre

• Birmingham is the second largest city with a population of 1.1 million

Major cities of the UK

Population within cities

• Within city boundaries the distribution of people is more complex and based on past events

• All towns and cities tend to grow outwards, from a historic centre or core to an urban fringe

• Each zone grew due to the needs of the city during its development, over time

• As a general rule, all towns and cities, regardless of place or level of development, show the same four features:

• A central core: the oldest part of a city with features such as:

  • Low residential population

  • The central business district (CBD) e.g. banks, retail and commercial offices

  • Multi-storey development, with vertical growth rather than horizontal due to lack of space

• An inner-city zone:

  • Older, compact, terraced 'worker' housing to support a growing population density 

  • Surrounded by older industrial areas

• A suburban zone: residential area:

  • Emergence of segregated residential zones based on wealth, ethnicity, choice or government policy (e.g. social housing)

  • Semi and detached housing with gardens

  • Smaller retail premises

• An urban fringe: outer edges of the city:

  • Housing is clustered into estates, which increases 'spot' density

  • Countryside is eroded through the urban spread/sprawl 

  • Some industrial land uses

  • Accessibility is best

Urban process timeline

Urban process timeline

• Urban settlements first appear as a result of agglomeration:

  • People gather together in one area to sell goods and live

  • Small trading posts and villages begin to develop

• As towns grow, they expand outwards by a process known as suburbanisation:

  • This adds to the built-up area, but the building densities are generally lower than in the older parts of the town

  • The new suburbs are made up of mostly houses but also include places of employment and services

• Urban settlements continue to prosper and grow, and people move out of the town or city altogether and commute to work:

  • These are called commuter settlements because many residents only sleep there and travel into work

  • They continue to have links with the town or city they have left

  • They still make use of urban services, shops, education, and healthcare

Impacts of National & International Migration

What is migration?

• Migration is the movement of people across an official boundary, either internationally or nationally, with the intention of creating a permanent place of residence

• The UN defines the term 'permanent' as a change of residence for more than 1 year

Impact of national migration on the UK

• Migration has shaped the UK and has impacted economically, culturally, politically and environmentally 

• The UK's economic development was the largest impact on the population density

• Prior to the 18th century the majority of UK residents lived in rural areas, relying on agriculture as their main form of employment

• During the 19th century the industrial revolution saw a rapid rise in the number of people concentrated in cities as they migrated from the rural regions seeking employment in the better paying secondary sector 

• Now in the UKs post-industrial phase, the population is spread around the cities, with urban sprawl a common feature 

• This internal migration has led to the population density of the modern UK, where the majority of people live in urban areas

Impact of international migration on the UK

• The UK has always experienced waves of migrants

  • During the 1850s Irish famine

  • 1950s from West Indies, seeking employment

  • From eastern Europe after EU enlargement and removal of barriers

  • Refugees from Syria and Ukraine etc.

• India is still the most popular country of origin, with significant migration from Pakistan, Ireland and Poland

Table of the Effects of Migration 

• Not all UK citizens believe that immigration and multiculturalism are good for the UK

• This was one of the main points of the Brexit vote of 2016

• It has created tensions and conflict between communities, along with hate crimes against ethnic minorities

Opportunities of Urban Change

• There are many opportunities with urban change and can be categorised through social, economic and environmental 

Table of Opportunities With Urban Change

Challenges of Urban Change

• Challenges faced by HICs fall under 3 categories:

  • Social

  • Economic

  • Environmental

• These challenges are varied and unique to each city, but broadly fall under the following: 

Table of Challenges Faced by HICs

General examples:

Deprivation 

• Deprivation is connected with poverty and occurs when a person’s well-being falls below an acceptable minimum standard

• The minimum standard, varies from country to country and applies to several different aspects of daily life

• In the UK, there is a multiple deprivation index (MDI).

• The UK MDI has 7 different indicators:

  • Income

  • Employment

  • Health

  • Education

  • Access to housing and services

  • Crime

  • Living environment

• It is more than just not having enough money

Low Quality of Life

• Poverty and deprivation are passed on from one generation to the next

• Children will tend to get less parental support and usually have to attend inadequate schools

• They also tend to leave school early with few qualifications

• Lack of qualifications means they cannot find well paid employment and rely on social handouts

• Children they have will be born into this cycle and so families remain ‘trapped’ and unable to improve their circumstances

• This feeds into a lower quality of life

Food, health, education and housing

• Getting food for the million plus inhabitants is difficult and food is often imported from other countries

• Transportation costs add to the price the consumer has to pay

• This also increases the carbon footprint of the city

• With the development and regeneration programmes in cities, inequalities have increased between the wealthier and poor residents of the city

• Poor quality housing is one of the many causes of poor health due to coldness, overcrowding and mould

• Unhealthy lifestyles e.g. drinking, smoking and poor diets are more common in inner city areas and affect life expectancy

• Many children in the inner-city area leave school without basic qualifications leading to low incomes and high unemployment

• Many inner-city schools are overcrowded and poorly maintained, resources are limited, and many teachers cannot afford to live in the city due to high rents or housing costs

Energy

• All cities require energy for their residents and businesses

• HICs have greater demands with modern day electronics, heating, lighting and electric transport

• As population grows, so does the demands of energy hungry appliances, energy security is becoming an issue

• A mix of energy types is needed depending on location: Wind power isn't possible for all cities or a continuously reliable source (not windy every day)

• Regardless of how a city generates its energy, large amounts of resources will be used to add to a city's 'footprint'

Transport

• Any large city will face problems with congestion on roads as the volume of people trying to get about the city

• Cars and lorries will be polluting through exhaust emissions, buses and trains can be electric, reducing its impact

• Despite technology helping more modern cars produce less pollution, the remaining city's transport infrastructure (rail, tube, buses, etc.) will also be under a lot of stress

Water

• The supply of safe, clean water poses a major challenge for developed cities 

• A megacity will often have a higher demand for water than it can supply

• This means that water needs to be brought in from other areas or other solutions need to be drawn up, such as a desalination plant

Waste

• Every person and business produce waste, making the combined rubbish of a city, huge

• Much of this waste will end up going to landfill, which is both expensive and wasteful

• Space is running out and new laws restrict the dumping of certain wastes in landfill sites, adding to a city's problems in dealing with its waste

Segregation

• There is a tendency for people to live near others of similar backgrounds and status

• This can be through employment, wealth, ethnicity etc. 

• This makes for little interaction between the groups, which isolates and limits social mobility

• Isolation breeds fear and suspicion of 'differences' within the urban area

Dereliction

• Industrial decline in the C20th and the closure of many docklands left mass unemployment in many of the inner-city areas

• As factories shut down, large areas of derelict buildings are subject to vandalism and graffiti

• With these closures, many people moved from the inner-city areas in search for jobs which also led to large numbers of terraced houses being boarded up

Development on rural-urban fringe

• Also called the urban fringe, it is where green, open spaces meet the built-up areas of towns and cities

• Growth at the urban fringe is due in part to counter-urbanisation, population growth, lack of space and spiralling land costs

• These can be divided into push (negative factors causing people/businesses to leave central urban areas) and pull factors (positive factors pulling people/businesses to the rural-urban fringe):

Table Showing Push and Pull Factors on the Urban Fringe

Urban sprawl

• The outer edges of a city is the rural-urban fringe or urban fringe

• Growth at the urban fringe is due in part to counter-urbanisation, population growth, lack of space and spiralling land costs

• Urban growth if left unchecked leads to urban sprawl

• Availability of space for housing, retail and manufacturing: Including options for expansion

• Many services are now located at the urban fringe: Major hospitals, superstores, specialist manufacturing etc. 

• Issues include:

  • Loss of farmland to build new homes

  • Impact on ecosystems: Natural and built (removal of trees increases pollution levels etc.)

  • Loss of rural way of life and character of the countryside

  • Loss of traditional 'green spaces': School fields, parks etc are being built on

  • Creates impermeable surfaces and surface run-off

  • Higher emissions due to car dependency (people have to commute further and increased traffic)

  • Higher costs for public transport and social facilities (local governments have to spread out their budgets further) which further impacts health care, fire and policing facilities

• Some urban areas have a planned and protected greenbelt on which no development is allowed, but urban areas still need to grow 

• Development in major cities has jumped over the greenbelt and developed commuter towns

• Commuter towns are established, where people work in the city and live within traveling or commuting distance of their city of work

• This causes pollution and congestion and lost time lowers productivity

• Commuter towns are characterised by being mostly made up of homes, schools and retail outlets

• Commuter towns also lead to a rise in local house prices, which outprices local people 

• The South East of England in particular Kent, Sussex and Essex have villages that are on or near major train lines into London and elsewhere

• These villages have seen the growth of families moving out of London into newly built large family housing but they are too expensive for families already living in the area

• This means two choices, either build on a greenfield or brownfield site

• With all land uses, there are arguments for and against each type of site
  

The Pros and Cons of Brownfield and Greenfield Site Developments

Case Study: London, UK

Location and importance:

• Southeast England on either side of the River Thames and is the UK's capital

Importance of London

Impacts of national and international migration:

• Migration has impacted the character of the city and it is the most ethnically diverse place in the UK

• Each group of new migrants bring their own culture, traditions, religions, music and food, which adds to the cultural diversity of the city

• Increased during the industrial revolution, decreased after WWII, and increased since 1991

• London's population stands at 8.8 million (2021 census) and is the second largest region by population size after the southeast: The top 20 most densely populated local authorities in the country are in London

• London’s population is much younger than the rest of the UK, which pushes up the rate of natural increase

• Economic migrants from within the UK and overseas in their 20s and 30s give London its distinctive age structure

• The older population is smaller in London as families leave the capital and/or retire

• The 2021 Census, shows that 3.58 million London residents were born outside the UK, some 41 percent of London’s total population up from 3.00 million, 37% in 2011

• 1.37 million London residents were born in Europe outside the UK, 1.15 million were born in the Middle East and Asia and 1.06 million in the rest of the world including Africa, the Americas and Oceania

• The top non-UK country of birth was India with 323,000 London residents

• Over 100,000 were Romania 176,000, Poland 149,000, Bangladesh 139,000, Pakistan 130,000, Italy 126,000, and Nigeria 117,000

Opportunities of Urban Change:

London's Challenges to Urban Change

London's Environmental Challenges

Impact of urban sprawl:

• Urban sprawl has been a problem in the past as London grew outwards, to prevent this growth, the government brought in a 'green belt' around major cities in the UK, which prevented development and kept the city contained

• However, there is a shortage of housing and land in London to meet this demand, and the number of new homes given planning permission on London’s rural fringe has tripled

• These homes have been built on the opposite side of the green belt and created commuter towns such as Reading, Milton Keynes, Luton and Chelmsford etc.

Decentralisation of offices:

• Some offices take advantage of the cheaper land with room to expand and so relocate to business parks on the outskirts of the city beside main roads for access

• The Green Park business centre, Reading is now home to 3 Mobile central office which combines its offices from Maidenhead and Reading

Transport changes:

• Many main roads, motorways and train lines link the suburbs with the city centre to allow commuters easy access to work, shopping and entertainment

• Park and ride schemes have been particularly important to enable people to travel to events without taking their cars, e.g. football matches and arena concerts

Housing developments:

• From 1960 onwards, new towns, were built on greenfield sites on the outskirts of the city to deal with overcrowding in the inner-city slums

• High rise towers were popular but cut communities off from one another and some were badly erected and became dangerous within a few years

• Social housing estates were developed on the urban fringe and new housing developments continue to add to the problem of urban sprawl today. Small villages like Wennington in Kent have been turned into commuter settlements

New industry and new business districts:

• Industrial estates, retail parks, large supermarkets and shopping centres e.g. Bluewater, Dartford or Westfields, Stratford are located on the edge of the city

• They take advantage of the cheaper land, room for expansion, access links, market share and labour force 

• The developments increase urban sprawl, which further impacts farmland and the loss of wildlife habitats

Environmental impacts:

• Loss of land and habitat as new buildings, homes, roads and railways are built in the commuter belt

• Increased light pollution around London

• Increased noise pollution

• Increased traffic congestion and air pollution in once countryside areas

Social impacts:

• Increased cost of housing in once cheaper areas, locals feel squeezed out

• Resentment builds between newcomers and locals

• Increased traffic in the local area which increases road accidents and pollution