Name two problems that city residents faced.

The video "Welcome to Lagos" sympathetically investigates the lifestyles of garbage pickers at a large dump in Lagos, Nigeria. The video points out how very little waste is squandered by slum dwellers in a megacity and how necessity has created a highly resourceful civil society. 

Welcome to Lagos from Oo Nwoye on Vimeo.

The rapid growth of megacity populations result in significant challenges in accomodating people. homelessles, squatting and slum areas are all common place. Slums often form in the least desirable places. ​Megacities are well know for containing slums, areas of makeshift or substandard housing. Slums create a significant range of problems for megacities as their chaotic and close knit nature make it very difficult to improve infrastructure within a slum area. The absence of services also make slums very unhealthy places while their building materials make them quite hazardous.

With over 10 million residents, traffic in megacities can be dire. The dropping rates of extreme poverty in the world also make the ownership of a vehicle more common for the world's population and consequently make traffic worse. Traffic in megacities is make more problematic by two features. Firstly, the variation in vehicles can inhibit vehicle movement. It is not uncommon in megacities for 2 stroke engine taxis (such as Auto-rickshaws and "tuk tuks"), cycle rickshaws, bullocks, elephants, motorcycles, cars, buses and trucks to all share the same roads. As these vehicles move at different top speeds and with different maneuverability they can block each others flow. Traffic in megacities is also hampered by a culture of "unstandardised" driver training. Without a significant culture of road rules traffic becomes more gridlocked. 

Clean, running water and sewage removal are essential for health and disease control in any place. They are both significant challenges for megacities. Firstly, because of the inability to provide water into slum areas. Secondly, because the old colonial infrastructure in many megacities in unable to deal with the volume and new materials in sewer systems.

Megacities in developing nations vary in the provision of water into homes, however, nearly all megacities faced water scarcity on 2010. Cities such as Delhi and Sāo Paulo have experiences significant drought periods in recent history.

Some example rates of water access are given below.Jakarta and Dhaka 10-20% - Cairo and Istanbul 40% - Rio De Janeiro 55% - Manila and Shanghai are atypical with 95-100%

Many cities rely on groundwater extraction with is unsustainable. Megacities also have options for significant gains from wastewater treatment and loss reduction from leaking infrastrucure.

Electricity supplies are often inadequate and unreliable in megacities resulting in frequent blackouts and brown outs. Power outages reduce foreign investment and quality of living for residents. Power theft is also rampant in megacities. Without electricity for cooking, biomass (such as wood or dung) is often used by the poorest households contributing to low air quality and greater household fire risk. 

Megacities residents, however, see great advantage in renewable energy both for the ability to no longer be reliant on the grid and being able to supply the minuscule power needs for slum families.  

Megacities have rapidly growing populations and job creation cannot match this pace of growth. However, informal economic activity frequently a large part of the economy. This leaves cities without revenue to provide adequate services and informal economic conditions make wages and conditions difficult to regulate.

However, informal economic activity is not necessarily black market activity. 

Megacities often have high levels of inequality. 

In some megacities, high inequality and large populations of people who have recently arrived without a strong social network has led to high levels of violent crime, organised crime, begging and petty theft being more common place . 

Air pollution and communicable disease are considered greater threats to health in megacities.

Urbanization is a process by which more and more people move from rural area or countryside to an urban area such as cities, towns, and that leads to expansion and growth of cities and towns. People move to cities because they believe in achieving better economic, political, and social mileages there than the rural counterpart.

Urbanization has occurred in the past also, but currently, it is happening on a global scale as resources and facilities tend to concentrate more in cities and towns. At present half of the worldwide population is living in cities, and by 2050, this number will increase to two-thirds of the world’s population.

Urbanization process started during the industrial revolution, and it is directly associated with industrialization that pulls the workforce from rural areas to cities to get jobs in factories, while agricultural jobs become less important. The land is used for sustainable development of infrastructure facilities in the cities, unlike rural areas. The commercialization of goods and services, including trade, also play a significant role. In this new non-agriculture economy, cities play a vital role to enhance economic growth and prosperity.

It is a widespread phenomenon in developing and developed countries as there is a clear difference in the level of development in cities and villages and maximum countries focus on the development of urban areas instead of rural areas. As a result, urban areas are equipped with better physical, institutional and social infrastructure, public facilities, transportation and communication, modern amenities, and most importantly economic/employment opportunities compared to the rural areas.

Majority of people migrate to cities and towns as they find rural regions full of hardship coupled with backward/primitive lifestyle, and therefore they want to enhance their lifestyles with hi-tech facilities. However, in due course, several urbanization issues crop up due to these activities.

11 Major Global Problems of Urbanization

The impacts of urbanization are mostly negative. The increasing population density, unplanned growth, and demands of urban environments create several problems as discussed below.

1. Degraded Environmental Quality

At present, the most serious issue due to urbanization is degraded environmental conditions containing poor air and water quality, including land, noise, and other pollution, causing damages to the health of city dwellers. The increased demand for infrastructural facilities such as building, factories, offices, hospitals, roads leads to cutting down trees and forests and destroying natural habitats.

Apart from that, emissions of harmful gases from motor vehicles, factories and the use of environmental unfriendly fossil-fuel sources release several toxic gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrous oxides (Nox), sulfur dioxide (SO2), benzene, ozone and also fine particles released by diesel motors cause air pollution and pose a severe threat to human health.

The disposal of domestic and industrial waste into the river or lake pollutes the water. As the cities remain busy with human activities 24X7, noise pollution also seems obvious.

2. Overcrowding

Overcrowding occurs when too many people accommodate into a little space. It is a consistent problem of urbanization as a large number of people keep on moving from undeveloped areas to live in cities. The size of the cities gets squeezed into a very little space to fit the population over its capacity. As a result, the cities become congested, and it creates tremendous pressure on infrastructural facilities like housing, water, transport, electricity, and of course, employment.

3. Housing Problems

The housing problems arise due to the increase in the population of cities. The overcrowding leads to scarcity of houses. The problem becomes serious with the invasion of unemployed, impoverished immigrants in large number from nearby areas in their search for a living place. With the lack of adequate building material and financial resources, and as space cannot be sufficiently expanded to cater to housing and public utilities for all, it becomes an acute problem.

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4. Unemployment

More than half of unemployed youths live in metropolitan cities around the globe, and the percentage is even higher among educated people. Although the income is high in urban areas compared to rural incomes, the high cost of living makes it trivial. Moreover, the relocation in huge number from rural to urban areas makes the matter even more serious.

5. Development of Slums

The fast urbanization, in combination with industrialization, pulls a large number of people to urban areas where the high cost of living and unemployment, leads to the growth and spread of slums and unlawful resident settlements. The lack of developed land for housing compared to the large influx of rural job seekers to the cities and towns, and the high cost of land and living place beyond the reach of urban poor are the main reasons for the explosion of slums in urban areas.

6. Water Problems

Water is an essential element of life. Because of overpopulation water becomes scarce in the urban areas and the supply of water falls short of demand as cities grow in population size. Moreover, it becomes a serious concern when health problems arise from water pollution and contaminated water.

7. Sanitation Problems

Sanitation problem is the most common problem in any urban areas, and it stems from overpopulation. Inadequate sewage facilities along with incapability of municipalities and local governments in the proper management of sewage facilities due to serious resource crisis make the situation pitiful. Moreover, due to the lack of infrastructure of treatment of sewage waste, these get drained into nearby water bodies, causing pollution and spreading communicable diseases such as diarrhea, dysentery, plague, typhoid, and even deaths.

8. Health Hazards

The congested living in urban areas spread diseases like anything. The overall environmental pollution in addition to infrastructural problems, poor sanitation, water problem, and insufficient public health care services spread infectious diseases mostly in slums and other health problems such as asthma, allergies and other respiratory diseases, cardiovascular problems, infertility, food poisoning, even cancer, and premature deaths.

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9. Transportation Problems

More people and more activities surely mean more traffic congestion. Almost every city and town is suffering from a severe form of transport problem and traffic blockage. The reasons are an inefficient transportation system and unreliable public transport system that is increasing the number of vehicles on the road every year and thus creating a traffic jam. It also causes traffic fatalities in large number.

10. Disposal of Trash

There is no denying the fact that urbanization-pushed trash disposal problem is now at an alarming stage. Every day a huge amount of garbage produced by the people in cities cause serious health problems. The existing landfills are full, and most cites lack proper arrangements for garbage disposal. Poisonous gases release from these landfills and mix in the environment resulting in various health problems.

Wastes putrefying in the open also give birth to diseases that spread through insects and animals like flies and rats and contaminate groundwater. People living near the decomposing trash and raw sewage become the victim of foul smell and suffer from diseases such as respiratory problems, dysentery, diarrhea, malaria, typhoid, jaundice, and plague.

11. Urban Crime

The multifaceted issues of urbanization like overcrowding, unemployment, poverty, lack of resources, and lack of social services give rise to a number of social problems, including violence, drug abuse, and crime. The poverty-related crimes such as theft, cheating, breach of trust and other violent urban crimes such as rape, murder, kidnapping, and robbery, disturb peace and tranquillity of the cities making them highly unsafe for living, especially for the women.

References:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/urban-threats/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/urbanization