6.2.+Urbanisation+and+mega-cities

2. What affects the rate of urbanisation and the emergence of mega-cities?
In the previous section, we looked briefly at a range of reasons to why it happens. Businesses settle in cities because the infrastructure of transport, services, labour and so on while people go there for improved job prospects, better schools and health facilities etc. We have got an idea of why, but have yet to tackle what affects how fast it happens. Only 20 years ago there were only 171 but now there in excess of 400. Each dot represents one million city in 2006.

===Or do follow this link to see what 2025 may look like.===

Where has urbanisation being increasing the fastest?
First take a look at the map above – where is there the most red? So there is a concentration in China and another across the Indian sub-continent – and surprisingly another in Germany – so that it where most of them are now, but are all these areas increasing in the number they are getting? Take a look at the graph on the left – I know the x-scale is not regular – the graph would not let me do that, but you can see the drift. Note this is a bit of an odd graph the pink numbers on the right refer to the ** world total line ** and the violet numbers on the right refer to the ** continent bars. ** The lilac in Europe is increasing, but taking a look at the yellow for Asia!

To find GDP per capita you need to take the total income generated by a country, area or district – this is the **G**ross **D**omestic **P**roduct. You then divide the GDP by the population to get the income per person – ‘per capita’ means for each head.) Now in general I hope you can see that the poorer the country is, the faster its cities are growing, and that for the richest countries, the growth is virtually non-existent. The latter idea ties in with the counter-urbanisation we discussed in the last section. Here is another graph pattern: We know that one of the pulls towards the city is the possibility of a higher income. What this shows is that where the city’s income is much more than there surrounding country, then the population of the city increases faster.

For example, where the average income in the city and the surrounding country is about the same, the city will not grow very much at all or might even decline – counter-urbanisation again. But if the city income is twice that of the surrounding country ( as in LICs and MICs) then the city’s population increases much more. This gives you a few extra ideas about why the cities that are growing fastest are doing so.

How many are in HICs? Which are the largest 3 mega-cities? Which continent has the most|?
 * __ Mega-cities – cities with 10 million population or more __**

Why are they occurring now? Only 60 years ago there were only 3. Rapidly increasing population, mechanisation of agriculture, industry moving from HICs to MICs and LICs etc. You have enough to cover this topic. However, I did find a brilliant document put out by the German Central bank of all people, from which a number of these graphs were obtained (Thanks guys!). I have attached it here together with a summary of some of their finding on the whys and wherefores of mega-cites. Feel free to explore!


 * __ What is a primate city? __**

A primate city is one that has much more than twice the population of the next biggest city. An example is Lima (Peru) that is more than ten times larger than the next settlement or Mexico City in Mexico. The presence of a primate city in a country may indicate an imbalance in development — usually a progressive core, and a lagging periphery, on which the primate city depends for labour and other resources. What this means is that while the primate city can develop, the rest of the country has a hard time keeping up, because all the jobs and investment and services are concentrated there


 * Although all areas have banks, 80% of the lending goes on in Bangkok, nearly x6 the rest.
 * All the main government departments are there and this means that Bangkok’s needs are met first, often at the expense of the other areas.
 * Over ¾ of the best universities are in Bangkok, and with many of the best schools there too, with 50% of the scholarships to university going to people from Bangkok, x 3½ what you would expect
 * Income difference: Bangkok residents earn from x 2 to x 7 as much as the other regions.
 * Access to health care: 60% of the doctors and 50% of nurses work in the city
 * Households with running water: 80% against 10% outside the city.


 * Increase the number of universities in the provinces
 * Job creation in rural areas
 * Improved basic health care schemes for all

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