social and economic issues of ubanisation

Economic Inequality is the difference found in various measures of economic well-being among individuals in a group, among groups in a population, or among countries.

There can be huge differences in wealth within cities.

Some parts of cities can have great wealth, and others have poverty. In LICs these contrasts can be stark, but they exist in HICs too, with the very wealthy living very different lives form the very poor.

Inequality is therefore extreme differences between poverty and wealth, as well as in peoples' well-being and access to things like jobs, housing and education.

Inequalities may occur in: housing provision, access to services, access to open land, access to employment opportunities and education.

These inequalities can massively affect people’s life chances.

Even in the UK we have people living in poverty, an absolute standard based on a minimum amount of income needed to sustain a healthy and minimally comfortable life, in this case, within an urban area.

The UK government is often concerned about multiple deprivation, when different types of deprivation e.g. lack of education, poor health, high crime levels, high unemployment are combined into one overall measure of deprivation.

This is measured using an Index of Multiple deprivation - a UK government qualitative study of deprived areas in English local councils.

Another major issue in HICs is access to affordable housing.

This is a major cause of urban exclusion and governments have targeted housing at lower income groups in certain parts of cities for those on lower incomes.

The impacts of these schemes is variable. At present, it is very difficult for public sector key workers like nurses and fire fighters to live in London for example, as costs of accommodation are simply too high.

The UK Government has built key worker housing and also provides an Urban subsidy, which basically provides a higher wage for key workers in the most expensive areas. There is a wage supplement for Teachers in London for example. This is still insufficient.

A living wage is another possibility. This is a wage that is high enough to maintain a normal standard of living, designed to tackle urban poverty. Newcastle upon Tyne City Council operates this system

London is an incredibly unequal city. Billionaires live in very close proximity to people who survive on less than a living wage. Indeed, incomes in London are more unequal than ANY other region of the UK

• 16% of Londoners are in the poorest tenth nationally, whilst 17% are in the richest tenth of people in the country
• The richest 10% of people in London have 60% of all assets whilst the poorest 80% of the population share just 20% of all asset wealth in London
• The top tenth of employees in London earn around four and a half times as much as the bottom tenth. These huge differences in wealth result in big differences in people’s access to and success with in housing, education, health and employment. 4

House prices and rents are higher in London than any other part of the country. More people in London rent than own their house and those that rent pay more than half their weekly pay in rent. At the same time as those who live in poor quality, small rented accommodation, there are people living in some of the most expensive properties on the planet.

Children across London do not get equal exam grades, but some of the school’s in London’s poorest boroughs are amongst the fastest improving schools in the country.

Generally, the schools in the poorest areas score the lowest number of GCSE points per pupil.

The people in wealthy areas tend to live longer than those in the poorer areas of London. The census 2011 showed that the % of people reporting themselves as in “Not good health” was also highest in the areas of lowest income.

Despite the huge wealth found in London unemployment remains a major issue. London’s employment rate was just 67.5 per cent in the period October to December 2011, below the average of 70.3 per cent for the UK.

The unemployment rate was 10.0 per cent compared with 8.4 per cent for the UK.

LICs and NEEs often have even bigger inequalities and a wider range of problems that in HICs.

The rapid pace of urban growth and the magnitude of that growth make it difficult for councils to maintain public services at an accessible level

These any collection of buildings where the people have no legal rights to the land they are built upon.

The people are living there illegally and do not own the land.

They provide housing for many of the world's poorest people and offer basic shelter.

The issue here is not unaffordable housing as in HICs, but inadequate shelter.

The other issue in LICs is that many people work in the informal economy – an economic activity that is neither taxed nor monitored by a government; and is not included in that government's Gross National Product; as opposed to a formal economy

Social segregation exists whenever the proportions of population rates of two or more populations are not homogenous throughout a defined space.

This takes place in many formats, it happens with ethnic groups, social classes and gender groups. Coupled with this is the concept of urban social exclusion.

This is where people in society are excluded from parts of their own city by social and economic factors, and is often faced by people in areas of multiple deprivation.

Social segregation can also occur when groups of people disperse or spread from their original homeland, they often congregate in similar areas within a city due to linguistic, religious or cultural reasons

Cultural Diversity is the existence of a variety of cultural or ethnic groups within a society, has increased in cities via migration.

This happens because: cities are the first point of entry for immigrants, more immigrants due to mobility and humanitarian crisis, economic opportunity, communities of similar ethnicity already established in area.

This can result in inter culturalism, where there is support for cross-cultural dialogue and challenging self-segregation tendencies within cultures.

However, it can also result in ethnic segregation, where ethnic groups congregate together to take advantage of specialist shops and facilities, protection against prejudice and racial abuse, support of friends and near relatives, and maintenance of language and culture. There are various positives and negatives of cultural diversity in cities