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Tokyo is a megacity.

Urban Change: Opportunities and Challenges

Cities are always changing. This quiz explores how urban areas create jobs and services, but also face challenges like inequality, congestion, and environmental problems.

Explore the Topic →

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Fascinating Fact:

Regeneration of inner city brownfield sites can provide new housing, leisure facilities, and public spaces, improving the urban environment.

In GCSE Geography, urban change is studied through the opportunities and challenges it creates. You learn how population growth, migration, and economic shifts affect housing, transport, employment, and the quality of life in different parts of a city, and how planning and regeneration try to make urban areas more sustainable.

Key Terms

Urbanisation: The increase in the proportion of people living in towns and cities rather than rural areas.
Brownfield site: Land that has been built on before, often in inner city areas, and may be reused or redeveloped.
Regeneration: The improvement of an area by investing in new housing, services, and environmental quality.

Frequently Asked Questions (Click to see answers)

What is urban change in GCSE Geography?

Urban change in GCSE Geography means how cities develop over time, including changes in population, land use, economic activities, and the quality of the urban environment.

What opportunities can urban change create in cities?

Urban change can create new jobs, better transport links, improved housing, cultural diversity, and more services such as shops, schools, and leisure facilities in regenerated areas.

What challenges are caused by urban change?

Challenges include traffic congestion, air and noise pollution, pressure on housing and services, urban deprivation, and growing gaps between rich and poor neighbourhoods.

Try These Related Quizzes

1 .

Which of the following does not give local authorities an opportunity to reduce the carbon footprint of their town or city?

Housing creation

Running buses on biodiesel

Congestion charging

Building new shopping centres on the edge of the city

New houses or renovated older houses can be built to be more energy efficient. Biodiesel can reduce CO₂ emissions by more than 10%. Congestion charging encourages people to use public transport instead of driving into the city. Building new shopping centres on the edge of an urban area can increase car use

2 .

Traffic congestion, industrial decline and housing shortages are issues in MEDCs and LEDCs. Why has this become worse since the end of the Second World War?

Population growth

Lots of people were killed in the war

Pollution from factories has ruined the countryside

More people have cars

Improved healthcare has reduced infant mortality and extended life expectancy

3 .

In which of the following countries would you be least likely to see a shanty town development?

Germany

Bangladesh

Brazil

Senegal

Shanty towns are features of many cities in LEDCs and NICs because rural to urban migration is very high

4 .

Why is building affordable homes in cities difficult?

Brownfield sites are available but need to be cleared of old buildings and pollution

Land values are high

It is rare to find large plots of land for building within an urban area

All of the above

These factors make housing development an expensive business and migrants arriving in the city may not be able to afford somewhere to live

5 .

Which of the following is not a city-centre traffic management scheme for urban areas in MEDCs?

Building shopping centres in the CBD

Park and ride schemes

Congestion charging

Bus lanes

Bus lanes can also be used by taxis and cyclists which encourages people to leave their cars at home and travel into the city centre using other means of transport

6 .

Which of the following is NOT a cause of traffic congestion in a MEDC city?

Poor public transport links

City centres often developed before motor vehicles

Out of town industrial estates and shopping centres

Greater car ownership

Traffic congestion increases pollution, increases the carbon footprint of a city, costs extra money for motorists stuck in traffic and wastes a lot of time. Many cities in both MEDCs and LEDCs are introducing traffic management schemes

7 .

Which of the following is NOT a reason for rural to urban migration?

Poverty

Wanting a better standard of living

A need for cleaner air

Political disturbances and armed conflict

Poverty, political disturbance and armed conflict are all push factors, a better standard of living is a pull factor. Other factors include climate change making subsistence farming even less productive or even a natural disaster

8 .

A megacity is an urban area with a population of over ten million people. Which of the following statements about megacities is NOT true?

Housing is more readily available in LEDC megacities than MEDC megacities

When compared to an MEDC megacity, the layout of LEDC megacities is usually more irregular

Ensuring safe, clean water supplies is a problem that is faced by all megacities

Disposal of waste from any megacity requires careful organisation

Other issues that all megacities have in common are food and energy supplies and traffic congestion

9 .

Which of the following statements is correct?

Urban populations have grown more in MEDCs than LEDCs since 1950

Urban populations have grown more in LEDCs than MEDCs since 1950

Climate change means that people prefer to live in cities as they have a better climate than rural areas

All of the above

Since 1950, the urban population in LEDCs has increased by a factor of about 5. Taken over the same time period, the urban population in MEDCs has only increased by a factor of two i.e. it has doubled

10 .

Which of the following is one way that MEDCs deal with housing shortages in their cities?

They send people back to their original homes

They renovate old housing stock to provide affordable homes

They knock down old houses and make people live in shanty towns to save money

They give free houses to people moving to the city from the country

Rural to urban migration is much less in MEDCs

You can find more about this topic by visiting BBC Bitesize - Urban issues and challenges

Author: Kev Woodward (PGCE, Science & Chemistry Teacher, Quiz Writer)