MegaCities Essay Essay

Mega Cities argon cities that cast a population of more than 8 gazillion and are characterised by the altercates they baptismal font, including troubles involving the light saving, unemployment, hapless sanitation and protective cover. These issues are more often than not out rest in these cities referable to rapid urban growth and a lose of resources. In many upshots action has been taken by national authoritiess and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to combat and reduce the stupor of these issues, however In order for these strategies to be effective they need to fit 3 primary criteria, the solution must be community based, salute effective and sustainable economically and environmentally. Strategies much(prenominal)(prenominal) as small financing.. Etc. gestate been adopted to puzzle out these challenged.A primary challenge face many mega cities is the populations telling reliance on the knowledgeable rescue as a means of income. The cosy economy is a sector of unregulated work and with this comes laid-back unemployment rates and a lack of jobs to support the ever-increasing population. Jobs in the escaped economy are particularly turgid in capital of Bangladesh, Bangladesh, where 65% of all jobs are found in this sector. Jobs in the informal economy pose a brat to mega cities and their population as workers are not protected and are open to ontogeny (e.g. Child labour) and concourse employed colloquially pay no tax (e.g. path vendors, rickshaw drivers) track to a decline in the governments revenue. A fleck of strategies have been undertaken in order to transform informal work into the formal economy, including small financing.Micro financing involves NGOs grownup out small loans (approximately $US200), which provide people with money to formalise their blood line. There are a number of NGOs that undertake this dodging, including Opportunity International, which is an Australian charity, direct in manila, target ing particularly impoverished communities. retrieve to these loans is based on a persons standing in the community and once the business begins to sustain itself loans must be repaid. The resultant of this process is a formalised business, which whence contributes to government beneficially by providing it with revenue. This strategy to combat the prominence of the informal economy has been particularly successful, adheres to the three evaluation criteria and provides drug abusers with life history skills and an income, which could potentially improve their aliveness standards/ tone of voice of life.Another challenge faced by a large majority of mega cities is penetration to shelter, collect to population growth in mega cities being too radical for sufficient supply of housing. This in turn transcends to the founding of informal housing, such as squatty blocks, which are generally formed on unoccupied unwanted land, such as next to rail lines or cloaca systems. In formal housing is extremely dramatic in developing countries such as India, where 500,000 people live on the sidewalk in Kolkata with at least 4 million more living in squatter settlements as well as 1 million people living in cemeteries in Cairo, and of the Philippines population residing in passs. This informal housing creates a number of problems for its residents and government it lacks basic services ( cloaca, electricity, water), leading to unsanitary living conditions.There is a lack of tenure, which is the legal right to lease land, which stops residents from wanting to improve property, risk for people and also extremely high crime rates particularly in the Favelas of Rio de Janiero where the police are unable to patrol, due to extreme gang violence. NGOs and governments have undertaken strategies to improve the issue of lack of inlet to shelter, including the Kolkata Bustee Improvement Project, a crossroads scuttle between government and non-government organisation s. This is a site and service program moment that the project takes an existing site and provides it with requisite services, such as sanitation, electricity etceteraThis program in turn reduces the address burden on local government and creates jobs by incorporating the local community into the work. This nominal head has tried to stop Indias slum clearance policy, which frees up NGOs to be able to assist the extreme urban low. This movement has be to be extremely successful in improving the shelter situation in Kolkata as it improves the living standard of squatter settlement dwellers, provides jobs and skills to the local community (therefore adding to the formal not informal economy) and also allows NGOs to be able to assist the poor as they were previously restricted by government policies. Another benefit is that it is cost effective because it aims to improve existing settlements and creates tenure. vex to sanitation is another key challenge faced by many Mega Cit ies that is, providing sound food and drinking water and sewerage management. Due to increasing populations, inadequate and antediluvian patriarch sewerage systems and also lack of admission charge to fresh water many Mega Cities face sanitation issues. This issue is particularly tumid in cities such as Manila, where alone 11% of people have access to a sewerage system, Karachi at 20% and Dhaka at 18% of the population. body of water Borne diseases are particularly prominent in megacities, such as Cholera, Dysentery and Typhoid. Furthermore the electric pig of solid waste in Mega cities has lead to issues involving contamination of groundwater and creating Vernon, this is common of Jakarta where single of all rubbish gets collected. To combat the issue of sanitation, local governments and NGOs have established very effective, low-tech strategies, such as the Pour Flush Toilet.This initiative is a relatively cheap response to the needs of unplanned urban settlements in mega cities. A pour flush bunghole has a water seal that avoids the problems associated with feeling and insects. However its effectiveness is limited by the fact that the system is not suited in cities where the groundwater table is close to the surface, which is the case in many mega cities, including Mumbai and Kolkata in India and Dhaka in Bangladesh. Also, pour flush toilets can produce self-coloured quantities of heavily dirty wastewater which can require substantial downstream infrastructure to avoid stark environmental and public health problems. contempt the disadvantages of this strategy it has proved to be a very successful short edge solution to the issue of sanitation and is widely used in Mega Cities around the world, due to the fact that they are simple to use and can be kept open fairly easily.Mega Cities face many challenges largely due to their high population development rate. They therefore need to develop a number of solutions and strategies to combat th ese prominent issues, such as the informal economy, access to shelter and access to sanitation. If action is not taken to confront these issues they will only do more consequential, leading to more deaths and boost environmental and land degradation. Governments and NGOs continually need to create strategies to exploit these issues and their efforts so far have proved to be extremely beneficial in improving the quality of life of residents of Mega cities, as they fit the three primary criteria requisite for solutions to be effective.