Discuss the planning and management issues that have arisen in areas that have undergone urbanisation in recent years (10)

Discuss the planning and management issues that have arisen in areas that have undergone urbanisation in the recent years (10)

Urbanisation is an increase in the proportion of a country's population that lives in towns and cities. Recently, there have been countries which have undergone rapid urbanisation in the recent years, and there are relevant planning and management issues which arise as a result of it. 

An example of an area which has had massive urban growth in the recent years is Kibera, on the outskirts of Nairobi. It faces huge social, economic and environmental planning and management issues. 

The average population density in Kibera exceeds 3000 people per hectare. It comprises of housing which are usually makeshift shacks built from corrugated iron, mud, timber and any other materials that are to cheap to hand, as the majority of the population of Kibera are not at a high state of economic development which means that people cannot afford better quality building materials for housing. 

Kibera is unplanned and lacks even the most basic infrastructure. There are open sewers along the street and roughly one million people use the 600 pit latrines. Most households have no piped water and rely on standpipes, tanks or water vendors, who would sell water door-to-door, by carrying it on their head or in a cart. Women and children would sometimes have to queue for hours to buy water. There is no organised rubbish collection, and garbage is thrown in the streets, into watercourses and along railway tracks. Only 20% of households are connected legally to the electricity grid. 

The narrow, uneven and unpaved roads are inaccessible to vehicles, which is a problem, if ever there needs to be emergency aid that needs to be provided, there are no access points for them to enter. Half of Kibera's inhabitants are HIV positive, and there are thousands of abandoned children whose parents have died from AIDS. It is through the unsanitary and overcrowded conditions that promote the spread of waterborne disease, diarrhoea and TB.

Nearly four fifths of the population is unemployed, and most people rely on self employment. Jobs in the formal sector (construction) are concentrated in Nairobi's city centre, and along the commercial/ industrial spine of Mombasa Road. Several people cannot afford transport and walk long distances to work.

Like many slum areas in the cities, Kibera suffers from high crime rates as people feel they need to resort to crime in order to obtain money to feed their families. This is due to the scarce job opportunities available to them as most of them are unskilled. 

COMMENT FROM ME: oOkaay, so I got this answer directly from the Mark Scheme of the Jan 2012 paper, I don't really see how it answered the question, if I am completely honest... but I guess that if the mark scheme says this, it must be okay? The question is about planning and management issues, I would maybe talk more about government involvement in this? A good website I found is here, which may improve this answer slightly.