RURAL - URBAN INTERRELATIONSHIPS
This examination can be divided into 3 sections ...urban ... rural ...and how they interact
The process of urbanisation is dynamic and varied:-
This includes the location and distribution of world's urban areas, the explosion of megacities in LEDC's Changing distribution over the past half century.
The reasons for and factors affecting urbanisation as a process from pre-industrial cities to post-industrial cities
Global variations for the rate and characteristics of pressent day urbanisation eg = sub-urbanisation,counter-urbanisation in UK ., the expansion of Mediterranean cities and rapid growth in African cities.
The economic and political processes in the management of urban areas.
Examine the problems of large urban areas including housing,transport, emplyment
e.g. managing Bangkok's traffic problems ,
www.bangkokbob.net/transport.htm
http://www.thailandoutlook.com/thailandoutlook1/about+thailand/transport/
Indonesia's KIP (Kampung Improvement Programme)
http://www.worldbank.org/urban/upgrading/kampung.html
e.g-ranchos and rehousing in Caracas,
self-help schemes in Brazil,
http://www.geography.learnontheinternet.co.uk/topics/urbanproblsledcs.html
Cairo's site and sevice schemes
Urbanisation=
either ...the process by which there is an increase in the number of people living in urban areas or ...the increase in the land area occupied by towns and cities (first is more useful) , often given as a % total pop. as this can then be related to other countries
Terminology - pop. size, pop density, Function, Level of administration (local council, rural/urban district council), teleological reasoning,counterurbanisation, urbanisation, proto-industrialisation, pre-industrialisation, post-industrialisation, shanty towns, slums
UN classifies settlements by size not rural or urban...most of the large urban growth has been seen over the last 50 years, but their world distribution has changed from mainly MEDC's to LEDC's in recent years
recently there has been the emergence of Megacities (over 5 million) mainly in MEDC's and are still dominant ,but new breed of mega-city in LEDC's.
urbanisation as a process
How urban and rural pop's have changed in past ,changing today, and in the future.
At the demographic level urbanisation involves 2 processes - natural increase (often higher than in rural areas, as lower age profiles) and migration (forced but often voluntary, and mainly younger people with a dominance of males, with work in the 'informal sectors') Rural-urban migration has been the driving force in the development of cities through both push and pull factors.
comparing N. an S. America and development of cities =
North USA had small-scale homesteads, no real wealth, people working independently with an emerging middle-class: democratic. Towns and cities grow as market centres and points where local develops to serve wide market area.
South USA had a plantation system exporting cotton mainly to UK, dominant elite ruing class with slave labour, all luxury goods imported paid for by cotton exports (although no value added... typical of a supply region where only a few ports developed)
Pre-industrial cities from centripetal forces, for raw materials manufacturing, administration,
eg's Pre-industial city =studied Potosi (Bolivia), Industrialisation in UK (including Location quotients), A post modern city =Las Vegas.
Globalisation Global variations - In 2004 point reached where more than half of the world's population lived in urban environments a rapid change from 1950 when ther were only 86 millionaire cities until 2015 there will be more than 550. There ae more people alive today and living in citgies than have ever lived in the whole of earth's past.
Jane Javobs identifies 5 main forces by which cities affect their regions.... power of city markets, power of city jobs, power of city technology, power of city work transplanted out of cities, power of city capital ... the most successful cities are those that import-replace..replacing with their own what used to be imported
Saskia Sassen developed the idea of the 'global city' eg New York, Tokyo and London, with sub-ordinate role in the hierarchy, like Miami which has become an important centre for TNC with links to the Caribbean and S. America. These gobal cities have combinationsof a major manufacturing city, a major trading centre, a financial capital, a centre of government, or a world cultural capital. These mega cities have pockets of all types of cities even sweatshops more common in LEDC's. Those cities with a gateway function like a port, develop the fastest
Many LEDC cities have moved through 4 phases 1. pre-colonial, 2. colonial, 3. post-colonial, 4. global-phase (the recent)
Case study of LEDC city = Mumbai
Types of city in the modern world
Old industrial, 'Born-again' industrial, post-industrial, Golbal cities, NIC cities and city states, gateway cities in LEDC's
The management of cities ...
Best seen in the Uk over the last 200 years.. from Public Health Act of 1848 follwed by the Central Board of Health, Corporate Boroughs assuming responsiblitiy for drainage , water supplies and removal of 'nuicances' from the pavement,, establishment of rates to pay for improvements, loca Boards of Health in areas of high death rate. see Birmingham in the 1860 or Mumbai
In most rural areas agriculture remains the dominant landuse
Terminology - Agribusiness, Commercial farming, Subsitence farming (used to be thought inefficient but now considered to be small scale but efficient), shifting cultivation, cash crop,collective farming ,internsive/extensive farming
Requires a classification and description of agricultural systems at a global scale categories....
comercial/subsistence,agriculture,intensive/extensive agriculture,arable /pastoral ,agriculture
eg shifting cultivation and deforestation wet-rice agriculture and the Green Revolution, cattle ranching on the high plains USA, wheat production in the UK,
Agribusiness - see Cargill corporation based in Minnesota..motto 'Nourishing Ideas, Nourishing People', Agricultural efficiency, sustainable agriculture, systems = inputs-throughputs-outputs
The physical constraints of agricultural systems = solar radiation, temperature, thermal growing season, precipitation, relief aspect, gradient, soil,aspect, altitude and wind
Temperature= plant development depends on this. (remember thermal growing season, degree days, plants need above 6 degrees centigrade.)
Water availability =precipitation, groundwater, irrigation
Evapotranspiration = monthly precipitation, min /max temp., relative humidity, sunshine hours per day, wind speed.
Soils = fertility and water retentiveness, classified by FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation), plus soil texture (in tern affected by climate, bedrock, vegetation, etc.)
Slope and Terrain = will impact on soils, sunshine ,etc.
Human impact of irrigation, genetic engineering, global digital imaging systems, fertilizers,pesticides, contour ploughing, etc.
The Agro-ecological Zone (AEZ) approach takes a hypothetical farmer who has the task of judging the suitablity of a particular area for growing a range of crops.The details of the crop requirements are fed into the equation (or algorithm)and then it generates recommendations for the best crop or crops for a particular area. Very suitable = 60-80%, moderately suitable= 40-60%, marginally suitable= 20-40%, not suitable= 0-20%.... but does not factor in human preferences or behaviour.
Human Characteristics = land tenure, accessiblity, inheritance laws, competition, markets(don't forget effect of Mc Donalds effect on Brazilian landscape) and government
FARM STUDIES = Thornham Estate, (including social, economic and political factors affecting farm in the implications for the present and the mid to long term.)
Von Thunen's locational (economic) rent, applied to Uruguay and Sydney
The Globalisation of food production and the politics of that global production. e.g. agribusiness, green revolution, TNC's(Nestle's, Fyffs, Cargills, using plantation agriculture, coffee, tea, bananas).These developments have been caused by improvements in the technology of transporting perishable food, reduction in transport costs, promotion of new products by large retailers and giant food companie, standardaisation of food production techniques, reductions in tarriffs and other barriers to trade.
The world has three types of consumers...the overconsumers.=..MEDC's 1.3 billion, the Sustainers = developing world 3.5 billion, excluded = many in LEDC's 1.3 billion.
Forces driving globalisation not only agriculture/food production but also = variety of products in MEDC's, cheaper food in MEDC's, increasing areas devoted to growth of exports in LEDC's, increasing control of food productions by giant food companies,increasing links between agribusiness and major retailers,together with the increasing interdependence of MEDC's(tertiary consumers) on LEDC's(primary producers), rural poverty, urban malnourishment in LEDC, as food diverted to exports, and lastly to changes in consumer tastes in LEDC's
http://www.http://www.cargillsceylon.com/flash.htm
THERE IS AN INTERDEPENDENCE BETWEEN URBAN AND RURAL ENVIRONMENTS
The changing resource base of the rural environment especiallyin MEDC's
e.g tourism (National parks,etc) mining/quarrying (Scotland) planning problems (Green belt erosion)
The patterns apparent on the urban/rural fringes in MEDC's (edge cities),and LEDC's ( shanty towns,etc.) together with the processes involved = commuting, suburbanisation of the countryside.
The impact of urban economies on the socio/economic characteristics of rural areas( e.g.dormitory villages) changing character of rural areas through in-migration (second homes) and outmigration (exidous of young to urban areas in search of jobs) plus key settlement policy (movement of many Eastenders post war to Thetford, high tech workers to University towns e.g Cambridge, etc)
SYNOPTIC LINK
The management of waste in cities - problems of water and air quality control e.g Mexico City, Los Angeles, New York and Adis Ababa
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4937&page=39
http://watershed.org/wmc/news/spr_97/rivers_council.html
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/educres.html
The growth of leisure and tourist industry and it's social, cultural impact on rural environments e.g. Snowdonia, Cornwall, Zimbabwe,Kenya
Examination Questions:-
1. (a) Distinguish between arable and pastoral farming. (5)
(b) Examine the view that the physical environment controls the type of farming systems found in a region. (20)
2. (a) Outline the ways in which urban growth can impact on rural communities. (5)
(b) Assess the view that urban growth has a negative impact on rural communities (20)
WHY STUDY THIS UNIT?
It is our perception of rural and urban areas that drives our behaviour and consumption patterns and informs our views of what is or is not 'natural' in a landscape