Case studies

You must study two cities that differ from each other. For each city, you learn how wealth and health are spread across

Contemporary urban environments

Case studies

Two contrasting urban areas are studied in depth to show how the themes covered across this topic play out in the real w

Contemporary urban environments

Other contemporary urban environmental issues

Cities around the world face serious environmental damage. Atmospheric pollution, water pollution, and dereliction — the

Contemporary urban environments

Other contemporary urban environmental issues

Cities use a range of strategies to tackle pollution and dereliction. These include laws, technology, and land clean-up

Contemporary urban environments

Other contemporary urban environmental issues

Rapid urbanisation and deindustrialisation — the decline of traditional manufacturing industries — have left many cities

Contemporary urban environments

Social and economic issues associated with urbanisation

Cities create winners and losers. Wealth, ethnicity and culture can divide urban populations into separate groups, and t

Contemporary urban environments

Social and economic issues associated with urbanisation

Cities use a range of strategies to tackle economic inequality, social segregation, and cultural tension. These strategi

Contemporary urban environments

Social and economic issues associated with urbanisation

Rapid urbanisation — the growth of towns and cities as more people move to live in them — rarely benefits everyone equal

Contemporary urban environments

Sustainable urban development

Cities damage the environment at two scales. Locally they pollute air and water; globally they consume vast resources, m

Contemporary urban environments

Sustainable urban development

Sustainability in cities has four dimensions. Natural and physical dimensions cover the environment; social covers peopl

Contemporary urban environments

Sustainable urban development

A sustainable city meets people's needs today without damaging the environment for future generations. Liveability measu

Contemporary urban environments

Sustainable urban development

Cities today face real barriers to becoming sustainable, such as cost and inequality. But they also have new tools — lik

Contemporary urban environments

Sustainable urban development

Cities use specific strategies — such as green transport networks, affordable housing schemes, and water management syst

Contemporary urban environments

Sustainable urban development

Cities place enormous pressure on both local and global environments, consuming resources and generating pollution far b

Contemporary urban environments

Urban climate

Cities change the local climate around them. The physical shape of buildings, road surfaces, and human activities like b

Contemporary urban environments

Urban climate

City centres are measurably warmer than the surrounding countryside. This temperature difference — called the urban heat

Contemporary urban environments

Urban climate

Cities receive more rainfall than the countryside around them, and that rain tends to fall harder and faster. Urban area

Contemporary urban environments

Urban climate

Buildings and street layouts change how wind moves through a city. They can speed it up, slow it down, or redirect it in

Contemporary urban environments

Urban climate

Cities produce two main types of air pollution: tiny solid particles from burning fuels, and toxic gases formed when sun

Contemporary urban environments

Urban climate

Cities don't just change the land — they reshape the atmosphere above them, creating distinct local weather patterns tha

Contemporary urban environments

Urban drainage

Cities replace soil and vegetation with hard surfaces like roads and rooftops. Rainwater can no longer soak into the gro

Contemporary urban environments

Urban drainage

Cities change how rainwater moves across the land. A hydrograph is a graph that shows how quickly and how much water flo

Contemporary urban environments

Urban drainage

Managing water flow across an entire urban area creates serious problems. Hard surfaces, ageing pipes, and growing city

Contemporary urban environments

Urban drainage

SUDS are drainage designs that slow down and filter rainwater naturally, rather than rushing it straight into pipes. The

Contemporary urban environments

Urban drainage

Cities damage rivers by straightening, culverting, or polluting them. River restoration projects repair this damage by r

Contemporary urban environments

Urban drainage

Cities fundamentally alter the way water moves through a landscape: hard, impermeable surfaces such as roads and rooftop

Contemporary urban environments

Urban forms

A megacity holds more than 10 million people. A world city controls global finance, trade and culture. Both shape how bi

Contemporary urban environments

Urban forms

Cities develop distinct zones — such as wealthy suburbs or industrial areas — because physical features and human decisi

Contemporary urban environments

Urban forms

Modern cities contain several distinct new landscape types. Each one reflects a different way that investment, planning

Contemporary urban environments

Urban forms

The post-modern western city describes how cities like London or Los Angeles no longer have one dominant centre. Instead

Contemporary urban environments

Urban forms

Cities are not random — the way land, wealth and people are distributed across an urban area follows patterns shaped by

Contemporary urban environments

Urban waste and its disposal

Cities produce large amounts of physical waste — discarded materials from homes, businesses and industry. How much waste

Contemporary urban environments

Urban waste and its disposal

Cities dispose of waste in several ways, and each method damages the environment differently. Knowing those differences

Contemporary urban environments

Urban waste and its disposal

Cities must dispose of huge volumes of waste. Incineration burns waste at high temperatures, while landfill buries it in

Contemporary urban environments

Urban waste and its disposal

Cities generate enormous volumes of physical waste — the discarded materials produced by households, businesses and indu

Contemporary urban environments

Urbanisation

Cities grow, spread, shrink, and bounce back at different times. These four terms describe each stage of that cycle of u

Contemporary urban environments

Urbanisation

Some cities have grown so large or so powerful that they shape the entire global economy. Geographers call these megacit

Contemporary urban environments

Urbanisation

Multiple forces drive urbanisation at the same time. Economic pull, population growth, government policy, new technology

Contemporary urban environments

Urbanisation

Since the mid-twentieth century, cities in the UK and other wealthy countries have changed dramatically. Manufacturing i

Contemporary urban environments

Urbanisation

Since 1979, British governments have used a series of policies to fix declining urban areas. Each phase tried different

Contemporary urban environments

Urbanisation

Since 1945, an increasing proportion of the world's population has moved to live in cities — a process called urbanisati

Contemporary urban environments