Geography Revision- Theme 1

Brief notes on everything you need to know for the wjec B specification Theme 1

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Challenges of Living in a Built environment

(http://www.nccarf.edu.au/userfiles/100_0522.JPG)

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Contents

1. How do Quality of Life and Standard of living differ?

2. How does access to housing differ, how is this changing and how does it affect people?

3. How does access to services differ, how is this changing and how is it affecting people?

4. Who plans the changing built environment, what conflicts are caused and how might a sustainable built environment be developed?

5. What are the causes and effects of migration and how might they be managed in a sustainable way?

6. What are the causes and effects of increased use of rural areas and how might these be managed in a sustainable way?

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How do quality of life and standard of living diff

Quality of Life- Happiness, well being and satisfaction of a person

Standard of Living- Housing, possessions and income of a person

Standard of Living focuses more on the wealth and facilities available to a person whilst Quality of Life focuses more on the personal feelings of a person.

Standard of Living can be calcualted by using indicators such as the GNP(wealth) of a country and doctors per 100 citizens, however when measuring Quality of Life (which is a lot more obscure, as personal emotions cannot be worked out easily) indicators such as Infant mortality and death rate are used, as they have an immense impact on a person's happiness

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Indicators

GNP (Gross national product) per capita- Total value of goods and services a country produces in a year divided by its popluation

Life expectancy- The average number of years a person born in a country is likely to live

Infant Mortality- Average number of deaths of children under 1 year per 1000 live births

Literacy rate- Proportion of people who can read and write

Birth rate- The number of live births per 1000 people per year

Death rate- Number of deaths per 1000 people per year

Doctors for people- Number of doctors per 100 people

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Access to Housing

Housing Types- Detached, semi detached, terraced, town houses and apartments

Depending on where you live in a town or city the cost of housing changes:

CBD- Will contain high cost housing, this housing will be in the form of apartments, the ownership is eithe rowner occupied or privately rented

Inner City- Will contain low cost housing, in the form of old terraced blocks, 1960's highrise flats, low rise houses and modern town houses, the ownership is eithe rowner occupied, council rented and privately rented

Inner Suburbs- Will contain medium cost housing, in the form of Mixed detached and semi detached houses, the ownerships wil be owner occupied

Outer suburbs- Will contain high/low cost housing, in the form of large detached houses, 1960s high rise flats and low rise houses. The ownership will be owner occupied and Council rented

Your budget will mainly affect your access to houses in certain areas, generally the further you are from inner suburbs the more expensive housing becomes. The opposite occurrs in an LEDC city.

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Housing ownership

Owner Occupied- Where a house is owned outright by the people who live in them, or they are paying back a loan (Mortgage) to the bank or building society.

Council rented- Where people pay rent to the local authority

Social Landlord- Where peoplepay rent to someone who does not make a profit liek a housing association or council rented

Privately rented- Where people pay rent to a private individual who owns the house/property

Squatter- where people build on land not owned by them or use existing houses not owned by them, this is illegal. In LEDCs these can be known as shanty towns on the outside of cities, where citizens lack basic amenities.

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Access to services

Services are often found in particular parts of built up areas, for instance-

CBD- Conatins a small amount of shopping centres

Inner city- A small number of supermarkets are found here and on the suburban fringe

Inner Suburbs- Several small shoppin centres are found here

Suburban Housing Estates- Contains many neighbourhood shopping parades

There are also a few out of town shopping centres found a small distance away.

Increased travel options and us eof internet mean that now the majority of people can have access to services with ease and maximum accessibility.

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Shopping Hierarchy

As shown on the previous card, certain parts of built up areas contains certain services. This can be displayed in a shopping hierarchy shown below-

(http://www.bennett.karoo.net/images/modshop.gif)

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Who plans the changing built environment?

Here are the steps taken when planning to build in a urban environment

1. The national Government sets priorities for England and Wales

2. Each regional assembly creates a Regional Spatial strategy which is a sustainable and integrated plan

3. Officers (planners) in each local authority create a Local Development Framework (LDF)

4. Local councillors take a vote on each plan

5. Stakeholders give their views on the LDF

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Sustainable towns (Eco Towns)

When creating an eco town, planners must consider many aspects including these-

Achieving zero Carbon- Over a year all carbon emission from an eco town must be zero 

Transport- Residents shoudl be able to get around the town without relying on cars

Homes- Homes must have moniters showing families how much theyr've used and spent, 30% of homes must be available for low wage earners and all home smust have high speed broadband

Employment- Residents should be able to work in the community where they can access it without a car

Green space- there must be atleast 40% of the community kept as green space

Waste- Eco towns must be waste efficient and recycle as much as possible

However citizens can protest against the building of eco towns as they play a part in the planning process, this happened in an area in Ford where residents protested against the building of a new eco town in the area

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What are the causes and effects of migration

Migration- The movement of people from one place to the other

People often migrate due to push and pull factors of the areas. For instance there are push and pull factors in the case of urban to rural migration-

Push factors are - Air pollution, Congested roads and cleans are. Whilst Pull factors are- empty roads, friendly community, fresh air

However many poeple who migrate to rural areas from urban ones have kept their jobs in the city and will commute to work each day. this means that the villages run a risk of becoming ghost villages during the day which could cause services in the village to close. Also overcrowding could become an issue, as more and more people go to live in rural areas, these areas will not be able to house everyone so will have to start building on greenfeild sites meant to be preserved for nature.

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Rural to Urban Migration in LEDCs

In the many of the world's poorer countries the migration is from rural to urban areas. Poor living condition and lack of work contribute to this rural to urban migration.

Push factors from Rural areas include- Poor quality of everyday life brought about by lack of work, no school in the village, a great distance from medical help, an unreliable supply of water.

Although living conditions are also very poor in certain areas, natural disasters such as floods and droughts can cause people to move to urban areas, this can be because they need work after their crops have been completely destroyed.

Zimbabwe is a good example of migration from country to country in an LEDC. In Zimbabwe millians of migrants crossed the border to Limpopo because of high unemployment rates and rapid inflation. Some migrants were official asylum seekers or economic migrants with work permits. Most though are informal migrants who have no documents. They have moved mainly through desperation and with the main aim of sending money back to their families.

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Causes and effects of increased use of rural areas

Many people live longer now and workers have more holidays than in the past. This all adds up to more leisure time. As people can easily travel further afeild, so more and more people will travel to rural areas to spend a day with fresh air.

However the pressure on areas of outstanding natural beauty from visitors does not only just cause conflict between different users, but will also do damage to the environment itself.

An example of this is Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls is a honeypot site, it attracts millions of visitors each year. To cater for these tourists, the area has been filled with hotels and restaurantsand many people earn a living from these 

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Creating and sustaining rural communities

To combat the threat of pressure overcoming areas of outstanding natural beauty, the government has created National Parks to help protect these areas. An example of a National Park is the New Forest on south east England

The national parks in England and Wales have three aims-

1. To conserve and enhance the natural beauty and cultural heritage of the National Park.

2. To promote oppertunities for public enjoyment and understanding of the special qualities of the National Park

3. To foster the economic and social welling being of communities living within the national park.

In England and Wales there are 12/13 National Parks altogether

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Comments

Debz

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Wow this is fantastic. Thanks for all this hard work!!!!

lalala

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I think this will help me a lot! Thank you so much!

Raj

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The inconsistencies of this guide irritates the h3ll out of me. 
Sort it out. 

Reorganise information, keep to strict font practices and keep heading formatting consistent

Tarun Arora

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Raj, why are you criticizing? Atleast he is putting an effort in to it.  

Dilesh Patel

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LOL

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