Counter Urbanisation

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Geography                

Counter urbanisation and Suburbanisation

Counter-urbanisation

  1. Explain the term ‘counter urbanisation’.

The movement of people and employment away from large cities to smaller settlements.

  1. Suggest reasons to explain why people would want to move away from large towns and cities.

There are four main reasons as to why people might want to move away from larger cities:

1. The increase in car ownership over the last 40 years means people are more mobile. This has led to an increase in commuting. Also, the growth in information technology (E-mail, faxes and video conferencing) means more people can work from home.

2. Urban areas are becoming increasing unpleasant place to live. This is the result of pollution, crime and traffic congestion.

3. More people tend to move when they retire.

4. New business parks on the edge of cities (on Greenfield sites) mean people no longer have to travel to the city centre. People now prefer to live on the outskirts of the city to be near where they work.

3) Which groups of people would be more likely to move away and why.

People who work in the office using ICT and the elder people are the groups of people who would be most likely to move away. This is because of the increasing pollution in the cities, people want to get away from that and live or work in a nice clean area. It is human nature to want that. Also, the use of e-mails and faxes has made the working world an easier place to get used to. The use of technology in this modern world has made working from home a much more popular choice among ICT users.

4) What impact could counter-urbanisation have on the environment and services in the affected large towns and cities?

There are many impacts that counter-urbanisation can have on the large towns and cities affected. One very worrying impact is the possibility of some areas of the city declining as people move further out of the city. This means that communities will be broken, schools may not have enough pupils and they will have to be closed down. This means that the remaining students will have to move schools, which may lead to a further decline. Also, crime might increase as less people will be around and there will be greater opportunities for the criminal. As fewer witnesses will be around on the streets.
Another impact on the cities might be the possibility of business in the CBD declining as people move out to the edge of the city. The migrants would obviously not come all the way back into the CBD for their shopping, they will probably use out of town shopping centres.
Another impact may be that traffic congestion will increase on major roads leading in and out of the city at peak times. This will increase the Co2 emissions from cars and will increase to the greenhouse effect and therefore the environment will become worse.  

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Suburbanisation

1) Explain the term ‘suburbanised village’.

A village that has adopted some of the characteristics (new housing estates, services etc.) of urban areas.  

2) Read the information on the attached sheet about Thurston. Describe the location of Thurston.

Thurston is a village in Suffolk situated about three miles East of Bury St Edmunds and about ten miles south of Hopton.

3) Describe how the village changed between 1884 and 1992 under the following headings:

Size of village
The size of the village increased by a considerable amount between 1884 and 1992. In 1984 it had a mere 600 residents, whereas ...

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