Good Learning Co.
SavannahYear 8
← Geography
GeographyThe urban and economic world25 min★★★ difficulty

Life in a fast-growing city: opportunities and challenges

Squatter settlements are usually shown as a problem. They are also, viewed honestly, the fastest self-built housing solution on the planet. Both statements are true, and the geography sits in between.

Part of your national curriculum
  • Place knowledge: Understand geographical similarities, differences and links between places through the study of human and physical geography of a region in Africa and a region in Asia
  • Human and physical geography: Understand urbanisation, including the causes and geographical effects, at country and city scale, of urbanisation and megacities
  • Place knowledge: Understand the physical and human characteristics of an area of the UK and a wider region of the world beyond Europe

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Evaluate the opportunities and challenges of rapid urban growth in an NEE.

Key learning points

  • • Opportunities
  • • Challenges: housing and services
  • • Challenges: work, traffic and environment
  • • Urban planning that works

This lesson at a glance

  • 25 minutes
  • 17 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • Marked quiz at the end
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

opportunitieschallengesgrowthhousingservices

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 17 · Discover6%
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Watch & discover

Part 1 of 17

Watch first

Life in a fast-growing city: opportunities and challenges

An English teaching video on this topic from Mr B. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Evaluate the opportunities and challenges of rapid urban growth in an NEE.

2

Learning cycle

Part 2 of 17

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 · Opportunities

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

3

Explore the idea

Part 3 of 17

Learn

Opportunities

Rapid growth concentrates labour and customers, so businesses cluster and productivity rises. Cities are cheaper to supply with piped water, electricity, schools and clinics per person than scattered villages. Access to secondary education and healthcare is usually far better than in rural areas, and remittances sent home spread the benefit beyond the city.

4

Explore the idea

Part 4 of 17

Learn

Challenges: housing and services

Growth outpaces planning, so informal settlements appear on the cheapest, most hazardous land: steep slopes prone to landslides, floodplains and land beside railways or tips. Housing is self-built from salvaged material, often without secure tenure. Water may come from standpipes or vendors at a higher price per litre than piped supply, and sanitation is shared or absent, so waterborne disease spreads.

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Quick check

Part 5 of 17

Quick check

Informal settlements often occupy hazardous land because

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Quick check

Part 6 of 17

Quick check

A strength of informal employment is that it

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Learning cycle

Part 7 of 17

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 · Challenges: work, traffic and environment

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

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Reset break

Part 8 of 17

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
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Explore the idea

Part 9 of 17

Learn

Challenges: work, traffic and environment

Much employment is informal: street trading, waste picking, repair work. It is flexible and real but untaxed, unprotected and insecure. Traffic congestion wastes hours and worsens air pollution from vehicles and industry. Waste collection cannot keep pace, so tips grow and rivers carry plastic and sewage. Air quality and water quality become the two clearest health measures of a city under strain.

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Explore the idea

Part 10 of 17

Learn

Urban planning that works

The most successful schemes work with residents rather than clearing them. Site-and-service gives a plot with water, sanitation and electricity so families build incrementally. Slum upgrading legalises tenure, paves alleys and adds drainage and lighting. Community-run water kiosks and micro-finance let residents invest. Bus rapid transit gives dedicated lanes at a fraction of the cost of a metro. The common thread is affordability and local involvement, which is what makes a scheme sustainable.

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Quick check

Part 11 of 17

Quick check

Bus rapid transit is often chosen over a metro because

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Quick check

Part 12 of 17

Quick check

What makes slum upgrading sustainable?

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Explore the idea

Part 13 of 17

Worked example

Worked answer: explain why site-and-service schemes are often more successful than clearing informal settlements (6 marks)

Residents receive a plot with water, sanitation and power and secure legal tenure, so they are willing to invest their own money and labour in improving the structure over years (2). Because building is incremental, the initial cost to the city is low and far more families can be housed with the same budget than by constructing finished apartments (2). People also remain near the informal work and support networks they depend on, so they do not abandon the new housing and return to a central settlement, which is the usual failure of clearance and relocation (2).

14

Challenge round

Part 14 of 17

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

15

Challenge round

Part 15 of 17

Game · Fill the gaps

Finish the sentences

Choose the word that belongs in each gap.

Rapid ____ concentrates labour and customers, so businesses cluster and productivity rises.

____ is self-built from salvaged material, often without secure tenure.

16

Mastery quiz

Part 16 of 17

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: Life in a fast-growing city: opportunities and challenges

4 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

  1. 1. Informal settlements often occupy hazardous land because

  2. 2. A strength of informal employment is that it

  3. 3. Bus rapid transit is often chosen over a metro because

  4. 4. What makes slum upgrading sustainable?

17

Lesson round-up

Part 17 of 17

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Case study

Flooding on the River Calder

The town of Harbrook sits where a steep valley opens onto a flat floodplain. In December 2015, 120 mm of rain fell in 36 hours onto ground that was already saturated. The river rose 2.4 m in five hours, and 380 homes and 54 businesses flooded. Two roads and the railway closed for eleven days.

Geographers pointed to physical causes — steep slopes, impermeable rock, heavy rainfall — and human causes: moorland drained upstream, new housing built on the floodplain, and drains designed for smaller storms.

Since then the town has planted 40 hectares of woodland upstream, built leaky dams in small streams, and raised flood walls to 1.8 m. In the storm of 2020 the peak river level was 0.3 m lower and 40 homes flooded, not 380.

Written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. List two physical and two human causes of the 2015 flood.
  2. Explain how planting woodland upstream lowers the river's peak level.
  3. Using the figures, judge how successful the scheme has been. Quote data in your answer.

  • Case study notes

    Writing

    Write the place, the facts and the figures from this lesson so you can revise them later.

    Half a page

  • Explain answer

    Writing

    Answer in full sentences, giving causes and effects. Use one figure or place name as evidence.

    8–10 sentences

  • Map or sketch

    Diagram

    Draw the map, cross-section or field sketch with a key, title and labels, then photograph it.

    1 map with a key

  • Data work

    Working out

    Plot your figures as a graph on paper and write one sentence about the pattern.

    1 graph + 1 sentence

Saved as you type.

Part 1 of 17 · Watch & discover

How this is going

  • Not looked at yet

    Understand geographical similarities, differences and links between places through the study of human and physical geography of a region in Africa and a region in Asia

  • Not looked at yet

    Understand urbanisation, including the causes and geographical effects, at country and city scale, of urbanisation and megacities

  • Not looked at yet

    Understand the physical and human characteristics of an area of the UK and a wider region of the world beyond Europe

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