Mega Cities comparative online case study

Introduction

Mega cities are very large agglomerations of at least 8 million inhabitants; the UN lists 22 mega cities of the developing world circa 2000: Mexico City, Lima, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Lagos, Cairo, Istanbul, Tehran, Karachi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Calcutta, Bangkok, Dhaka, Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing, Seoul, Metro Manilla, Jakarta. 

What students learn about when addressing Mega cities?

• The nature, character and spatial distribution of mega cities in the developing world.
• The challenges of living in mega cities such as housing, traffic infrastructure, water and power supplies, sanitation services, employment, and other social and health issues.The responses to these challenges such as self-help projects, community self-government, cooperation from NGOs, urban protest and the operations of informal economies.
• The responses to these challenges such as self-help projects, community self-government, cooperation from NGOs, urban protest and the operations of informal economies.

Tasks

Mumbai case study

 

Mumbai, the largest city in India, is situated on a long, thin island in a natural harbour on the west coast, in the opening of Thane Creek. The area is heavily urbanised at an average population density of 30,000 people per square kilometre. The city is growing phenomenally – from approximately 3 million in 1951, to 14 million in 2007, to a projected 26 million by 2020.

The growth of Mumbai has brought power and wealth to some people, but not all. It is indeed a city of contrasts. Not everyone has enjoyed its growth and success. Whilst some live in comfortable upper and middle class homes, over a million people live in Dharavi, one of the world’s largest shanty towns.

 

 

 

Mumbai is at the heart of the growing Indian economy. Home to 17 million people it is estimated to receive 600 new migrants a day. It could become the world’s largest city!

Why is Mumbai growing so quickly?

There are factors which pull people into cities. The diagram below illustrates this theory.

The reality of moving to the city often does not meet people’s expectations. Instead of better housing and quality of life they could end of as one of Mumbai’s thousands of slum dwellers.

60% of Mumbai’s population is living in poverty!

 

Mumbai has two main problems: its economic growth has slowed down and its quality of life has deteriorated. However Mumbai has a plan – Vision Mumbai - to tackle these problems and turn the city into a world class location by 2013, with state of the art transport systems and higher quality housing.

 

Challenges of Mumbai

Housing

With a greater metropolitan population of over 19 million people, the 5th largest in the world it is not surprising a lack of housing is a key issue facing Mumbai. What is surprising is that approximately 60% of the population live in slums and thus prior to 2001 had no legal right to where they live; the 2001 Slum Areas Act was designed to partially solve the issue of displacement of slum communities by legalising and thus protecting slums that were built before 1995. However despite the poor living conditions experienced by the majority of the population of Mumbai it is still receiving soaring migration as there are far greater opportunities as compared to rural areas from which most of the migrants come. This pressure upon old slums and the construction of new slums in already crowded areas resulted in the establishment of the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Plan in 1996 to cope with the increase in slum dwelling population in the 15 following years. Integral to the plan were the policies of relaxing zoning to allow increased construction of permanent residencies and allow slum dwellers to choose where to live, amending rent control and decentralisation of services and employment to decrease the reliance on the island peninsula. Other action to resolve Mumbai’s housing crisis came from ‘The Alliance’, a group of three self-help organisations that resettled 60000 squatters who were removed from railway land as they were impeding the provision of public transportation, another key challenge for Mumbai as will be discussed later.

 

Utilities/Power

Mumbai’s vast slum population, a trait that characterises megacities, creates pressure upon the provision of utilities, especially basic provisions such as water and power. This problem partially extends from the governing bodies of megacities to refuse to recognise the extent of illegal housing in their cities which results in insufficient supplies to those areas. Furthermore the lack of supply creates the opportunity for a black market to develop creating illegal connections and using the power or on selling it. This often primitive set up is highly inefficient in its power use which thus reduces the systems reliability; despite these setbacks this informal economy does succeed in increasing the portion of population who have access to electricity. Solutions to the issue of utility provision have largely come from government agencies who implemented time share restrictions in order to reduce demand in peak times; however this solution can only ever be temporary due to the increasing demand. Construction of intercity energy facilities and the importing of energy as well as building the Bhatsa Dam are designed to improve the consistency of service to the city however without substantial infrastructure improvements the city will remain with one third of the city having no access to safe drinking water.

Sanitation

As with the provision of utilities, megacities suffer from lacking basic sanitation infrastructure that, in Mumbai’s case, results in 75% of slum households relying on public toilets and the same portion having no garbage collection system. This obviously results in unhygienic conditions which can cause high infant mortality and drastically lower life expectancy compared with non slum dwellers. The Mumbai Municipal Government as part of their Metropolitan Plan included an infrastructure development plan which would increase the proportion of slum dwellers with access to sanitation services, however the real advances in this area come from the World Bank sponsored Slum Sanitation Project and small non-government organisations that micromanage the issue by providing toilets that rather than being linked to the sewerage system empty into a sanitised pit, once full a second pit is used and over the course of the operation the first pit can be used as clean garden fertiliser. Projects such as these, providing aid organisations can provide sufficient funding allow residents of megacities to access sanitation services without huge scale spending in infrastructure which developing country government’s can rarely afford.

Transport

The challenge of providing adequate transport is particularly relevant to Mumbai, which at 90% usage, has one of the highest rates of public transport use in the world. Overcrowding on the system is rampant with up to 4700 people travelling on a train carriage designed with a capacity of 1700. The effects of this on the city are evident in rail related deaths which was over 3000 in 2004 alone. In addition to this the role of Mumbai City as both an employment and residential area results in a overcrowded rush hour in both directions. The typical Mumbai commute of 4 hours daily is only likely to get worse as increased migration of the rural poor puts further strain on the cheap public transport network and the growing middle class use highways that despite their relatively low importance for Mumbai’s transit are already coming to a standstill during peak periods. The government initiative to respond to this issue comes in the form of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project which involved relocation track side slums which impeded train movements and caused delays, the purchase of 700 new buses, road reparations, the construction of new expressways and the establishment of 3 new railway lines including a separate ‘metro’ style rapid transport system linking the airport with the growing area of Navi Mumbai. To date only the slum relocation aspect of the project has been successfully completed.

Social/Political

Social and Political challenges in Mumbai largely arise from deep seated Sociocultural prejudices as well as large scale misgoverance and corruption. The caste system which is still prevalent in modern India means that many of the migrants from rural areas will struggle to find work in Mumbai and often wind up working in an informal economy picking through and reselling rubbish or similar. Not only marginalised by the private sector these people are often discriminated against by governments who, in an effort to clean up the city’s imagine, improve sanitation services and ban such industries, inadvertently destroying livelihoods without providing other employment. As is prominent across the globe the growing wealth of the middle class creates a large divide between the poor, often illegal slum dwellers and the land owners. These two issues both contribute to making slum inhabitancy an inescapable cycle, combined with the lack of tenure or legitimate residency often means children born in slums will never be able to leave them. Politically corruption is rife and the little accountability officials have results in little being done unless it is of benefit to the middle classes from which these employees come from. The government is obviously badly placed to address these issues so non-government organisations step in to pressure the government to implement and enforce legislation that illegalises workplace discrimination and promote equality, as well educating society in general that discrimination and corruption prohibit the growth of the city and its society.

Case Study 2 Istanbul

Istanbul is the ‘heartbeat of the Turkish spirit’. The stereotypical image of Istanbul conjures up media generated images of harems and sultans, oriental splendour, mystery and intrigue. These inaccurate stereotypes have been replaced by a democratic, secular, rapidly modernising and western-oriented free enterprise city.

 

Istanbul, a dynamic mega city with a population of about 12 million, is Turkey’s largest primate city. As Turkey has a history spanning 3,000 years, its nature and character has changed over time. Robbed of its importance and wealth as the capital of the vast Ottoman Empire it is today reassuming some of its former glory and fast becoming the ‘capital’ of eastern Mediterranean Asia.

 

A primate city outranks all other cities in that country in terms of population, commercial activity and industrial output. Population of major cities in Turkey include: Istanbul 12 million, Ankara 3 million and Izmir 2 million. Because Istanbul is a multi functional city and possesses a diversity of facilities it attracts a disproportionate share of the population and economic growth of Turkey. Istanbul’s increase in wealth has been at the expense of smaller centres in Turkey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Turkey was proclaimed a republic in 1923, the government initiated a process of rapid modernisation, resulting in employment in secondary industry in Istanbul. This led to rural-urban migration as rural Turks ‘pushed’ by poverty were attracted to the ‘pulls’ of the city such as jobs, higher educational facilities, specialist doctors, entertainment and cultural activities. This high rate of urban growth led to:

• • Suburbanisation, as the city now spreads westwards beyond the airport 23km from the CBD, northwards halfway to the Black Sea and eastwards into Anatolia.
• • Pseudo–urbanisation, as infrastructure could not keep pace with increasing population, such as in Beykoz.

 

Istanbul’s character today is not only dependent on its national but also its international hinterland. As Turkey has a strong agricultural base Istanbul is linked to its rich hinterland that provides wool, cotton, wheat, sugar beet, hazelnuts, tobacco, fruit and vegetables for the urban market. It is also a dependent city in the global hierarchy with important links to the rest of the world through trade, migration, currency, stock exchange, tourism, overseas banks, embassies, consulates, television, movies, books, post, telephone, fax, email, ATMs and Internet cafes.

 

 

THE COMPLEX CHARACTER OF ISTANBUL THE MEGA CITY

Istanbul is Turkey’s leading centre of population, commerce, education and culture. It is a dynamic multi functional city with port, CBD, industrial, retail and administrative areas as well as a variety of residential suburbs (old, new, poor, and rich). This residential differentiation is related to the different socio-economic status of inhabitants and is expressed in the size and style of dwellings and grounds in which they are set. Differentiation results in the development of wealthy and poor suburbs. With high population growth and density most people live in high rise apartments with no surrounding grounds. High rates of urbanisation have led to major problems of urban blight, inadequate housing, traffic congestion and inadequate infrastructure, with narrow roads and broken footpaths. Evidence of haphazard urban planning and redevelopment appears piecemeal because of the pattern of ownership of land. The diversity of new and heritage architectural features in Istanbul illustrates a colourful, growing city. From old palaces, mosques, churches, museums and aqueducts, to modern 5 star hotels, apartments, offices, restaurants and suspension bridges, provides the growing tourist industry with an interesting streetscape.

 

 

CHALLENGES TO LIVING IN ISTANBUL

Istanbul today is still wrestling with the divided half Asian and half European identity that has been responsible for the city’s unique character and atmosphere. A booming economy has led to the building of new motorways and bridges and a public transport network revolutionised by the introduction of fast Catamaran sea buses, light railways, and modern trams. As Istanbul moves into the 21st century it is geared for the billion dollar tourist boom with adequate transport, water, sewerage and electricity supplies.

 

A. TRAFFIC INFRASTRUCTURE

Infrastructure referred to as ‘social overhead capital’ includes roads, railways, ports and airports. The existence of an effective transport system aids the movement of people and goods as well as the economic development of Istanbul. The motorised turmoil is most intense around the Galata Bridge during the peak hours, as people move between residence and work.

High rate of urbanisation stimulates demand for improvements in the quantity and quality of traffic infrastructure and when infrastructure is limited, constraints on development occur. Today, Istanbul, the core of economic growth in Turkey, also requires more reliable, efficient and sophisticated transport as well as telecommunications and power so it can become more competitive in the global market.

 

B. WATER SUPPLIES AND WATER QUALITY

 

Water quality in Istanbul has deteriorated with the rapid growth in industrialisation, chaotic urbanisation and absence of related infrastructure. This has caused serious health problems, such as ‘Sultans Revenge’, which is severe diarrhoea from drinking water in Istanbul. Today, tap water is chlorinated but not safe for tourists to drink and roadside fountains bear the words ‘not to drink’ or ‘drinkable’ to advise the Turkish population.

 

C. SANITATION SERVICES

Insufficient infrastructure and lack of environmental protection has led to inadequate sewage disposal. As Turkey was only a developing country it lacked sufficient finance to provide adequate sewerage and water infrastructures.

 

E. EMPLOYMENT

In Istanbul most people are employed in the service industry such as professions, retail, commerce, administration, tourism and the rapidly expanding information technology sector. Other Turks are employed in the secondary industry, such as in construction, industrial and textiles jobs (e.g. leather jackets). With high rural urban migration, unemployment is high for those who terminated their formal education before high school graduation. Many of these have found jobs in the informal sector, such as the Sunday flee market near the Grand Bazaar area, as well as selling plastic flowers beside the road. Child labour is rare, as primary school education is compulsory. However poverty drives young children to earn extra income for the family, such as weekend shoe shiners.

 

F. HEALTH ISSUES

The health of Istanbul’s population has improved over time, with a decrease in Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and an increased life expectancy. This has been in response to community protests and the construction of hospitals, training of health workers, and immunisation of children and availability of medicines. Today there have been increased health problems from smoking and polluted environment.

Medical services are well distributed throughout Istanbul. Government run hospitals and clinics are run by the Red Crescent (Red Cross) and cost of services is cheap. Over 50% of physicians are women, as a Muslim woman must have a companion present during any physical treatment or examination and nurses are not always available.

 

G. SOCIAL ISSUES - INEQUALITY

The inhabitants of present day Istanbul are descendants of ethnic groups from Central Asia that began to settle in Antolia in the 11th Century. Istanbul is a multi-cultural city with Kurds, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Georgians and Armenian minorities; their cultural autonomy, including teaching in their respective languages, is severely limited.

Many poor Kurds, gypsies and refugees from former USSR have less access to credit facilities and jobs and live in substandard housing without water, sanitation and electricity. They also experience higher IMR and lower life expectancy. Also, many other Turks displaced from earthquakes in Bursa now live in tents or temporary accommodation outside Istanbul.

Questions

Short answer questions

1. Name the two cities in the case studies? What make them mega cities?
2. Define mega cities. Using examples, describe the spatial distribution of mega cities
3. Compare the mega cities analysed in the case study?
4. Identify the negative and positive results of the growth of mega city
5. List the challenges facing the first mega city
6. Describe two challenges for people living in mega cities in the developing world.
7. Explain one response of people to the challenges of living in mega cities in the developing world and suggest one effective response to these challenges.

 

Extended response questions

1. Evaluate the effectiveness of the responses to the challenges of mega cities.
2. Analyse how do population growth and associated urban sprawl affect the provision of both social services and infrastructure? Refer to case study and further research.
3. Contrast the nature, character and spatial distribution of the two mega cities in the case study.

The Process

The comparative online case study is an interactive activity for students to be completed in three periods in the lab. It discusses Mega Cities’ case study of the topic (Urban Places) of the HSC course. Students have to logon on their laptops/computers and access the website (comparative online case study) to read the case study, answer the questions on a word document and finally email it to their teacher email address.

 

The outcomes covered by this comparative online case study are:

• H9 evaluates geographical information and sources for usefulness, validity and reliability
• H10 applies maps, graphs and statistics, photographs and fieldwork to analyse and integrate data in geographical contexts
• H11 applies mathematical ideas and techniques to analyse geographical data
• H12 explains geographical patterns, processes and future trends through appropriate case studies and illustrative examples
• H13 communicates complex geographical information, ideas and issues effectively, using appropriate written and/or oral, cartographic and graphic forms.

 

WRITING TIPS:

• Analyse the question carefully. Make sure your response directly answers the question that has been set. Take note of directive terms (identify, describe, explain, evaluate)
• Plan your response before you begin writing by brainstorming your ideas and decide how you are going to organise your information into paragraphs.
• Try to think of some key points you want to raise and some illustrative examples, or illustrative diagrams in your response.
• Try to remember key statistics you could include but if you can’t remember exact numbers make general statements such as about/over/nearly and so on.
• Keep in mind the vocabulary you have learned in the glossaries.
• Make sure you leave enough time to proof-read your response and pay attention to spelling and grammar. You will lose marks for mistakes.

Credits

Dharavi slum is located in Mumbai (formally Bombay) in India. India’s and Mumbai's biggest slum is known as Dharavi. There are a million people crammed into one square mile in Dharavi. At the edge of Dharavi the newest arrivals come to make their homes on waste land next to water pipes in slum areas. They set up home illegally amongst waste on land that is not suitable for habitation. In the wet monsoon season these people have huge problems living on this low lying marginal land. Many of the people here come from many parts of India as a result of the push and pull factors of migration.

Conditions in the slum
In the slum people have to live with many problems. People have to go to the toilet in the street and there are open sewers.  Children play amongst sewage waste and doctors deal with 4,000 cases a day of diphtheria and typhoid. Next to the open sewers are water pipes, which can crack and take in sewage. Dharavi slum is based around this water pipe built on an old rubbish tip. The people have not planned this settlement and have no legal rights to the land. There are also toxic wastes in the slum including hugely dangerous heavy metals. Dharavi is made up of 12 different neighbourhoods and there are no maps or road signs. The further you walk into Dharavi from the edge the more permanent and solid the structures become. People live in very small dwellings (e.g. 12X12ft), often with many members of their extended families. 

Many architects and planners claim this slum could hold the solution to many of the problems of the world’s largest cities.

Water is a big problem for Mumbai's population; standpipes come on at 5:30am for 2 hours as water is rationed. These standpipes are shared between many people. Rubbish is everywhere and most areas lack sanitation and excrement and rats are found on the street. 500 people share one public latrine.
The famous cloth washing area also has problems, despite its social nature sewage water filters into the water used for washing clothes.

Links

http://mrstevennewman.com/blog2.php

http://www.top10zen.com/top-10-most-populated-cities-in-the-world-354

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDxGqe4EwIw

http://trinity.nsw.libguides.com/c.php?g=5485&p=22176

http://www.coolgeography.co.uk/A-level/AQA/Year%2013/World%20Cities/Mumbai/Mumbai.htm

                                                                                                                       

 

The Positives of Dharavi Slum
There are positives; informal shopping areas exist where it is possible to buy anything you might need. There are also mosques catering for people's religious needs.

There is a pottery area of Dharavi slum which has a community centre. It was established by potters from Gujarat 70 years ago and has grown into a settlement of over 10,000 people. It has a village feel despite its high population density and has a central social square. 
Family life dominates, and there can be as many as 5 people per room. The houses often have no windows, asbestos roofs (which are dangerous if broken) and no planning to fit fire regulations. Rooms within houses have multiple functions, including living, working and sleeping.

Many daily chores are done in social spheres because people live close to one another. This helps to generate a sense of community. The buildings in this part of the slum are all of different heights and colours, adding interest and diversity. This is despite the enormous environmental problems with air and land pollution. 

85% of people have a job in the slum and work LOCALLY, and some have even managed to become millionaires.

Recycling and waste in Dharavi

Kevin McCloud found that people seemed genuinely happy in the slum. However, toilets are open holes above a river – hardly hygienic. This could lead to Dengue fever, cholera and hepatitis

Dharavi has a recycling zone. It is claimed that Dharavi’s recycling zone could be the way forward to a sustainable future. Everything is recycled from cosmetics and plastics to computer keyboards. 23% of plastic waste gets recycled in the UK, in Mumbai it is 80%. However, it is humans who work to sift the rubbish in the tips where children and women sift through the rubbish for valuable waste. They have to work under the hot sun in appalling conditions. They earn around a £1 a day for their work.