Urbanization

Urbanization: A Majority in Cities "The world is undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in history. In 2008, for the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population will be living in towns and cities. By 2030 this number will swell to almost 5 billion, with urban growth concentrated in Africa and Asia. While mega-cities have captured much public attention, most of the new growth will occur in smaller towns and cities, which have fewer resources to respond to the magnitude of the change. In principle, cities offer a more favourable setting for the resolution of social and environmental problems than rural areas. Cities generate jobs and income. With good governance, they can deliver education, health care and other services more efficiently than less densely settled areas simply because of their advantages of scale and proximity." [|www.unfpa.org/urbanization] =__Urban Sprawl__= media type="youtube" key="vQEaGyESK6c?version=3" height="315" width="420"media type="youtube" key="5qGSIqsFa_Y?version=3" height="314" width="560" = = =__Renewal of Infrastructure__= Infrastructure (roads, railways, electrical grids, aqueducts, sewer systems, etc) is absolutely essential for modern cities to thrive in stable, safe, and hygenic conditions. Over time, these publicly and privately maintained systems need to be updated to handle heavier use, repaired, or sometimes completely rebuilt. The following two videos show what can happen when infrastructure repair is neglected for too long. The first is rather long, but it displays the damage caused in a certain neighborhood by the broken, leaky underground Delaware Aqueduct, one of the primary sources of water for the people of New York City. The second video is a rather short recording of the aftermath of a bridge collapse in Minneapolis (due to general wear and tear over time) where 3 people were killed and millions of dollars of damage was done. media type="youtube" key="wf6cwCKTne0?version=3" height="279" width="372"media type="youtube" key="TJ90JUNb3zM?version=3" height="279" width="372" =__ Urban Heat Islands __=

The pavement and buildings which carpet cities absorb lots of heat from sunlight; this ambient heat builds and lasts for extremely long periods of time.

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These graphs show the remarkable difference that urban and rural areas experience regarding temperature change over time. The highly urbanized Los Angeles' gradual rise in average heat is evident, while temperatures consistently bounce around a stable average in the remote Tejon Rancho north of LA. Source

=**__IQALUIT__**=

The City of Iqaluit is the largest settlement in (and capital of) Canada's newest-formed territory, Nunavut. Although it lies south of the Arctic Circle, it's climate is very typically Arctic with extreme cold temperatures in the winter and short, cool summers. Iqaluit's founding as a permanent human settlement is rooted in American and Canadian military activity at the site, which provided enough economic initiative to (excuse the pun) snowball urbanization in this remote location. From 1942 (when the settlement began as "Frobisher Bay") to the present day, Iqaluit has changed from a seasonally unpopulated fishing-camp to a thriving, permenantly settled (primarily Inuit) community in Canada's unforgiving North.

Here are a couple of videos which introduce the city, its infrastructure, and the lives of the people who live there.

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=__** METROPOLITAN AREAS **__=

Chicago is a large city, but its metropolitan area is even larger. The metropolitan area ("metro") of a city is the area around urban centers which depends on the large city for jobs and services. According to the US Census numbers for Chicago (within its official boundaries), the city has been losing population for decades (with a minor jump in the 1990s). The metro around it, however, has been growing at a steady rate during the same years. Among other possible reasons, this shows the enormous effect that suburban growth has taken on the city and the surrounding areas.
 * [[image:schmidtenvgeog/Chicago_Metro.PNG]] || [[image:schmidtenvgeog/Chicago_&_Metro_populations.PNG width="522" height="306"]] ||
 * Pictured in orange is the Chicago Metropolitan area as defined by the US President's Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Map created using [|this source.]. || While the population of Chicago proper has been in decline for over half a century, the area around it has continued to grow at a steady pace. Population numbers are here shown in millions. Data based on US census data and OMB Combined Statistical Area data. ||

media type="youtube" key="KZh8veR_PWw" height="345" width="560" changing population rates media type="youtube" key="z9AZfwfyATI" width="425" height="350" =__URBANIZATION__= Urbanization is a field in Population Geography that studies the migration of people from farming communities and other rural areas to urban environments. Urbanization is certainly a large active trend in the modern world, but it's been happening as long as there have been cities.

didn't exist, but as of 1900 it was the 5th largest city on Earth (source). || Teotihuacan is an ancient example of urbanization. It was founded sometime around 100 BCE and continued to grow well into 600 CE. Its ruins are located in modern- day Mexico (info source) (image source). ||
 * [[image:schmidtenvgeog/Downtown_Chicago.jpg width="334" height="304"]] || [[image:schmidtenvgeog/Teotihuacan_Archeological_Map.png width="332" height="302"]] ||
 * Chicago is an extreme example of urbanization. In 1800 it

__AUSTRALIA__
Australia is a highly urbanized county, with 89% of the population living inside cities (source). This is in dramatic contrast to its neighbor, Indonesia (partly seen in the map, northwest of Australia), where only 44% of the people live in cities (source).

in cities concentrated on the coasts, most noteably the eastern coast. Notice Australia's northwestern neighbor Indonesia, whose population, while dense, is spread out over large rural areas rather than in relatively bunched up cities. Map created using screenshots from this source. || media type="youtube" key="EjQ1417e5q8" height="345" width="420"
 * ====//Population Density Map of Australia//==== ||
 * [[image:schmidtenvgeog/Density_of_Australia.png width="800" height="443"]] ||
 * The large yellow interior represents the enourmous thinly populated area of Australia. The vast majority of Australia's 20 million people live



Urbanization And Rising Respiratory Problems

[|Urbanization and Water Quality]

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Hi Guys, Im from biodiversity but i found this cool video on youtube that deals with how we took over the landscape in a story i thought you guys would like it!! -Ericka media type="youtube" key="MAY1UoQYMHk" height="315" width="560"