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AQA A Level Geography Revision Notes 2018

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Exam paper questions organised by topic and difficulty. Our worksheets cover all topics from GCSE, IGCSE and A Level courses. Give them a try and see how you do!

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Congestion in New Delhi - Reduction Methods

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Congestion in New Delhi - Reduction Methods

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In order to identify the reasons behind traffic logjams in the capital and formulate actionable solutions, Delhi Traffic Police has identified 177 congestion points along with 10 flyovers that experience high volume during peak hours, in a recently concluded survey.

According to senior officers, these points suffer from congestion due to a range of issues including heavy traffic, construction work, and encroachment activities.

The congestion points have been divided into six traffic zones.

Some of the key flyovers experiencing congestion include Geeta Colony Flyover Pushta Road, Azadpur Chowk flyover, Rani Jhansi flyover, Palam/Dwarka flyover, Sarita Vihar Flyover, and Peeragarhi flyover.

According to the survey: "Apart from heavy traffic during morning and evening rush hours, heavy pedestrian movement and encroachment in the form of parked vehicles or vehicles or buses which have a breakdown are also some of the reasons for traffic jams in these areas...various construction activities have also been attributed as a reason."

To fight this, Delhi Traffic Police has come up with a comprehensive action plan, said officials.

Said an officer, "Regular deployment of staff will be made at major intersections and travel corridors to ensure smooth flow of traffic... non-destined goods vehicles from major border entry points will be returned. Regular auditing and reviewing of traffic signal timings according to the flow of traffic will also take place."

The officer further said that "One-way" traffic system will be introduced at these congestion points, adding that cranes will be deployed to tow away vehicles parked in an obstructive manner or those that have experienced a breakdown. "Encroachment removal drives will also be undertaken with the help of local police and civic agencies apart from motorcycle patrolling," said the officer.

In addition, officials will make use of map services to identify traffic blockades and congestion points for prompt action by the field staff. "A traffic arrangement plan will be chalked out ahead of various events or gatherings," said the survey.

Traffic police officers said they have intensified their drives against vehicles without valid pollution certificates. "We have also made our drive against old diesel and petrol vehicles stringent... action is being undertaken against vehicles driving against the flow of traffic, violating restricted timings of goods vehicles, carrying construction and other allied material without proper covering, and not plying on designated or proper lanes," said an officer.

Special CP (Traffic, Zone 2) SS Yadav said Delhi Police has been regularly sending proposals to road-owning and maintenance agencies to suggest traffic engineering interventions to ensure a safe and smooth flow of traffic. These include: "Closure and opening of cuts, construction of central verges, installation of iron grilles on central verges, painting of road markings, installation of signages, shifting of bus stops and electricity poles, construction of pedestrian road cross-over facilities such as foot overbridges and subways, speed-calming devices, etc."

Yadav said that several modernisation efforts in terms of using new traffic assistance technologies are being undertaken for the purpose. "Variable message sign boards (VMS) are...displaying important traffic-related information to road users," said Yadav.

Officials said while red-light violation detection cameras have been installed at 43 junctions, work on 57 more junctions is underway.

"Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) is also being used for technology-based traffic solutions and enforcement...It will help us at congestion points through optimised signal timings based on real-time intelligent inputs by using GPS-based modelling," added Yadav.

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To rein in traffic congestion on Delhi roads, traffic police identifies 177 choke points

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Some of the key flyovers experiencing congestion include Geeta Colony Flyover Pushta Road, Azadpur Chowk flyover, Rani Jhansi flyover, Palam/Dwarka flyover, Sarita Vihar Flyover, and Peeragarhi flyover.

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On the harbour front in Wellington stands the figure of a man. Naked, eyes closed, he leans forward into a never-ending gale, a look of abandonment - perhaps joyful - moulded onto his cast-iron face.

"Wellington and its elements provided me with a degree of solace in a time of unrest," says Max Patte, the sculptor behind the self-portrait. "A transitional period of my life following a move from my home in London."

While it may be metaphorical, the sculpture also captures Patte relenting to the constant breezes of his adopted home. The capital of New Zealand is, by reputation, the windiest city on earth and it can make every day something of a trial.

"I would never say I have learned to 'love' Wellington's most famed element and, at times - most times - I find it to be exhausting," says Patte. "However, you know you're home when there's a southerly blowing."

Judging which is the world's windiest city is tricky, as no global database for cities exists and measurement techniques are not standardised. Other contenders include Rio Gallegos and Punta Arenas in Argentina and Chile's windswept southern Patagonia. St John's in Canada is north America's windiest city, averaging between 13 and 15mph.

Wellington's strongest recorded gust of 154 mph was measured on Hawkins Hill in 1962, just a few miles from the centre

Solace in the Wind ... Sculptor Max Patte's figure leans into the breeze in Wellington harbour. Photograph: LatitudeStock/Alamy

Wellington sits on the Cook Strait, a passage between New Zealand's north and south islands. The winds of the Roaring Forties, which spin uninterrupted from South America thousands of miles to the west, are funnelled into this 14-mile-wide gap, creating a "river of wind" that rocks the boats in the harbour day and night at an average of 16.6mph. The north island's strongest recorded gust of 154mph was measured on Hawkins Hill in 1962, just a few kilometres from the city centre.

"There's no place in the world quite like it," adds Patte noncommittally.

But acting mayor Justin Lester waxes effusive over the benefits of Wellington's windy record. Sailors, windsurfers and kite-surfers come from afar to ride the vortex. Air pollution is non-existent as any fumes are whipped away and wind power is harnessed for electricity.

"Perhaps the best thing of all, it breeds a bunch of sturdy, resilient Wellingtonians who aren't fazed by a little bit of wind."

Wind power is the obvious upside of a breezy climate, and Wellington has 62 turbines set on the hills around the city. Christian Kjaer, the head of knowledge at the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), says New Zealand is the only country he knows of that has removed all government energy subsidies.

The wind whips up small waves near a cycle path alongside Lake Michigan in Chicago. Photograph: George Rose/Getty Images

"Onshore wind is doing great because New Zealand has a fantastic wind resource. Wellington is a very good example of how well onshore wind competes with fossil fuels and other sources in free competition where there are no subsidies," he says.

Windy cities in Europe, including Spain's Pamplona, Germany's Hamburg and multiple Danish cities, have successfully harnessed wind to produce a large proportion of their power.

It's advantageous for cities to be able to generate power close to their centres as it lowers the cost, but cities are challenging landscapes in which to place turbines as buildings can break-up the breeze, affecting the quality of the turbine's spin.

One place to look, says Kjaer, is out to sea, where the wind is 40-50% stronger. In New York, with its thicket of skyscrapers chopping up the wind, plans are being drawn up for a massive offshore wind farm. In Copenhagen, it's already happened.

Although wind's advantages can be great, there are downsides, says Kansas assistant state climatologist Mary Knapp. Her home state is plagued by tornados, and the high-plains town of Dodge City is the windiest city in the US.

(Note: Chicago's blustery reputation may be less due to the breeze whipping off Lake Michigan and more the relentless windbagging of its 19th century politicians. There is a long running - and vaguely ironic - debate over this factoid.)

The Philippines has 21 of the 100 most exposed cities to natural disaster

Motorcycles lie toppled in the street as Typhoon Rammasun hits Manila in 2014. Photograph: Pacific Press/BI

In Dodge, the average wind speed is 14mph, but Knapp says this speed is almost a constant.

"What you do notice is when it isn't windy," she says. "You may have a brief period in the early morning hours when the sun is rising, or in the late afternoon when the winds die down a little bit. But that would be winds dropping down to two or three miles an hour, instead of 25-30 miles an hour."

Besieged residents build wind breaks and plant trees around their homes to break up the wind. Homes are built with tiny windows on their northern side to block the savage winter gales. Many are actually dug half into the ground.

Kansas sits on the battlefront where high pressure systems roll down the Rocky Mountains from Alaska and Canada, crashing into low pressure systems that rise from the Gulf of Mexico. The difference in pressure causes air to rush violently between regions. Winds can reach speeds high enough to blow a locomotive off the track, says Knapp. This confluence is also responsible for Kansas's infamous tornados - although they rarely hit Dodge city.

Again, Kansas has taken advantage of its geography by harnessing the breeze. The most pure iteration of this is the story of Greensburg. After the town was completely destroyed by a tornado in 2007, residents rebuilt the town as a green energy paradise. Its wind now generates three times more power than the town uses.

Wind's destructive power is most frequently felt in the Philippines, where more typhoons make landfall than anywhere else. The country has 21 of the 100 most exposed cities to natural disaster, according to the Natural Hazards Risk Atlas. Tacloban, which was destroyed by typhoon Haiyan in 2013, doesn't even make the top five. Tuguegarao (2nd) and Lucena (3rd) both rank higher than Manilla (4th), but the sheer scale of a potential catastrophe in the country's 12-million-person capital makes it a grave concern.

In Wellington, the gusts will destroy property on occasion, but Patte says the city, like his statue, bears the torment with grace.

"It makes me smile when I read online that the UK is experiencing 'high winds'. High winds in the UK equate to a gentle breeze down here," he says. "[But] after all, its the element to which I owe the inspiration for my most-famed work. Thank you, wind."
The article was amended to show New Zealand has removed all energy subsides, the original said only wind subsidies had been removed. Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook to join the discussion

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Where is the world's windiest city? Spoiler alert: it's not Chicago

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The wind speed in this breeziest of cities once hit 154mph just a few miles from the centre, but it's not as bad as it sounds - 62 turbines generate the city's electricity, while air pollution is non-existent as any fumes are whipped away

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London's urban centre has the joint-fourth most extreme urban heat island (UHI) "hot spot" of six major cities around the world, with temperatures 4.5°C hotter than rural surroundings, according to new research by global sustainable development consultancy, Arup.

The report, Urban Heat Snapshot, analyses AI and satellite images from space using Arup's urban heat modelling tool, UHeat. Mapping the most extreme "hot spots" in a 150km ² sample of the urban centres from London, Cairo, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mumbai and New York, the snapshot is among the first international UHI international comparisons using both day and night-time datasets.

UHeat draws on an advanced climate model by the University of Reading in the UK and demonstrates how advanced digital tools can bring academic models to real-word scenarios and examine the causes of the UHI effect. It can then rapidly model solutions to show how the strategic deployment of nature and other interventions can help cities reduce the impact of hot spots.

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London's most extreme urban heat island "hot spot" compared to five other global cities in new survey

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London's urban centre has the joint-fourth most extreme urban heat island (UHI) "hot spot" of six major cities around the world, with temperatures 4.5°C hotter than rural surroundings, according to new research by global sustainable development consultancy, Arup. Read more.

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The two images above and to the left show an infra-red thermal image of heat being emmitted in Tokyo. The first thing to be observed is the contrasting levels of heat in relation to urban features. Large concrete buildings and roads due to their thermal capacity store and emmit greater heat than the lighter surfaces and vegetation. From the image within Tokyo it becomes clear that we should also expect a temperature gradient along a rural-urban transect. This temperature gradient is known as the Urban Heat Island Effect. The Urban heat island effect is caused by a number of factors but primarily the nature of the building materials. Building material have vastly different physical properties to soils and plants. Concrete and bitchamin warm up rapidly in the day time in contrast to waterways and parks. Due to the nature of the surface its albedo is lower. Much more heat is absorbed and conducted through the material. This heat is then slowly released during the night, adding warmth to the urban atmosphere. This keeps urban climates relatively high and the contrast between the urban environment and the rural fringe is greatest at night. Building materials therefore have heat storage capacities. Another factor that leads to an urban heat island effect relates to the amount of pollutants in the atmosphere. Cities are home to industry and many homes, that remain heated through winter months, people are mobile and vehicle combustion is also a huge factor of consideration. Research shows that on Manhattan Island, in the average January, the amount of heat produced from combustion alone is greater than the amount of energy from the sun by a factor of 2.5. In summer this ratio is only 0.15. The urban surface energy budget can be seen in the diagram below.

The two diagrams above show a rural-urban transect from the rural urban fringe through to the high-rise characteristics of the central business district and back to the rural-urban-fringe. A number of observations can be made. Firstly, the urban temperatures are at their highest in the mid-afternoon over the the CBD. Also secondary nodes or peaks of high temperature apppear over significantly built-up areas such as that seen over the suburban residential areas. A second observation tells us that at night temperatures are significantly lower than day time temperature. Although the temperature range from rural to city centre is often greatest at night due to the high heat storage capacity of building materials compared to vegetation.

The graph to the left shows two sections. Section A shows the contrast in cooling between urban and rural areas. Both surfaces begin to cool several hours before sunset but rural areas cool rapidly compared to urban area that retain heat better. Rural temperature during calm atmospheric conditions are also seen to fall lower than urban temperatures. Section B shows the heat island intensity growing mid-late afternoon and at its highest a few hours after sunset. The isotherm map below shows lines of equal atmospheric temperature for a hypothetical city. The second diagram shows the differences in evapotranspiration and run-off . Urban areas are characterised by 75-100 percent impermeable material and experience have less evapotranspiration than rural areas, which may have only 10% impermeable material. This difference contributes to higher surface area temperatures.

When discussing the urban heat island effect a number of distinctions should be made. Firstly there are three types of heat islands:
Warmer air forms a dome or plume over the city. The urban canopy layer (UCL) is the layer of air closest to the surface in cities, extending upwards to approximately to the mean building height as shown in the diagram. Above the urban canopy layer lies the urban boundary layer (UBL). This may be 1km or more in height during daytime , but as little as a few hundred meters at night. It is the UBL that forms a dome of warmer air that extends downwind of the city. Wind often changes the dome to a plume shape. Both UCL and UBL are characterised by a warming of air temperature, whilst the urban surface heat shows the relative warming of the ground surface within an urban area.

When discussing the nature of urban heat island effect it is important to develop place evidence. The isotherm map below of London shows the pattern of temperature for the UCL in mid May during calm atmospheric conditions. Clear skies and light winds provide the best conditions for a more pronounced heat island effect. The general pattern in the diagram shows temperatures at their highest in the city core, reaching 10-11°C, which contrasts with the rural finge of temperature of 5°C. However it is is also important for you to describe and explain spatial variation within London. Where isotherms are close together there is a steeper temperature gradient. Here temperature falls more rapidly over a shorter period of time. This can be seen along the River Thames to the east of the City. Where isotherms are more dispersed, the temperature gradient is more gentle, temperature remains more constant over a longer distance. This can be seen to the west of the city. In order to explain this pattern you must consider the density of urban infrastructure. Over steep temperature gradients you will find low density of urban infrastructure, e.g the river and its vegetated banks (in places). Where we see a gentle temperature gradient we will find high density urban infrastructure. Effectively from the map we can see that the east of London is less built up than the west. As we move away from the City to the west, temperature remians relatively constant for approximately 15 km before rapidly falling within a 5-6km distance.

Have a go at describing and explaining the urban heat island effect shown in the land surface temperature map of Baltimore below. the second image is the extent of urban development.

In the UK urban areas are thought to increase the amount of precipitation over the UK by as much as 30 percent. The number of rainy day are increased by 10 percent, although snow and hail days are reduced by 14 percent. Finally the amount of fog experienced in the UK is doubled.
There are a number of reasons for increased patterns of precipitation in urban areas compared to rural areas. The diagram to the right shows how the Urban Boundary Layer (UBL) creates a dome of rising warm air and low pressure. As ground surfaces are heated rapid evapotranspiration takes place. This evapotransipration although lower compared to rural areas occurs more rapidly and can result in cumulus cloud and convectional weather patterns. A second factor is convergence. Due to the low pressure caused by rising air surface winds are drawn in from the surrounding rural fringe. This air then converges as it is forced to rise over the high urban canopy . Friction from the urban boundary essentially creates an orographic process similar to a mountain barrier, but sometimes moving air splits apart due to the building barriers. As they come back together downwind of the core they are thought to converge and rise upwards forming rain clouds. The movement of winds contribute to increased rainfall patterns over the city that are most pronounced to the leeward side of the city core. However as air passes over the UBL it begins to sink leading to lower precipitation at the leeward rural area . These differences are also more procounced in the summer than compared to the winter.

Photochemical fog is a very specific type of air pollution, which is caused by reactions between sunlight and atmospheric pollutants such as hydrocarbons and nitrogendioxide. Photochemical smog is often invisible but can be extremely harmful, with it being respoelevated rates of death and respiratory illnesses.
Smog itself is simply airborne pollution which may obscure vision. It is caused by small particles of material which become concentrated in the air for a variety of reasons. Commonly, smog is caused by an inversion, in which warm air presses down on a column of cold air. This warm causes traps cold air beneath it forcing the air to remain stationary.

Some of the particulate matter in the air can oxidize very readily when exposed to sunlight. Nitrogen dioxide and various hydrocarbons produced through combustion will interact with sunlight to break down into hazardous chemicals. This doesn't necessarily have to mean just sunny days as UV light can also penetrate clouds. The pollutants released through human activity in this situation are known as "primary pollutants," and they include sulfur dioxide, cartbon monoxide, and other volatile organic compounds. When these compounds interact with the sun, they form "secondary pollutants" like ozone and additional hydrocarbons.

Since the late 1970's, environmental agencies have generally only monitored particulate matter pollution that was 10 microns in diameter or less, called PM 10. A micron (or micrometer) is a millionth of a meter. To provide a comparision for you, the dot above the letter "i" in a typical newspaper measures about 400 microns!
PM 10 particles are small enough to be inhaled and accumulate in the respiratory system. In the last decade, health studies indicated that particles even smaller than PM 10 can cause even more health problems! Now, in addition to monitoring PM 10, scientists and technicians monitor fine particles called PM 2.5, these particles measure 2.5 microns in diameter or smaller. These tiny particles are about 30 times smaller than the width of a hair on your head! These tiny particles are small enough to get inhaled into our lungs and from there they can pass into our blood supply and be carried throughout our bodies.

Generally speaking urban wind speeds are thought to be lowered by the friction and barrier of the urban canopy. The surface area of cities is uneven because of the varying height of the buildings. Buildings exert a powerful frictional drag on air moving over and around them. This creates turbulence and can cause rapid and abrupt changes in wind direction and speed. However under intense heating strong convectional processes form low pressure therm cities that can draw in strong localised winds.

As you can see from the diagram to the right large buildings interact with wind to create divergence and convergence and on the leesside of buildings strong eddies. In contrast to the windward side of a building where strong uplift can be observed.

Below roof level, in the urban canopy, wind act in the spaces between buildings. Above the urban boundary layer the dome extends downwind as a plume into the surrounding rural area. As can be seen above high buildings slow air movement and also channel it into the 'canyons' between them. They can be powerful enough to make buildings sway and knock people off their feet! A single tall building pushes air above and to the side of it. It also causes air to descend behind it in its leeside. Air on the windward side of a building creates high pressure and is forced to descend. This is increased with height. As it hits the ground it creates a vortex as it sweeps around side corners. In the lee of the building there is zone of lower pressure which creates vortices. If two separate buildings are in close proximity to each other they may be subject to the Venturi-Effect where by the pressure difference within the gap causes wind to increase in strength and to reach high velocities. Where buildings are close to each other it produces complex patterns of air flow. The Venturi-Effect is a phenomenon observed in fluid dynamics. In fluids (such as wind) an increase in velocity when flowing through constricted spaces of cities is observed. This effect has been observed in major cities across the world as predominant winds are forced through a dense network of high-rise buildings. During calm and clear nights when the UHI is at its greatest there is air movement from the cooler rural periphery into the warmer city centre.

Background
As urban area struggle to comply with air quality standards, the ways that trees can help to clean the air should not be overlooked. The most serious pollutants in the urban atmosphere are ozone, nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfuric oxides (SOx) and particulate pollution. Ground-level ozone, or smog, is created by chemical reactions between NOx and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the presence of sunlight. High temperatures associated with the UHI increase the rate of this reaction. Vehicle emissions, emissions from industrial sites and chemical solvents are the major sources of NOx and VOCs. Particulate pollution, or particulate matter (PM10 and PM25), is made up of microscopic solids or liquid droplets that can be inhaled and retained in lung tissue causing serious health problems. Most particulate pollution begins as smoke or diesel soot and can cause serious health risk to people with heart and lung diseases and irritation to healthy citizens. Trees are an important, cost-effective solution to reducing pollution and improving air quality.

Temperature reduction from shade trees in parking lots lowers the amount of evaporative emissions from parked cars. Unshaded parking lots can be viewed as miniature heat islands, where temperatures can be even higher than surrounding areas. Tree canopies will reduce air temperatures significantly. Although the bulk of hydrocarbon emissions come from tailpipe exhaust, 16% of hydrocarbon emissions are from evaporative emissions that occur when the fuel delivery systems of parked vehicles are heated. These evaporative emissions and the exhaust emissions of the first few minutes of engine operation are sensitive to local microclimate. If cars are shaded in parking lots, evaporative emissions from fuel and volatilized plastics will be greatly reduced. Cars parked in parking lots with 50% canopy cover emit 8% less through evaporative emissions than cars parked in parking lots with only 8% canopy cover.
With an extensive and healthy urban forest air quality can be drastically improved. Trees help to lower air temperatures and the UBIin urban areas through increasing evapotranspiration.This reduction of temperature not only lowers energy use, it also improves air quality, as the formation of ozone is dependent on temperature.
Large shade trees can reduce local ambient temperatures by 3 to 5 °. Maximum mid-day temperature reductions due to trees range from 0.04 °C to 0.2 °C per 1% canopy cover increase A study in Sacromento County in California estimated that doubling the canopy cover to five million trees would reduce summer temperatures by 3°C. This reduction in temperature would have a direct impact in air quality, reducing peak ozone levels by as much as 7% and smoggy days by 50%.

Trees also reduce pollution by actively removing it from the atmosphere. Leaf stomata, the pores on the leaf surface, take in polluting gases which are then absorbed by water inside the leaf. . Ideally, trees should be selected that take in higher quantities of polluting gases and are resistant to the negative affects they can cause. In addition to the uptake of harmful gases, trees also act as filters intercepting airborne particles and reducing the amount of harmful particulate matter. The particles are captured by the surface area of the tree and its foliage. Large evergreen trees with dense foliage collect the most particulate matter. A study in Chicago in1991 determined that trees removed approximately 234 tonnes of particulate matter less than 10 micrometres (PM10).

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The two images above and to the left show an infra-red thermal image of heat being emmitted in Tokyo. The first thing to be observed is the contrasting levels of heat in relation to urban features....

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Managing urban growth - squatter settlements

Chawls are a popular form of housing in Mumbai. These are overcrowded blocks of one small room and were built over 100 years ago. This type of accommodation is no longer built, but the remaining structures are still in demand because they are cheap to rent.

Squatter settlements have grown rapidly in Mumbai, spreading onto private land. They are typically poorly constructed and overcrowded.

Dharavi is Mumbai's and India's biggest squatter settlement, with a population of approximately 1.2 million people crowded into one square mile. Many of the residents are second generation, living in small dwellings with many extended family members.

Dharavi lies between two railway lines on low-lying land, previously used as a rubbish tip. The settlement is made up of twelve different neighbourhoods, and there are no road signs. The further you enter the settlements, the more permanent and solid the structure become.

Conditions in Dharavi are challenging. People live by open sewers, and children play amongst the sewage waste. There is an average of 4,000 cases of typhoid and diphtheria each day. Access to freshwater is mainly by standpipes turned on at 5:30 am for two hours as water is rationed. There is an average of one toilet per 1,450 people. The average life expectancy is under 60 years old (compared to the national average of 69.27 years in 2020), due to disease and health concerns.

Providing clean water, sanitation systems and energy

Sixty per cent of Mumbai's population rely on communal taps. In some areas, access to freshwater is limited to standpipes from 5 am for two hours.

Only around sixty per cent of households are connected to Mumbai's sewerage system, so many open sewers and polluted streams present a health risk. In the unplanned squatter settlements, there is on average, only one toilet per 1000 people. It is only the wealthier suburbs that typically have private water supplies. Factories heavily pollute the Mithi River, and 800 million litres of untreated sewage enter the river every day.

Recycling is common in Mumbai, with over 80% of waste recycled. Over 1000 people are employed in waste disposal. However, many people work in the informal sector, collecting waste from tips to earn money through recycling. An army of 120,000 rag-pickers - unofficial waste collectors - gathers anything reusable they find and takes it to Dharavi (slum settlement) for recycling in small-scale workshops. While the work is effective, it's incredibly hazardous, with few units adhering to any form of regulation. Workers will sift through piles of festering rubbish with no safety equipment in extreme heat, with many children, aged as young as five, working alongside the adults for as little as £1 a day.

Providing access to services - health and education

Rapid urbanisation has placed considerable pressure on Mumbai's strained health and education services. Although the Sion hospital has grown, it has not been able to match population growth. Many people have to wait a long time to be treated.

Despite education provision improving, many schools are overcrowded, and there is a shortage of teachers. School drop-out rates are high, with many youngsters unable to continue education as they must work to earn money to help support their families. This is particularly the case in slums and squatter settlements.

Reducing unemployment and crime

Rapid urbanisation is the leading cause of unemployment in Mumbai. Economic growth has not been fast enough to create enough jobs for the available workforce. Underemployment is common (people paid less than they should be for their task, with poor working standards).

In Mumbai, there is a shortage of technicians and skilled engineers. Most people work in the 'informal sector', which are low paid, have little job security, and often work in dangerous conditions. These workers do not pay tax on their earnings to the government.

Crime rates are very high in Mumbai. It has the third-highest crime rate of all Indian cities. Nearly one-third of the population have been victims of crime. Corruption is rife, and 22.9% of citizens have been exposed to bribery. Fraud and cybercrime are also widespread.

Managing environmental issues - waste disposal, air and water pollution, traffic congestion

Millions of tonnes of waste enter Mumbai's Mithi River every year. In 2018 it was the state of Maharashtra's most polluted river. Faecal coliform content (an indication of human and animal excreta) and biochemical oxygen demand (oxygen levels for aquatic life to survive ) of the Mithi river were above the safe limit. Human and animal excreta was almost 15 times the safe limit! Doctors deal with 4,000 cases of typhoid and diphtheria each day.

Many water pipes run close to sewers, with leakages causing water contamination, leading to the spread of water-borne diseases.

In 2020 Mumbai had the 6th highest level of air pollution in India. Many people in the city are dependent on public transport. Buses and trains are often overcrowded. Traffic congestion is a significant problem in Mumbai, and peak traffic times can last several hours. Air pollution is very high due to the high number of old, inefficient cars and there is also little regulation of emissions from factories.

The urban train and bus networks do not have enough capacity to meet the needs of the city. 3500 people die on Mumbai's railway each year. Most deaths are caused by passengers crossing tracks, sitting on train roofs and being electrocuted by overhead cables, or hanging from doors and windows.

According to the environmental status report by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in 2018, Mumbai generates 9,400 metric tonnes of waste per day, of which only 30% gets treated with a proper procedure, the rest gets dumped at the already overloaded landfills and dumping grounds.

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What challenges have been caused by urban growth in Mumbai?

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What challenges have been caused by urban growth in Mumbai? Find out about the challenges associated with urban growth in Mumbai.

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Grenfell Tower MP highlights huge social divisions in London

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Kensington and Chelsea is 'place where inequality has become a gross spectacle', says Labour's Emma Dent Coad

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A Tube Map Of London Salaries

Here's a map of average salaries in workplaces close to tube stops in central London.

The research, carried out by job search site Adzuna, looked at almost 250,000 vacancies across the capital.

Key findings from the map

Employers near Barbican tube station pay the highest average salary: £52,700.

The top 10 highest paying tube stations are in zone 1. Average salaries around Barbican, Monument, Bank, Cannon Street and St. Paul's all top £50k.

Advertised salaries for vacancies near zone 1 stations paid £45,982 on average - £13k more than jobs near zone 2 tube stops (combined average salary: £32,611).

Salaries near tube stops generally get lower the further from the centre you travel. Zone 8 stations are the exception.

The lowest paying tube stop is Uxbridge (combined average salary: £21,786)

More findings

The Waterloo & City the most lucrative line (£50,990) - thanks largely to the number of high-paid finance related jobs in the area. Still, the average salary around Waterloo is a modest £27,443.

The least lucrative line is the Victoria (£29,056).

The West London areas of Kensington and Knightsbridge may be renowned for their high-end shops, and multi-million pound houses, but the average salary here falls way below £30k.

As with all these things, the map should be taken with a pinch of salt. Adzuna's job search engine is not comprehensive; if you took into account salaries for shops, foods chains and the like - it'd be a different story.

Top 10 best paid tube stations

Bottom 10 worst paid tube stations
Read more about the findings here. Continued below.

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Leaving Cert * Higher Geography

Contents

Globalisation has made it easier for people to move around the world. In cities, this has led to the rise of multiculturalism, where lots of different cultural or ethnic groups live side by side.

In this video we team up with Dr Mary Kelly from Kingston University London, to explore multiculturalism in London: a city home to more that 50 different cultural communities who have arrived here over the last 500 years. The video asks why people of different ethnic backgrounds are clustered in different parts of the city and investigates the processes behind this, through story of one of London's major cultural groups: West Indian migrants (the Windrush Generation).

We would like to thank Tony Warner from Black History Walks and the Black Cultural Archives for helping make this video possible.

Acknowledgements

Written and developed by: Mary Kelly, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Tim Parker, Simon Ross

Videography by: Oliver Draper, Rob Parker

Thank you to Lambeth Council for giving permission for this video to be filmed in Brixton.

Attributions

British Nationality Act 1948 is licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0

Image of Jamaican women is licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0

Jamaican village scene image is licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0

Trafalgar Square London 1946 is licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0

HMT Empire Windrush image is in the Public Domain

West Indian RAF Volunteers image is in the Public Domain

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Video: Multiculturalism in UK Cities (London)

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Globalisation has made it easier for people to move around the world, leading to a rise in migration. This has resulted in many cities becoming more and more ethnically diverse. It has led to the rise of multiculturalism, where lots of different cultural ......

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Delhi, India's MEGACITY: Capital of a Billion People

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Revision Video: Urban Policy and Regeneration in Britain

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Revision Video: Urban Policy and Regeneration in Britain

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A-Level Geography | Study Livestream | Urban Policy & Regeneration in Britain

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​Pattern of Social Structure
Social structure refers to the form or pattern of the interrelationship of the people in society. In every society there is some form of social structure. This social structure both reflects and results in patterns of advantage and disadvantage which can be easily mapped.

Advantage in life's opportunities, and usually social position, is subject to different criteria, ranging from the income and wealth of households to the extent of personal freedom. Social structure is influenced a variety of factors and patterns of advantage and disadvantage can be seen spatially by:

Income and poverty

Ethnicity

Education levels, and

Employment

London's social structure has been shaped by its long history and rigid class system, economic restructuring and social polarisation that is often present in large cities. There are clear geographical distinctions in London that have developed as a result of long term and short term urban dynamics.
Income Patterns
Income is the amount of funds, goods or services received by an individual. London, like most world cities has seen a gradual rise in inequality as extremely high income jobs drive up real estate prices and costs of living.
​
Areas of income coincide closely with the broad pattern of wealth. There is a strong relationship between income and the wealth of an individual. Wealth consists of physical assets such as buildings, property and financial assets.

Areas of wealth have been favoured by market forces in London for over 500 years. Most recently, Suburbanisation drew high to middle income earners to the outer boroughs and left concentrations of low income in the inner eastern boroughs. Areas of high income such as Portobello or Chelsea are desirable creating market forces which exclude those who cannot afford property. Conversely, low income earners will readily flee disadvantaged areas, such as Elephant and Castle unless they are unable.

Key Points:

Poverty in London is largely relative poverty, defined by the UK government as being below 60 per cent of median income.

High levels of disadvantage in London coexist with some of the greatest concentrations of wealth in Britain.

Inner London is by far the most deeply divided part of the country, with the highest proportions of both rich and poor people anywhere.

Over a third of children in Greater London are living in households with incomes below the government's poverty threshold.

Income poverty affects one in four of London's population.

London now has one of the highest unemployment rates in England, reversing the position which obtained in the 1970s and 1980s when the unemployment rate in London tended to be among the lowest for any region.

Homelessness is much higher in London than elsewhere in the UK.

The ethnic dimension of poverty is far more pronounced in London than in other regions.

Patterns of poverty
The most striking aspect of poverty in London is the enormous differences in rates of poverty between Inner and Outer London. Inner London shows rates of poverty for children, working age adults and pensioners which are far higher than for any region of England. Outer London shows rates of poverty which, while higher than in the neighbouring Eastern and South East regions, are nonetheless close to or below the national average.

High rates of disadvantage on a number of indicators characterise the great majority of adjacent electoral wards in an area stretching across most of North East London. Much of the Eastern boroughs around the Docklands area and Inner boroughs south of the Thames have traditionally been considered poorer, however, Urban renewal projects such as the docklands development and the 2012 Olympic village have stimulated urban renewal.

Disadvantage is a generalised characteristic of this area rather than a problem confined to a number of discrete 'problem areas'. However, London has experienced a number of riots, most notably in 2011. These riots have been linked to the frustrations of generational disadvantage.

Among the factors which are important in explaining the pattern of disadvantage in London are:

The cost of housing, transport and childcare:

In areas with high housing costs, households which are currently dependent on benefits can face difficulties in returning to or entering the labour market, as the gain from entering employment can be completely eroded by loss of entitlement to benefits, particularly housing benefit. This is further compounded by the extra costs arising from entering employment, including transport and childcare costs.

​T he pattern of demand for labour: London's labour market has changed dramatically over the last twenty years,

Massive job losses in from deindustrialisation and massive growth in service sector employment, particularly in higher skilled jobs have hit the poorest while favouring the rich. Virtually all the growth in full-time employment in London in the 1990s was in managerial, professional and associate professional occupations. These jobs generally demand third level qualifications. The increased concentration of employment opportunities in higher skilled (and higher paid) occupations risks leaving many Londoners with low or no qualifications excluded.

The openness of London's economy:

The growth of highly skilled employment partly reflects the ability of London's labour market to draws on skills throughout the UK and internationally. On average over 150,000 people move into London from elsewhere in the UK every year, while London also receives more than half of all international immigration into the UK. This means that London residents face an extremely competitive labour market, with higher risks of long term exclusion for those who are disadvantaged.

The distribution of earnings:

While earnings in London are generally higher than in other regions, the gap between the highest paid and the lowest paid is far greater in London. Growth in earnings has not been evenly distributed across the workforce, with the gap in earnings increasing significantly over the last 20 years. To take one crude indicator, male manual earnings in London increased by nine per cent after
inflation between 1991 and 2001, while male non-manual earnings increased by 26 per cent. With earnings rising for much of the workforce and a limited supply of housing in London, the cost of living in the capital has increased for all. For those in lower paid employment, particularly those with dependants, wages are increasingly failing to meet the cost of living.
Ethnicity
The existence of residential concentrations of ethnic groups seems to be an integral part of the process of new immigrant populations entering alien territories. London, New York, Paris and Sydney are typical of large cities with enclaves of migrants.

Different races have mixed in London for centuries as it was a city of trade. But as London became the heart of a global empire, people from all over that empire began to live in London for trade, education and cultural reasons.

Following the decolonisation of the Empire large numbers of immigrants have come to London from the former colonies in waves. Southern Asian groups (Indians Pakistani and Bangladeshis) came in 1960-70s, Africans and Carribbeans came in the 70s and 80s and Chinese groups came in the 1990s and 2000s as Hong Kong returned to Chinese control. More recently, London has accommodated many migrants from Eastern Europe who have recently joined the European Union Schengen Zone.

Like any city with large numbers of immigrants, social tensions regarding migration and immigrants are found in London.

London has the lowest proportion of people born in the UK (72.9 per cent)

London has the highest proportion of people from minority ethnic groups apart from more who identified themselves as of Pakistani origin, of whom there is a higher proportion in Yorkshire and the Humber (2.9 per cent) and the West Midlands (2.9 per cent).

In 2001 six out of ten Londoners were White British (nearly 4.3 million people) and four out of ten were from ethnic minority groups (nearly 2.9 million people).

There were slightly more people who were Asian or Asian British (12 per cent of London's population) than Black or Black British (11 per cent of London's population).

The largest ethnic minority group in London was the Other White group. (These were White people who were not White British or White Irish, and therefore the group includes many other European people). Following the Other White group in size were the Indian, Black African, Black Caribbean and White Irish groups. The Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Other Asian ethnic groups were next.

Seven of the London boroughs with the highest proportions of ethnic minorities were in Inner London and three in Outer London, whereas nine of the ten boroughs with the lowest proportions of ethnic minorities were in Outer London.

The borough with the largest proportion of ethnic minorities was Brent where 71 per cent of the population were from ethnic minority groups (including White minorities), followed by Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Ealing.

There were nine boroughs in London which had ethnic minority populations which were more than half the borough's population.

Employment
The key points are:

In April 2001, the unemployment rate in Greater London was 6.7 per cent - one of the highest rates across England and Wales, second only to that of the North East.

London's regional position is largely driven by high unemployment levels across Inner London boroughs where unemployment rates average 8.9 per cent. Across Outer London, unemployment levels (5.4 per cent) are nearer the national average (5.2 per cent).

Across London, borough rates vary from 3.6 per cent in Sutton up to 12.3 per cent in Newham. Rates are also very high in Hackney and Tower Hamlets (both 11.8 per cent).

While Outer London has low unemployment relative to Inner London, it still has pockets of high unemployment - four per cent of wards in Outer London had rates of 10 per cent and over. 45 per cent of Outer London wards had rates above the national average.

Unemployment rates are high for young Londoners. Rates among 16-24 year olds are 12.3 per cent - twice as high as rates for those aged 25 and over. Unemployment levels are higher still for those aged 16-19 (22.3 per cent).

Unemployment rates for BME (Black and minority ethnic groups) groups across Greater London average 11.3 per cent - more than twice as high as rates for White groups (5.3 per cent). Unemployment levels are highest for Bangladeshi (20.5 per cent) and Black groups (who have an average rate of 14.3 per cent).

Women have lower unemployment rates than men across most ethnic groups except for Pakistani women who had higher rates (13.3 per cent) than those of Pakistani men (11.6 per cent). Bangladeshi and Indian women also had rates very close to those of men.

Those in poor health are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as those in good health (14.1 per cent compared with 5.7 per cent). Unemployment rates for those with poor health are highest in the boroughs of Tower Hamlets (23.3 per cent) and Hackney (21.8 per cent).

People with no qualifications are almost three times more likely to be unemployed than those with higher level qualifications (11.1 per cent compared with 4.2 per cent). Rates for those with no qualifications are very high across Inner London (17.1 per cent).

In terms of their former jobs, unemployed people tended to be over-represented in lower paid occupations and sectors (eg hotels and catering sector, sales and customer service occupations), compared with workers generally.

Changing economic character
London experienced a decline in population (counter urbanisation) across much of the 20th Century. However, its population has recently surpassed its Pre-war population.

London was a major city prior to the industrial revolution

Early function as a seaport and commercial centre formed a building block for current financial developments

Trade generated population growth and profits but also the need for financial service industries, such as insurance and accounting.

The deregulation of the UK finnance sector is refered to as "the big bang" which allowed massive growth.

Today London continues to be important as one of the three top world cities, exerting economic authority and control

Since the 1960-70s manufacturing as been in decline in London. However, highly skilled manufacturing remains in demand.

The service sector now dominates London's economy. Over a third of jobs in London are in the business and finance industry. Other key services are, public sector, law, marketing and advertising, tourism and hospitality, creative and cultural industries.

Manufacturing does still continue in the London economy

Architecture
The architecture includes over 3000 years of urban settlement and displays the various periods of history that London has progressed through.

Street scape
​London is a city packed with elegant squares and green expanses. Narrow streets and distinct footpaths will identify London in any photograph as will the London underground signs. High Street shopping and unique Pubs are also frequently seen across London. Remnants of London's downturn in the 80s and social housing projects mean that there are pockets of crumbling infrastructure in places.

Noise and colour
London's culture and way of life has also given rise to a unique brand of noise and colour. This includes:

Accents from around the world, and in particular the Cockney (east end) accent. (Multi coloured... no longer a white persons city)

Frequent overcast weather and atmospheric dust (grey)

Diesel engines (red buses and black cabs)

Speaker's corner in Hyde Park (expansive green spaces)

Brit pop, club scene and Punk movements

London is a quite patriotic city with the Union Jack (the combined flags of England, Scotland and Wales) frequently displayed (red white and blue)

Lifestyle
No such thing as a typical Londoner or a typical lifestyle in London.
But... for many (yes, a stereotype):

Monday to Friday is about work, while Friday and Saturday are about going out. Sundays include football, newspaper and roast lunch.

11 o'clock closing of pubs gives rise to binge drinking culture and late dinners at "curry restaurants".

London is an exhilarating, busy and fast paced city, but also a very expensive one.

To buy an average home in London requires an average salary of £55,000 (AUS$136,800), however in reality the average salary is only £34,777 (AUS$86,500).

Key workers are particularly hit as the average school teacher in London earns £26,360, a staff nurse makes £21,950 and a postal worker earns only £21,180. (note: in mid 2006, 1 UK£ = AUS$ 2.49).

The overall average rent for two-bedroom accommodation for all boroughs is £214. The corresponding average rent for all central boroughs is £321, and for other boroughs £201.

Only those earning over £60,000 would be considered affluent.

Most Londoners have a strong pub culture and spend considerable time at the local pub or bar.

Vitality
London has a creative energy that comes from being a very large and dominant global city with many diverse lifestyles and cultures. This has, and continues to give rise to many waves of global culture.

The pull of people towards London means it contains much creative energy.

London's constant state of flux makes it a very vibrant and vigorous place in which to live and visit.

Growth
Over the next 15 years, London faces a major increase in population. It is still anticipated that London will have 700,000 more people by 2016 than it has now. It important to plan for the need for more jobs, and for a suitable range of jobs for what will be an increasingly diverse workforce. Growing demand for services: the 2000/01 Family Expenditure Survey showed that for the first time, typical London households spend more on leisure goods and services than on food

Future Trends
Failure to look at what is happening to London's job market and identify ways to ensure it works effectively in the future, will reinforce historical patterns of disadvantage and raise the spectre of new social problems, which will make living in London an increasingly unjust and unpleasant experience for everyone. The multiple levels of disadvantage and exclusion experienced by some communities has been linked to home grown terrorism and extremism. Riots are another outcome that could increase with inequality.

London's competitive advantage for services can be shown by looking at London's share of the UK's total service sector employment. London has particular advantages in a wide range of high-value, high-skill and knowledge-intensive activities (ranging from broking to the music business). Some are closely linked to other sectors, such as air transport, tourism, fashion design and other cultural activities. These services, and those needed to support them, are increasingly locating in London. This is impacting on the structure of all parts of the city. The 52% national support from a Brexit vote in June 2016 could be potentially devastating for London's globalised economy.

It is likely that the bulk of mainstream financial and business services will remain clustered in this central district. Leading financial organisations elect to locate close to their competitors and peers, with specialist support services, such as legal, accountancy and management consultancy, growing up around these clusters. However, the UK will likely promote the importance of regional centers as employment hubs in order to use decentralisation and counter urbanisation to ease London's transport and resource use. The Brexit vote also highlights that people are not comfortable with the increasing integration of the European Union.

There are key parts of London where manufacturing is still of key importance. In such places, it is worth taking steps to promote and encourage the types of high-value added manufacturing that are increasingly necessary for the sector's survival (see the GLA report on cultural industries). The move towards more skilled jobs is another of the human pressures facing the London employment market. Skills shortages cause problems for employers, while lack of sometimes even basic skills can make it difficult for some Londoners to find work.

Ecological Sustainability
Ecological sustainability is a major concern globally and as more people move into metropolitan areas cities are becoming focal points for ecological sustainable development. The development of a large urban area such London has major impacts on its environment, including the ecology of its environment. Such a large urban area:

Has a huge demand for natural resources

Obliterates the natural hydrological system within its area

Produces waste products, including solid and liquid waste, air pollutants, heat and noise, which alters the environment around it

Reduces biomass and alters the species of plants and animals in and around it

Creates new land through reclamation and landfill

Together these impacts make up the ecological footprint of a city. The footprint provides an estimate of the total area of productive land and water required on a continual basis to produce all of the resources consumed, and assimilate all the waste produced by a population.
Large cities, such as London, have a wide range of inputs necessary to provide liveability, including land, water, food, energy, building materials and waste outputs. The ecological sustainable development of London depends on effectively reducing resource inputs and waste outputs, while at the same time maintaining the liveability of urban areas.

Governments can contribute to ecological sustainability through legislation that acts in two main ways:

Encouraging households and industry to reduce the amount of resources they consume, such as encouraging energy efficient water heating, and increasing the price of water to discourage its wasteful use.

Encouraging a reduction in the amount of waste created, such as reducing packaging, using more energy efficient equipment, re-using and recycling materials, educating citizens in more efficient ways of reducing resource use and waste production.

London is also aiming to reduce transport pressures and hence fuel usage by promoting regional hubs of employment.

London needs to address sustainability from both a global and local perspective. There is also the need to address a triple bottom line that incorporates environmental, but also social and economic costs of development.
Lastly, Global warming will have significant impacts on London. The Thames is already a concern for London due to a geological sinking of the city. When combined with increased flooding events this poses a serious challenge.

London will also have to accomodate a change in climate that may result in drier conditions with more summer heat waves. These changes may result in London experiencing water scarcity. "Urban greening" is seen as a way of addressing both the urban heat island effect and the loss of permeability that cities face. There is a movement to create a London-wide National park to link green spaces.

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London has been a major world hub for over three thousand years and is now one of the world two dominant World Cities. Throughout history its roles, functions and power have changed considerably and...

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The regeneration of Liverpool over the years

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Over the years, Liverpool has undergone substantial regeneration, but what was the catalyst that brought about Liverpool’s ever-changing skyline, and what is in store for the future of the city? From the Albert Dock to Lime Street, find out which areas of Liverpool have been regenerated and how it…

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BENGALURU: About 16% of the Bengaluru's population lives in its 520 recognised slums and yet, the state does little to bring them out of the vicious circle of poverty, experts say, adding that these inequalities worsened and the pitfalls in policy-making came to a head with the pandemic.
Supriya Roy Chowdhury, visiting professor at National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, who was engaged closely with the city slums during her time at the Institute for Social and Economic Change, said this.
"There was dramatic wealth generation in the latter half of the 20th century and early 21st century across large global cities, including Bengaluru. The cities moved to a different universe of connectivity, consumption and splendour, yet stubborn and deep pockets of poverty continued to exist in these cities," the author of "City of Shadows: Slums and Informal Work in Bangalore" said. She added that the whole phenomenon of urban poverty can be seen as the marginalisation of social groups who have suffered historical disadvantages.
One of the speakers at the discussion on "Staying poor in a rich city" organised by the Bangalore International Centre recently, Chowdhury said the growth in Bengaluru was focused on IT, financial services, knowledge and capital intensive industries driven by local and foreign private players. "The question of semi-skilled and unskilled workers became a blind spot with the decline of state-owned industries," she added.

Explaining the types of urban poor, she said while some slums are of "new poor", many slums in the heart of the city (like around Lalbagh) are occupied by "old poor" who have been living in the slums for generations and have not experienced any upwards mobility, with rare exceptions.
"The new poor are working in urban areas for 0 to 20 years, crowded in the construction sector as unskilled labour with low pay and are housed in fragile labour camps on the city's peripheries mostly. The old poor like in cement huts of Lalbagh area have lived there for 70-80 years and 90% of the households are engaged in rag picking," she said, adding that there are little interventions from the state in the slums to pull them out of poverty.

Lalitha Kamat, urbanist, Centre for Urban Policy and Governance, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, said slums show narrow focus and ineffectiveness of government policies. "The poor communities showing refusal to move to government-built housing or allowing their slums to be redeveloped indicates the disconnect between what they want and the state's policies," she said, adding the pandemic helped us learn that the social welfare system that was already present fared better than those that were totally defunct. "We did better on food relief than wage transfers," she said.
Anirudh Krishna, Edgar T Thompson Professor of Public Policy and Political Science, Duke University, said there are thousands of newly formed slums that are not registered. "If you go one lane behind MG Road, you will find a slum. There is little upward mobility in these slums and even if they make some advances, there is a quick plateau," he said, adding some studies showed the communities that organised better or had better leaders were able to develop.
"There are no role models for multiple generations who continue to live in these slums. Thus, the vicious cycle continues," he said. The experts said engaging with democratic politics, better policies and education is the way forward.

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Slums in the Bengaluru still stuck in a vicious circle of poverty: Experts | Bengaluru News - Times of India

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BENGALURU: About 16% of the Bengaluru's population lives in its 520 recognised slums and yet, the state does little to bring them out of the vicious c.

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How far can unplanned development degrade a gorgeous city? So much so that it becomes a quasi-official template of how not to run a city.

The evolution of Bengaluru, India's technology hub and once among its most liveable big cities, has been so haphazard over the past few decades that the supreme court of India now holds it up as a warning for other Indian cities.

On Jan. 10, the court urged India's federal and state governments to place environmental preservation ahead of urban development. It was hearing a plea by residents of the northern city of Chandigarh, who are resisting the administration's practice of converting single residential units into apartments.

"The warning flagged by the city of Bengaluru needs to be given due attention by the legislature, executive, and policymakers," a bench of two justices said. "It is high time that, before permitting urban development, EIA (environmental impact assessment) of such development needs to be done."

Located around 250 kilometres north of Delhi, Chandigarh is among India's eight union territories, governed directly by the federal government. It is also the legislative and administrative capital of two adjoining states, Punjab and Haryana.

Designed by the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier and inaugurated in 1953, Chandigarh was one of India's earliest planned cities and a pin-up for a newly independent country. In 2016, it was declared a UNESCO world heritage site. But India's apex court wants to keep this iconic city from going the way of Bengaluru.

Bengaluru's reputation has fallen

A city of 12 million people, Bengaluru-Bangalore until its name changed in 2014-is one of India's biggest urban conglomerations. Its reputation as a global technological hub was built on the back of a tremendous economic boom in the 1990s.

But the city has become unrecognizable over the past decade-and-a-half.

Known earlier for its clement weather and beautiful gardens, Bengaluru's transformation has caused immense damage to its ecology. Its trees have been chopped down en masse and often at random, and its many lakes have disappeared or have been left badly polluted.

"In 1961, there were 262 lakes and tanks in and around her. But satellite imagery in 2003 showed just 18 clearly delineated ones (I don't want to know what it looks like in 2017)," Quartz had reported earlier. "Yet, there's been a in her built-up area over the past four decades. The result: A parched city depends on thousands of tanker-trucks for her daily supply of water."

The city's traffic has also become a byword for mismanagement. Even a decade ago, a study estimated that more than $6 billion worth of man-hours were lost because IT workers were stuck so long on congested roads.

When the city's IT boom began, the term "Bangalored" described how a job lost in a western country was outsourced to India. Now "Bengaluru'd" could well stand in for the wanton devastation of a flourishing city.

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India's supreme court feels Bengaluru is now a template for urban ruin

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The court warned the city of Chandigarh to avoid the mistakes made by Bengaluru, a once-salubrious, now choked IT hub

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Bengaluru needs a comprehensive stormwater drainage master plan and corrective actions to address urban flooding, which entails the installation of around 658 km of new primary and secondary drains at an estimated capital expenditure (CAPEX) of ₹2,800 crore ($350 million), according to Knight Frank India.

This CAPEX also includes the cost of remodeling the existing stormwater infrastructure.

At present, the city has 842 km of primary and secondary drains; and with the growing population in Bengaluru, changing topography has impacted the drainage system.

Data shows that the city's population has more than doubled in the past two decades, and it is likely to reach 18 million by 2021, making it necessary for the real estate and infrastructure to be adequately developed to be able to absorb the population influx.

The land use dynamics of the city have also changed significantly, with the share of the built-up area increasing from 37.4 per cent in 2002 to 93.3 per cent in 2020.

According to the report, the stormwater drainage system has come under severe stress due to rapid and unplanned development. Primarily, the interconnection between water bodies such as lakes and stormwater drains has been severely affected, causing recurrent floods in the event of heavy rainfall, noted the report.

The real estate sector has a multiplier effect on Bengaluru's economy. On par with the national average, the real sector contributes an estimated 7 per cent to the city's economic growth, while overall, its GDP increased from $16 billion in FY05 to $97 billion in FY23.

During FY23, BBMP is estimated to have collected ₹3,107 crore ($388 million) as revenue from property tax collection showcasing that real estate is one of the key contributors to the city's improving economic profile.

The real estate development comprises about 213 million square feet of Grade A office space, which has generated nearly 1.7 million white-collar jobs, predominantly in the IT/ITES sector, since 2008. Each of these jobs has the capacity to generate nearly eight indirect jobs in the economy.

Additionally, the report noted that the taxes collected from real estate development, such as property taxes, are one of the key revenue sources for the Urban Local Body.

While the traditional paradigm of financing urban infrastructure consists of internal accruals of the ULB and loans and grants from the state government.

The government authorities can tap into financing through real estate using mechanisms such as value capture financing (VCF) which is based on the principle that private land and buildings benefit from public investments in infrastructure and policy decisions of governments.

Furthermore, nature-based solutions such as sponge city, i.e., the new urban construction model for flood management being implemented in China, aimed at strengthening ecological infrastructure and drainage systems, can be adopted.

The restoration and construction of Bengaluru's stormwater infrastructure are of prime importance to avoid social and economic losses that could arise due to recurring events of urban flooding, it said.

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Bengaluru urgently requires comprehensive stormwater drainage master plan to tackle urban flooding: Report

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Bengaluru needs to implement a comprehensive stormwater drainage master plan to address urban flooding caused by rapid and unplanned development.

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Is Bengaluru’s dream of becoming ‘India’s Silicon Valley’ crumbling? | BBC News India

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Specific case study information. Choose two cities to know very well.

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The 100 million city: is 21st century urbanisation out of control?

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Projections suggest cities will swell at an astonishing pace – but whether that means our salvation or an eco-disaster is by no means certain

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How megacities are changing the map of the world | Parag Khanna

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World's Largest Slum: Dharavi, India | Stories from the Hidden Worlds: India | Free Documentary

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Shanghai is the third largest megacity in the world, but the largest actual single city

Population levels are rising and nowhere is this felt more keenly than in the world's megacities - urban sprawls that each house over ten million people. But such growth brings with it a host of problems

By Mark Rowe

Humans, it seems, are increasingly becoming urban creatures. Barely 60 years ago, only two cities - Tokyo and New York - had the ten million plus inhabitants required to fit the UN's definition of a megacity.

Even by 1970, just 39 million people lived in megacities. By 1990, the number of megacities had risen to ten, collectively home to more than 153 million people or slightly less than seven per cent of the global urban population at that time.

As of 2014, the Earth has 28 megacities worldwide - 16 in Asia, four in Latin America, three each in Africa and Europe, and two in North America. They are home to 453 million people, about 12 per cent of the world's urban dwellers. Shenzhen, described by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as 'a small village in the mid-1980s', is now home to more than ten million people.

And the forecasters say that this momentum is far from slowing. According to the UN, by 2030 there will be 43 megacities - with all but one of the new ones in Asia (home to 630 million people, 13.6 per cent of the world's projected urban population) or Africa.

Urban expansion

The extraordinary compaction of humanity into megacities is having profound repercussions for the world's resources. Megacities, according to the UN Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), 'are where the pressures of migration, globalization, economic development, social inequality, environmental pollution and climate change are most directly felt'.

The phenomenon of megacities is increasingly concentrated in the global south, a reversal of how things unfolded during the late 20th century. Tokyo remains the world's largest city, with over 38 million inhabitants, but it's now followed by Delhi (25 million), Shanghai (23 million), and then Mexico City, Mumbai and São Paulo, each of which have around 21 million inhabitants. Osaka has just over 20 million, as does Beijing. The New York-Newark area and Cairo complete the top ten most populous urban areas with around 18.5 million inhabitants each.

Yet by 2030, New York-Newark will have been pushed down to 14th on the list. Four more Indian cities - Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Ahmadabad - are projected to become megacities by that time. Meanwhile, Africa's three megacities - Cairo, Kinshasa and Lagos - are expected to be joined by Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg and Luanda, while in Latin America, Bogota and Lima appear on schedule to join this increasingly less-exclusive-by-the-decade club.

By 2025, Delhi's population is expected to rise swiftly to 36 million people, while China, which already has six megacities, will have three more, according to DESA. The ADB reckons that matters are unlikely to rest there: Asian urbanisation still has a long way to go, with the number and size of cities growing ever larger.

In 2010, the urban share of Asia's population was 43 per cent, compared with the worldwide share of 52 per cent. By 2050, the urban share in Asia is projected to reach 63 per cent. Guanghua Wan, principal economist at the ADB, says that globalisation and heightened economic competition will almost certainly cause megacities to proliferate. 'Megacities in Asia are inevitable, due to the large populations, particularly in China, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh,' he says.

Mass migration

To gauge just where megacities may be going, and what that means for the planet, it's probably worth asking how a megacity evolves. How does it coalesce and balloon in size, seemingly exponentially, from a smaller city?

Several drivers are at play according to Erik Swyngedouw, professor of geography at the School of Environment and Development at Manchester University. Among the key factors is mass migration from the countryside, which is accelerating as globalisation increasingly frames 21st century life. 'The only thing that rural people can do is to move somewhere where they hope to have some chance of survival, and cities are historically the place to which people mass migrate,' he says. 'This is happening as a result of the disintegration of the social conditions in which they've lived, making it difficult for them to continue to survive in the ways they traditionally have.'

Swyngedouw cites China as a key example of why megacities emerge. 'You have this extraordinary transformation of agricultural practice and an equally extraordinary expansion of demand for unskilled labour in cities,' he says. 'Increasingly, food and agriculture are organised globally, and we've seen an accelerating process that takes away traditional livelihoods.'

As Swyngedouw points out, that by itself doesn't explain why megacities bloom out of large cities. 'Megacities are indeed mega. It's precisely in places such as this that people who don't know what to do can find a way of surviving,' he says. 'There's a variety of activities. What makes megacities so attractive to people is that they're integrated into the global system. The accelerated growth of megacities is tightly linked to the increase of global infrastructures.'

Flood risks

The way in which megacities grow - often without an overarching controlling vision - only adds to the issues that they bring with them. This is largely due, says DESA, 'to the challenges of providing urban jobs, housing, energy and infrastructure to mitigate urban poverty, expansion of slums and a deterioration of the urban environment'.

Infrastructure supply lags behind demand, basic public services - such as water connections and solid waste disposal - don't reach the majority, and many residents live on marginal land where, says the ADB's Wan, 'they face risks from flooding, disease, and other shocks'.

A 2012 ADB report concluded that 'crowded cities whose growth in numbers is not matched by a growth in infrastructure are vulnerable: susceptible to crime, pollution and, among other risks, flooding'. More than 550 million urban Asians were considered to be at risk of coastal and inland flooding in 2010. This is projected to rise to 760 million by 2025. 'The pace of urbanisation has not only led to traffic snarls and massive pressure on resources such as water and sanitation, it has also created slums - 61 per cent of the world's slum dwellers are in Asia - and contributes to rising crime levels.'

If current trends continue, by 2030, urban land will have expanded by as much as 3.3 million square kilometres, up to five times as much as in 2000, according to the Cities and Biodiversity Outlook (CBO) project, the world's first global analysis of how projected patterns of urban land expansion will affect biodiversity and ecosystems. This, says the CBO, will result in 'a considerable loss of habitat in key biodiversity hotspots' in cities that are located in biodiversity-rich areas such as floodplains, estuaries and coastlines.

Unsustainable growth

UN Habitat, a body that looks at urban futures, says that 'car-centred urban models are still the widespread norm, with strict zoning policies dividing urban space into residential, commercial, and industrial areas. These horizontally sprawling cities find it gradually harder to deal with an ever-increasing urban population.' They aren't sustainable over the long term, according to a UN Habitat report, 'owing to overwhelming negative externalities, such as congestion, infrastructure issues, pollution, and social [break-up]'.

'Water and air pollution have local impacts, while the climate and energy impacts of these cities are of a global scale,' says Barbara Evaeus, global communications manager for WWF International's Earth Hour City Challenge. 'Water, and what will happen with fresh water, is a major issue. It will throw natural ecosystems out of kilter and will have impacts on agricultural areas nearby that feed cities. These risks and factors will be compounded by climate change, with changes to the frequency of flooding and drought, and the availability of food, as well as sea-level rises that infiltrate freshwater systems.'

Beijing has the lowest per capita water availability in China - just 100 cubic metres a year, which is less than five per cent of the national average and far below the internationally defined scarcity of less than 1,000 cubic metres per person per year. Yet, there may be hope that Beijing can unpick some of the problems it faces, and offer a template to other megacities on how to use resources more sustainably (see Water Logged box, overleaf).

Legal issues

Many observers identify another issue as more important than access to, and the use of, resources: the rule of law. Just how on Earth do you - or can you - govern a city of 20 million, or even 30 million people?

'The difficulties with gaining access to water, health or fuel are structured through the absence of a coherent government,' says Swyngedouw. 'The megacities of the global south aren't governed or governable in the way that Tokyo or London or New York are governed. The things we're familiar with - housing, infrastructure, policing, allocation of land - are only possible in a highly truncated and uneven way.

'You find some well-organised government in the small, middle class and hermetically-sealed off elite areas,' he continues. 'But most people live in megacities where there is no state. They live in organisations of self-management and self-help, completely out of reach of standard state government. The social polarisation is extraordinary, leading to tension, riots and conflicts.'

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, has been cited as one of the worst examples of how to construct a megacity (see Dire Dhaka box, previous page). 'Everyone has recognised the problems with Dhaka,' says Dr Bruno Parolin, who formerly worked at the faculty of the Built Environment, the University of New South Wales in Sydney. 'The master plans for the city since 1945 have recognised the issue of rapid growth, the deficiencies around high-density populations, the need to disperse this population and jobs. But these plans have generally been given lip service; most of them have been failures. You end up with reactive rather than proactive planning.

'There has been little understanding of the evolution of urban space - and that has been a problem with most of the megacities of Asia,' he continues. 'The plans also have little political clout. What we learn from Dhaka is the need for solid institutions, a solid planning process.'

This point is echoed by the ADB's Wan. 'The single most pressing issue is the shortage of, and lag in, the supply of urban-development expertise to plan, design and govern megacities,' he says. 'Most governments in Asia aren't prepared or equipped to effectively manage the rapid wave of urbanisation that's sweeping Asia. This is particularly serious at the megacity level. Failed megacities will face rising crime levels, social unrest and an increasingly unbearable, unsustainable living environment.'

In such a context, the negative impacts of megacities appear formidable. 'The dynamic consequence of megacities is that every day, the incoherent functioning of these cities is predicated on the extraordinary use of the world's resources,' says Swyngedouw. 'The sociological implications of megacities are devastating in the long run for the world's natural base. The extraordinary challenge is how to make these places tick.'

More positively, Wan says that models for running a megacity are at hand. 'There are good examples where megacities are well-governed, such as Tokyo and, more recently, Seoul,' he says. 'Within China, Shanghai is managed better than other megacities. Two major factors are essential to ensure good governance: expertise and adequate financing. The latter is closely related to the level of economic development.'

Engines of the world

The resoundingly bleak picture of the polluted, overcrowded, crime-ridden megacity is strongly countered by those who believe that megacities, if judiciously governed, can be a force for good. DESA's World Urbanization Prospects report describes them as 'the engines of the world economy and centres of innovation, where many solutions to global problems are being piloted'. The report points out that urban living is often associated with higher levels of literacy and education, better health, greater access to social services, and enhanced opportunities for cultural and political participation.

'Megacities are a positive force, not a negative one,' says Eduardo Moreno of UN Habitat. 'They generate high densities of population, and that's good for infrastructure such as housing. You also get the economics of agglomeration [where offices or companies cluster close to one another], which are fundamental for economic growth. Megacities are also conducive to economic development. The more people that live in these cities, the more opportunities there are for innovation, creativity and jobs.'

Moreno also argues that megacities aren't as chaotic as some observers suggest. 'It's wrong to say that megacities are growing with a lack of control,' he says. 'Unlike how many people think, social capital comes when you have interaction between social and economic groups. In rural areas, the exchanges are between poor people and other poor people. In cities, they're between rich, middle class and the poor. Megacities are very clear drivers of growth. On average, megacities produce two to three more times GDP than other cities. There are also more intangible benefits from all this interaction, such as the empowerment of women.'

Swyngedouw also identifies beneficial elements: 'They can be positive; it's extraordinary if you look at everyday life,' he says. 'It works. There's creativity, inventiveness - it's nothing short of remarkable. When I visit these places, I'm struck by how well life functions.'

Mexico City, with 21 million inhabitants, is the largest megacity in North America - ahead, even, of New York

Dumping ground

The CBO also finds plenty to praise, highlighting Kolkata, Mexico City, Montreal, Nagoya, New York City and São Paulo as examples of megacities that boast high levels of biodiversity.

In Mumbai, Sanjay Gandhi National Park's dense semi-evergreen forests are home to 280 bird species, 150 species of butterfly, and 40 species of mammal - including a small population of leopards - and protects 104 square kilometres entirely within a megacity.

In São Paulo, 21 per cent of the city is covered by dense forest, with 1,909 plant species and 435 animal species - 73 of them endemic to the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest.

Mumbai has also moved to tackle the issue of the phenomenal amount of waste it produces - about 6,500 tonnes per day of municipal solid waste and about 2,400 tonnes per day of construction waste. For almost 40 years, all of this went to the Gorai Dump, a 20-hectare open site in Mumbai's western suburbs.

Situated next to a creek and close to residential areas, the dump caused significant environmental damage and was one of the unhealthiest places in Mumbai. In 2009, the site was closed and covered, and a power plant is now being built there that will run on methane gas from the decomposing waste.

Wan concurs that, given the right circumstances, megacities can work. 'Megacities, if managed well, can be positive as they allow Asia to profitably ride the globalisation wave by producing and exporting goods and commodities competitively.'

But he warns that policymakers need to be nimble. 'Asia's current urbanisation is different from historical experience in terms of speed and scale, and is generating and confronting unprecedented challenges,' he says. 'But it also comes with forces that, if properly managed, can help to address the challenges.'

Satellite cities

So is it possible to reconfigure existing megacities and make them better places to live? Wan believes that better transport planning and more mixing of housing and office space are needed. 'At the micro-level, satellite cities must be developed to deflect burgeoning populations out of megacities,' he says. 'The key is to link the main and satellite cities by rail-based transport systems, not highways'.

'There's talk of US$350 trillion of investment in infrastructure in the next decade [in cities in the global south], so it's important to get it right and make sure the development is sustainable' says Evaeus. 'When you look at megacities, you look at them through two different lenses: one for the cities in the global south and another for those in the north. The big cities in the north have lots of technology that can mitigate their impact. It's important that technology gets transferred to cities in the global south.

'If city planners use projections for climate change impacts, they can plan a city by not developing coastal areas, leaving them as natural barriers,' he continues. 'If you build-in public transport rather than cars, and manage food sustainably, you'll greatly reduce the impacts. Living in a city, your footprint can be smaller than in the suburbs, where you may be car-dependent.'

Swyngedouw believes that to succeed, megacities must avoid replicating the formats of cities in the developed world. 'A lot can be learned from these practices and how people manage to live more or less decent lives,' he says. 'Historically, we've been used to having energy, water and health centrally organised. In megacities, that approach doesn't work. You see ingenious community efforts to support health and schools. The community transport systems that operate in Johannesburg and Cape Town are remarkable.

'We're seeing the rise of insurgent citizenship,' he continues. 'Those who seem to be excluded seem to be beginning to articulate their rights. What does it mean to be a citizen in a megacity of 25 million people? What will be the forms of governance? The election cycles we have in the West just don't work in megacities. My hope or pessimism is structured by the way in which local people begin to organise themselves to fight for a different trajectory for megacities.'

The issues around megacities appear to be emerging just as rapidly as the cities are growing. The UN already distinguishes megacities from those that are even larger. Now, we have the term 'meta-city' to describe conurbations of more than 20 million people.

China plans to merge nine cities in the Pearl River Delta, including Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. This would create a 41,000-square-kilometre urban area (that's 26 times larger than Greater London), with integrated transport, energy and telecommunications systems. Moreno believes that this throbbing entity will be home to an almost unfathomable 120 million people with, he says, 'no urban discontinuity'.

Similar meta-cities are evolving in Japan - the Tokyo-Osaka-Nagoya region will soon be home to 60 million people - and in Brazil, where 43 million people are projected to coalesce around São Paulo. 'The new meta-city regions are better planned - they're not accidents. It's a conscious undertaking of national development,' says Moreno.

'We have to accept that we can't not have megacities,' says Swyngedouw. 'They will keep on expanding and it's unlikely that people will move en masse back to the countryside. The world we live in is an urbanised world.

'Cities have always been the laboratories of the future, but that doesn't answer the question of how that laboratory will turn out,' he continues. 'It may be quite nasty. These places are very explosive - that's what happens in a laboratory. The challenge is to decide which bits of the laboratory we want to support, and which bits we should avoid.'

Parolin admits to being temporarily lost for words when he tries to identify how megacities function. 'They still work,' he says. 'There's some amazing self-organisation that takes place, even though people have to put up with some quite horrid conditions. Despite the limitations, it always amazes me. It says something about the resilience of these kinds of places.'

Meanwhile, Evaeus wonders if megacities - and even meta-cities - will be just one part of the problem of urbanisation. '[The existing] megacities are meeting their natural restrictions and borders; it's the cities with one million-plus people that will be taking real leaps,' he says. 'These issues will get even more magnified.

'I'm confident the solutions exist and with good governance, they can be delivered,' he continues. 'The question is whether politicians will be courageous enough to do what's needed. It isn't a big sacrifice we're asking to be made, even though things such as cycling to work rather than driving the same distance are presented as hardships. A different mindset is needed.'

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Latest Cities news, comment and analysis from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice

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Mumbai is a megacity and a World city, it has grown enormously since the 1950's and gives a great case study of urbanisation and its issues within a poorer country. This case study will explore how urbanisation, suburbanisation, counter urbanisation and now reurbanisation processes have occurred in the Mumbai region and how those processes have been managed.

Mumbai is located on a peninsular on the Western coast of Maharashtra state in western India, bordering the Arabian Sea. Bombay is a thriving megacity that has had an economic boom in recent years. It is home to Bollywood and the film "Slumdog Millionaire" was based there. Indeed, property in Mumbai is becoming some of the most expensive in the world. One 28 story structure for one family cost $1 billion. ¹

However, many of the residents of Mumbai live in illegal squatter settlements (known as bustees in India). Despite the poor conditions in the slum Prince Charles thinks that the people of Dharavi " may be poorer in material wealth but are richer socially". Indeed, in terms of population size Mumbai is India's largest city, and is the financial capital of the country, being home to the Mumbai Stock Exchange.

Up until the 1980s, Mumbai owed its wealth to its historical colonial past, textile mills and the seaport, but the local economy has since been diversified and now Mumbai is home to most of India's specialised technical industries, having a modern industrial infrastructure and vast, skilled human resources. Industries include aerospace, optical engineering, medical research, computers and electronic equipment of all varieties, shipbuilding and salvaging, and renewable energy. ¹

Mumbai serves as an important economic hub of India, it accounts for 25% industrial output, 5% of India's GDP and also 70% of the capital transactions in the Indian economy. ² Many of India's numerous Trans National Corporations (including the State Bank of India, Tata Group, Godrej and Reliance) are based in Mumbai. Other formalized workers include many state and government workers. Alongside this incredible wealth is a large unskilled and informal workforce, who work as self-employed and often unregulated workers. Many of these people earn their living as street hawkers, street sellers, taxi drivers, mechanics and other such occupations. Bollywood and other Media Industries also employ huge numbers of people. Most of India's major television and satellite networks, as well as its major publishing houses, have headquarters here. The centre of the Hindi movie industry, Bollywood, produces the largest number of films per year in the world.

Mumbai has urbanised over the past 60 years and urbanized rapidly from its origins as a fishing village. The site of the fishing village soon became a port region as the site favoured development. Protected from the Arabian Sea by a peninsular art the southern end of Salsette Island, it had access to sea on two sides and the British colonial administration in India developed the sheltered inlet into a major port. The British viewed the port and surroundings as the "Gateway to India". ³ This made it the closest port of entry to subcontinent for travellers from Europe, through the Suez Canal.

As with many major global ports area around the port became industrialised - processing goods for export and handling imports. The city grew during British rule as variety of services grew up around the port and continued to grow after British left in 1947. Since 1971, the graph shows the inexorable rise in the population of Mumbai, from 8 million in 1971 to 21 million now.

The other significant factor to note is that slum dwellers make up an ever-increasing proportion of the population, creating numerous problems for people and planners. It should be noted that the original urbanisation phase of Mumbai focussed upon the southern tip of Salsette Island, and outside of this the city suburbanised in a Northern direction.

The causes of urbanisation are multiple but involve a high level of natural increase within Mumbai itself and in-migration principally from the surrounding district of Maharashtra but also from neighbouring states. Mumbai booming economy means that migrants come for job opportunities in the expanding industries, financial institutions and administration.

Mumbai has grown in a Northern direction limited by physical Geography as shown in the image below.

It is limited in where it can grow with creek systems to the North and East, the Arabian Sea to the West and its harbour to the south East. Mangrove swamps further complicate the picture, and these marginal lands often form the location for the poorest people who live illegally in slums. One such slum is Dharavi, in the heart of Mumbai.

The following notes are based upon Kevin McCloud's "Slumming it." ⁴ and show the consequences of rapid urbanisation in poorer countries, where the pace of urbanisation make it difficult to maintain services essential for an acceptable standard of living.

Dharavi slum is located in Mumbai (formally Bombay) in India. India's and Mumbai's biggest slum is known as Dharavi. There are a million people crammed into one square mile in Dharavi. At the edge of Dharavi the newest arrivals come to make their homes on waste land next to water pipes in slum areas. They set up home illegally amongst waste on land that is not suitable for habitation. In the wet monsoon season these people have huge problems living on this low-lying marginal land. Many of the people here come from many parts of India as a result of the push and pull factors of migration. Conditions in the slum In the slum people have to live with many problems. People have to go to the toilet in the street and there are open sewers. Children play amongst sewage waste and doctors deal with 4,000 cases a day of diphtheria and typhoid. Next to the open sewers are water pipes, which can crack and take in sewage. Dharavi slum is based around this water pipe built on an old rubbish tip. The people have not planned this settlement and have no legal rights to the land. There are also toxic wastes in the slum including hugely dangerous heavy metals.

Dharavi is made up of 12 different neighbourhoods and there are no maps or road signs. The further you walk into Dharavi from the edge the more permanent and solid the structures become. People live in very small dwellings (e.g. 12X12ft), often with many members of their extended families. Many architects and planners claim this slum could hold the solution to many of the problems of the world's largest cities. Water is a big problem for Mumbai's population; standpipes come on at 5:30am for 2 hours as water is rationed. These standpipes are shared between many people. Rubbish is everywhere and most areas lack sanitation and excrement and rats are found on the street. 500 people share one public latrine. The famous cloth washing area also has problems, despite its social nature sewage water filters into the water used for washing clothes.

There are positives; informal shopping areas exist where it is possible to buy anything you might need. There are also mosques catering for people's religious needs. There is a pottery area of Dharavi slum which has a community centre. It was established by potters from Gujarat 70 years ago and has grown into a settlement of over 10,000 people. It has a village feel despite its high population density and has a central social square. Family life dominates, and there can be as many as 5 people per room. The houses often have no windows, asbestos roofs (which are dangerous if broken) and no planning to fit fire regulations. Rooms within houses have multiple functions, including living, working and sleeping. Many daily chores are done in social spheres because people live close to one another. This helps to generate a sense of community. The buildings in this part of the slum are all of different heights and colours, adding interest and diversity. This is despite the enormous environmental problems with air and land pollution. 85% of people have a job in the slum and work LOCALLY, and some have even managed to become millionaires. Recycling and waste in Dharavi Kevin McCloud found that people seemed genuinely happy in the slum.

However, toilets are open holes above a river - hardly hygienic. This could lead to Dengue fever, cholera and hepatitis Dharavi has a recycling zone. It is claimed that Dharavi's recycling zone could be the way forward to a sustainable future. Everything is recycled from cosmetics and plastics to computer keyboards. 23% of plastic waste gets recycled in the UK, in Mumbai it is 80%. However, it is humans who work to sift the rubbish in the tips where children and women sift through the rubbish for valuable waste. They have to work under the hot sun in appalling conditions. They earn around a £1 a day for their work. At the edge of the tip the rag dealers sort their haul before selling it on to dealers. The quandary is that people have to work in poor conditions to recycle waste. From the tip it arrives in Dharavi where it is processed. It is sorted into wire, electrical products, and plastics. Plastics in India are continuously recycled. People work in dangerous conditions with toxic substances without protective clothing; this could affect people's life expectancy. Even dangerous hospital waste is recycled. One private enterprise makes the metal cages inside suitcases, making 700 pieces per day, paid 3 rupees per piece. There are 15,000 one room factories in Dharavi which there are 300 feeding most of Mumbai. Many of the products from Dharavi end up around the world based upon very cheap labour. Many of the people work in very poor working conditions, and includes children. Indeed, Dharavi is trying to do in 20 years what the west did in 200, develop. Managing and improving Squatter settlements.

Large scale redevelopment - urban RESURGENCE?

A $2billion development project threatens the recycling district and part of Dharavi. The land upon which Dharavi is built is next to Mumbai's financial district. This makes it a prime target for redevelopment. The people who are relocated will be put into smaller housing in apartment blocks. An ancient fishing village is also threatened. These areas have strong safe neighbourhoods that have low crime and communal areas. Also at risk are the local shops and markets and the community spirit which has taken generations to develop. The locals would prefer small improvements to the existing slum such as improvements in drainage. The value of land is so high that redevelopment is now a real threat. The alternative accommodation is very small. The slum dwellers face 14 story apartments as accommodation as proposed by the cities Slum Rehabilitation Authority. This will separate communities and make people work away from where they live. Only people who have lived in the slum since 2000 will be relocated. Current redevelopment projects are densely populated and house lots of people. They are not good for community cohesion. Indeed, the planned redevelopment is part of the Maharashtra state governments plan for Dharavi. The architect employed to put together a $2 billion bid from major developers across the world to demolish Dharavi and build homes and amenities, Mukesh Mehta, has said 'Dharavi is a black hole - something we should be ashamed of. My vision would be that it would be transformed into one of the better suburbs of Mumbai.' The residents do not want this redevelopment, Arputham Jockin grew up in Mumbai's slums and now represents the slum dwellers in their fight against the government's plans. ' Selling this land to the global market and giving it over for commercial use - how will that improve our lives? 90% of the people here want a stake in their future and a say in how it is transformed. It has to work from the bottom up - not top down.' he says. In 2018 a new plan was announced for the wholesale redevelopment of Dharavi. ⁵

There is an alternative to large scale redevelopment and that is to allow LOCAL people design the improvements to the slum. The Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres, better known as SPARC, this is an NGO that supports the efforts of local people to get better housing for their many members. Ideas generated from local people supported by this charity include adding an extra floor to buildings so that all family members can be accommodated in the same building. These flats also had 14-foot high ceilings and a single tall window so are well ventilated, bright, and less dependent on electric fans for cooling. Their loft spaces add extra room without seeming crowded and include small spaces for bathing. But toilets are placed at the end of each of the building's four floors and kept clean by the two or three families who use each one. These ideas only work when water is running in Dharavi. Architecture students have also been hard at work. One student has created a multi-storey building with wide outer corridors connected by ramps "space ways in the sky," to replicate the street. These space ways allow various activities to be linked, such as garment workshops, while maintaining a secluded living space on another. Communal open space on various levels allows women to preserve an afternoon tradition, getting together to do embroidering. One student also tried to help the potters of Dharavi. He designed into existing houses the living space at one end and a place to make the pots at the other. Each has an additional open terrace on which to make pots, which are fired in a community kiln. As the National Slum Dwellers Federation has repeatedly proven, housing the poor works best, costs less and is better for the environment, when the poor themselves have a say in what is being built. Dharavi could also follow the Brazilian model, as evidenced in Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro. Within the Favelas the government has assisted people in improving their homes. Breeze blocks and other materials (pipes for plumbing etc) were given as long as people updated their homes. This is an approach known as SITE and SERVICE. The Brazilian government also moved a lot of people out of shanty towns and into low cost, basic housing estates with plumbing, electricity and transport links. The waiting list for these properties was huge.

Suburbanisation in Mumbai

Mumbai now has a long history of suburbanisation, and many key events have occurred in the suburbanisation process, initially in a Northwards direction along major transport routes such as roads and rail links, and now in an Eastward direction. This suburbanisation has involved not just the growth of residential areas but also the relocation and growth of new industrial areas.

1930s to 1940s - The rise of Shivaji Park area, Matunga and Mahim as the outlying suburbs

1960s (post independence) - Inner suburbs in southern Salsette and Chembur-Trombay had emerged

1970s - Assimilation of the `extended suburbs' beyond Vile-Parle and Ghatkopar.

As with other major cities, other towns and villages have been swallowed up by Mumbai in the process of suburbanisation. In the last decade, Thane, Vashi and Belapur have become extended suburbs despite being planned as individual towns. All of these developments are summarised in the map.

The northwards movement along rail and road corridors comes first. Next, the areas around these communication links are developed. Third, these areas extend outwards and can involve reclaiming land next to creeks and mangrove, and slopes in the hills of Salsette can be colonised too. The major railway stations have areas around them that have become shopping fronts. The reclaimed areas house the wealthier middle and upper classes, but poorer people will build huts in and amongst these areas and full shanties can grow on the poorest quality land.

This suburbanisation has had consequences;

1. People are economically stratified into those that can afford better housing and those that cannot, rather than historical caste, religious or linguistic stratifications

2. Less than a third of the population of Mumbai lives in the `island' city.

3. The centre of density of population has shifted from the island city well into suburban Salsette.

4. The commuter traffic has changed. Rather than being just one way into the Central Business District (CBD) in the south of the city in the mornings there is an increasing movement of people in the opposite direction. Increasing industrialisation of the suburbs is increasing this movement.

The map below shows that some of the population of Mumbai is also counterurbanising, with a decline in population over a 20 year period within the original heart of the city in Mumbai district. The largest growth is in those districts directly to the East of Salsette Island, and even districts 50 or more kilometres from Mumbai are growing. One such phenomenon fuelling this growth is that of planned towns (new towns in the UK. Navi Mumbai is a planned township directly to the East of Mumbai and was designated in 1972. It is the largest new town in the world. The town was developed to reduce congestion and population densities in Mumbai, which itself was restricted by its physical geography. The new town now has a population of 1,111,000 people, is linked to Mumbai by road and rail bridges and an international airport. It also has an extensive bus network, an international airport and many IT and software firms in areas such as the International Infotech Park at Vashi and the New Millennium City near Mahape.

1 - Encyclopedia.com - Mumbai accessed 25th February 2020 from https://www.encyclopedia.com/places/asia/indian-political-geography/mumbai

2 - Mumbai.org, Commercial Capital Mumbai, accessed 25th February 2020 from https://www.mumbai.org.uk/commercial-capital-mumbai.html

3 - The British Library (no date) Bombay: History of a City - accessed 25th February 2020 from https://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/trading/bombay/history.html

4 - Kevin McCloud & Helen Simpson (2011) - Kevin McCloud : slumming it. Roadshow Entertainment, ©2011.

5 - Sujit Mahamulkar (2018) Dharavi to be redeveloped, The Times of India - accessed 25th February 2020 from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/66253470.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst oon

Posted by Rob Gamesby April 2020

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A page of resources to help study the Contemporary Urban Environments unit from AQA

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Geofile: Mumbai - Case study of a megacity

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Geofile: Mumbai - Case study of a megacity

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This optional section of our specification focuses on urban growth and change which are seemingly ubiquitous processes and present significant environmental and social challenges for human populations. The section examines these processes and challenges and the is…

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AQA Geography A-level: Contemporary Urban Environments Revision - PMT

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Summary notes, articles and past exam questions for AQA Geography AS and A-Level Contemporary Urban Environments topic