Infant mortality

Infant Mortality is the number of babies dying before their first birthday per 1000 live births.

Water scarcity

Water scarcity is a lack of drinkable water available in a given area. The lack of sufficient available water resources to meet the demands of water usage within a region. 

Water scarcity already affects every continent and around 2.8 billion people around the world at least one month out of every year. More than 1.2 billion people lack access to clean drinking water.

It mostly affects arid and deserted areas, and places where the water is too polluted to drink. It is a social, environmental and economic problem in many countries. 

Water scarcity can be the result of both human and natural causes. Changes in climate and weather patterns can cause the availability of water to drop. Common human causes include over-consumption, bad governance, pollution, and increases in the demand for water.

Corruption

What is corruption?
Corruption is the misuse of entrusted power for private gain. Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement. Government corruption or political corruption occurs when an elected politician or appointed civil servant acts in an official capacity for personal gain.

Corruption Perceptions Index from Transparency International
The Corruption Perceptions Index is an index that shows how corrupt certain countries are.
First launched in 1995, the corruption perceptions index has been widely credited with putting the issue of corruption on the international policy agenda.

What does a number mean to you? Each year we score countries on how corrupt their public sectors are seen to be. Our Corruption Perceptions Index sends a powerful message and governments have been forced to take notice and act.

Corruption in Nigeria
General Sani Abacha was a Nigerian Army general and politician who served as the President of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998. 

During Abacha's regime, he and his family reportedly stole a total of £5 billion from the country's coffers. In 2004, Abacha was listed as one of the most corrupt leaders in Africa.

Building a primitive hut from scratch

Proper accomodation is one of the basic necessities.


A house protects people against heavy rainfall, intense sunlight or vermin. But only a few houses have a toilet with a drain and clean running water.


How to built a tiled roof hut in the bush, using only primitive tools and materials.

Into the city, out of the city

Urbanisation
Urbanisation is the process by which an increasing percentage of a country's population comes to live in towns and cities. The growth of towns and cities leading to an increasing proportion of a country’s population living there. Rapid urbanisation is a feature of most LEDCs. It as a gradual process common in LEDCs where 1 million people move from the countryside to the cities every three days.

Suburbanisation

Suburbanisation is the process by which people, factories, offices and shops move out from the central areas of cities and into the suburbs. The commuter towns with a residential population who sleep in the town but who travel to work in the nearby large urban area. The suburbanised village has increasingly adopted some of the characteristics (new housing estates, more services) of urban areas.

Central city

A central city is the large city in the middle of a number of villages and small towns. These small towns and villages have grown larger because of suburbanisation.

Suburbs

Suburbs is an area of housing around the edge of a city. A suburb is an area of a town or city, a little away from the main part, where there are fewer big buildings and mainly houses, schools and shops. These are called suburbs or 'the suburbs'.

New towns

When suburbanisation started around 1965 in the Netherlands, the Dutch government allowed some villages near a city to become a suburb. Those placed are called “New towns”.

Compact city

The land use policy of building more inside and close to the cities is called the compact city policy. The central cities had to be occupied again. More houses had to be built in the central cities to fill the space.

 

Housing shortage

If the demand for housing is greater than the supply, we call this a housing shortage.

There are three causes for a housing shortage:

1. Commercialisation of the city centre: houses in the old city centre make room for shops and offices.
2. Family size reduction: The families nowadays are smaller and there are more single people.
3. Residential thinning: there are fewer houses than before. Small houses are often converted into one large house. This is called residential thinning.

Agglomeration
Cities are constantly growing. Sometimes the city expands and absorps neighbouring towns, suburbs and villages linked to it.


Migration
Migration is the movement of people within or between areas. The movement of people from one place to another to live or to work. Such an area may be a town, a province, a country or even a continent. Therefore, migration occurs at all scale levels.


Natural increase
An increase in human population, due to a high birth rate and a low mortality rate, is known is natural increase.

A polycentric world

China - a newly industrialized country

Newly industrialized countries (NICs) are countries who still are not developed countries but are doing better than other developing countries. NICs have fast growing economies, and export a lot. In NICs many things in the country change quickly as people from the country move to the cities to take jobs in factories.