Advantages And Disadvantages Of Megacity

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A megacity is a city that has a population of over 10 million people. Mega cities can be distinguished from global cities by their rapid growth, new form of spatial population density, and both formal and informal economies, as well as poverty, crime, and high levels of social fragmentation. Examples of megacities include New York, Shanghai and Mumbai. Megacities have both advantages and disadvantages to the city itself, country and the whole world. These include social, economic and environmental aspects of the city and the scale at which they are affected depend primarily on what stage of development the country is at, whether it is a HIC or a LIC. Most megacities are now located in the developing world rather than the developed world. In…show more content…
For example, New York City has one of the most diverse cultures, which is what attracts many people to live, visit and work there. There are sub-cultures found in virtually every area of the city, for example, Manhattan is split into 5 main areas, such as Harlem and Queens, which are full of immigrants like Italians and Jews which bring their own restaurants and even languages to the area. This usually happens in megacities because they are so large so they can fit more facilities in and smaller community areas whereas smaller cities can’t. Another advantage of megacities is that they can be much more environmentally efficient than smaller ones. This is because they usually have much more money to invest in more sustainable ways of living such as integrated public transport, greener houses, better waste disposal etc. For example, Shanghai is a megacity which has become to understand the importance of sustainability, and has become to create projects for eco-cities in the suburbs of Shanghai such as Dongtan which will have minimal water usage and extremely efficient energy supplies. This positive sustainability attracts…show more content…
Firstly, the quality of life can be much lower than in smaller cities due to less living space, higher living costs, and lower quality of public services and infrastructure. These higher living costs are usually due to the desirable parts of the city often being located in just a small area of the city and so the prices are pushed up, this then means a lot of the population can’t afford to live in these areas and are forced out into suburbs (usually found in the west), or shantytowns (usually found in the third world countries). An example of a megacity with a shantytown is Mumbai in India. Dharavi is one of the biggest slums in the world with high levels of poverty and deprivation, yet Mumbai is still known as a megacity simply due to its sheer giant population. This means that megacities tend to have a huge gap between the rich and poor which has negative impacts on both the general happiness and wellbeing of the population, but also can affect the economy as well. The problem with having these poorer slum/shantytown areas is that crime rates are astronomically high, which increases poverty and deprivation, like in Dharavi. In addition, another disadvantage of living in a megacity is that, because they tend to be so compact, there is a lot of noise pollution from various sources such as sirens and a good example of this is in New York where people live in close proximity in apartment blocks where noise can become a huge
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