In this lesson, you will learn about the negative effects of urbanization. As you travel through the activities, think about how this topic connects to your town or city. Do you live in an urban area or a rural area? There are many characteristics that set rural areas apart from urban areas. What is the difference between living in the city and living in the country?
Read the characteristics below and determine if they describe urban or rural.
Click on the term and drag it to the correct column.
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Activity:
Answer the following question . Which do you think is better to live in, an urban area or a rural area? Explain your answer by providing at least three examples.
Urbanization has led to greater exchange of ideas, a wider availability of goods and services from a greater number of merchants, crowded living quarters and higher prices for those homes (think New York City and the high rents), to name a few. But those are just economic and cultural effects of growing cities.
There are environmental effects as well. For instance, as people flock to cities more roads are built which increases the percentage of the city covered in concrete rather than grass. This heats up the area causing cities to have higher temperature than the country. This is illustrated in the graph below.
Source: Urban Heat-Island Profile, Texas Education Agency.
Often as coastal areas are built up for tourism or housing, wetlands and other wildlife habitats are lost. In the following map, you can see how the wetlands around San Francisco were lost due to increasing urbanization.
Source: Coastal Wetlands and Sediments of the San Francisco Bay System, U.S. Geological Survey.
About the photos: These images of the extreme South San Francisco Bay are two-color infrared (CIR) aerial photographs taken ten years apart; these photographs are used to examine changes in the water and on land:
- Vegetation appears in various shades of red and pink,
Complete the Venn diagram by dragging each statement into the correct category.
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The Encyclopedia Britannica defines urbanization as the process by which large numbers of people become permanently concentrated in relatively small areas, forming cities. This growth of urban areas can be positive, but urbanization can lead to many problems.
In this section, you will explore the different effects of urbanization.
Click on the different elements of the web below to learn about urbanization and its effect on human interaction.
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Sources for images used in this section, listed clock-wise:
Columbus Fire Department Medic 7, Ibagli, Wikipedia.
South Africa Centurion 58185411, hmvh, Flickr.
Graffiti Pispala, katutaide, Flickr.
Kibera close up, Chrissy Olson, Flickr.
27556659120, tenaciousme, Flickr.
Herald square traffic, Matthias Rhomberg, Flickr.
Debris in the Duke of Northumberland's river, Kendall Bridge, Isleworth, London.
Haze of pollution in Beijing, David Barrie, Flickr.
Delhi Bus Crowded, Wikitravel.
Dhaka streets (Bangladesh), Ahron de Leeuw, Flickr.
Calgary NW Landfill3, D'Arcy Norman, Flickr.
