Problems of Cities in Rich Countries

Objectives

To understand that as cities grow, they can develop problems such as traffic congestion, pollution, over-crowding and noise.

Resources

📄 Problems of Cities Worksheet | World City Populations 1950-2035 (Luminocity3D)

Today's Lesson

Main Activity

One hundred years ago, most of the world's people lived in the countryside, but since then the number of people living in cities has grown enormously.

Look at the World City Populations map. Urbanisation means an increase in the number of people living in cities and towns compared to rural areas.

EXPLORE - World City Populations 1950-2035 (Luminocity3D)

You can move the slider at the bottom of the map to see how the number of big cities has grown. Can your student think of any problems this might cause?

Life in a city can be great, there are so many people and so much to do. But all of those people also means that cities can have problems – there can be too much traffic, lots of air pollution and noise, and housing can be very expensive. Many of these problems affect poor people more than rich people.

Read the worksheet Problems of Cities together and then ask your student to answer the questions on each section, which will help them to practise the skill of summarising text.

Challenge Activity

Think about the nearest city to where you are based, or perhaps you are based in a city! Have a discussion about the main problems that you think it has. If you can walk around the city together, your student could take some photographs of any problems that they see.

Citations

[1] luminocity3d.org