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| Human Cities - LEDC |
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| Human Cities - MEDC |
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About these Images
Urban areas refer to the built environment, where people cluster, and where bricks, concrete, tarmac and other assorted materials cover the land. Urban areas exist to provide the products and services demanded by society. In existing, they develop their own distinctive environments and populations, and wherever you are in the world, urban environments tend to be expanding, as a consequence of urban growth due to the process of centralisation, and urban sprawl, due mainly to decentralisation. It is important to remember that many urban settlements are constructed on some of our best farmland, and as economic power grows, further expansion will consume land that should not be built upon for physical reasons such as coastal and river flood plains, where water cannot be managed effectively. In the more developed world, well-serviced urban boxes house people who mostly enjoy a relatively good standard of living. The same cannot be said for the less developed world, where informal or shanty settlements offer low quality high density residential environments, with poor sanitation and little privacy.
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