This GCSE Geography quiz looks at the opportunities and challenges of urban change. Urbanisation is the migration of people from rural areas to urban areas. It is occurring globally and gives rise to many opportunities and challenges. In MEDCs, about three-quarters of the population lives in a town or city but in LEDCs, the figure is less than half. Urbanisation can offer a better quality of life to rural inhabitants, but that doesn't always happen.
One of the main reasons for urbanisation is the population increase. Since the middle of the twentieth century, the world population has increased by nearly a billion every 10 years. Before 1950, the world's major cities were almost all in MEDCs, but that has changed. As populations in LEDCs have boomed, a large proportion of the rural population has migrated to cities looking for work, a better standard of living and a more reliable food supply.