Challenges of Urban Areas in Developing Countries
Geography: KS3, topic 14.1.9
Challenges of Urban Areas in Developing Countries
As towns and cities are growing so quickly in developing countries, they face a lot of challenges. The challenge is to provide enough services and resources for the large populations.
Squatter settlements and slums
- One of the biggest challenges for urban areas in developing countries is providing enough houses for people to live in.
- The government and building developers cannot build enough houses to keep up with demand, so people end up living in slums and squatter settlements that are not official infrastructure.
- Slums are built from whatever materials can be found and are temporary homes. Living in the slums means that people live closer to where they work and do not have to pay to travel but the electricity and water supply is very inconsistent or non-existent.
Problems providing services
- The rapid population growth of cities means that many governments struggle to provide a reliable and clean water supply in cities.
- Providing electricity to everyone who needs it is hard and so many cities in the developing world face power cuts.
Traffic congestion and pollution
- The increase of people moving to cities brings more cars to the city and contributes to traffic congestion and pollution.
- There are more people in cities who are becoming increasingly wealthy with more disposable income, which increases the number of cars.
- China is now home to 10 out of the 25 most congested cities in the world and is now home to 300 million cars.
Bad working conditions
- One of the challenges in urban areas of developing countries is the poor health and safety conditions of workers and the low pay.
- The large population in cities means that many people are willing to work for low pay because otherwise, the bosses will find someone else.
- Working conditions in factories tend to be very poor.
- For example, in 2013 the Rana Plaza factory collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh and was on the news around the world. Over 1000 people died in a building which was not safe.
Test yourself on Challenges of Urban Areas in Developing Countries
China is now home to 10 out of the 25 most congested cities in the world and is now home to how many cars?