Many work in the informal economy and live in informal housing. What does this actually mean, in practical terms? Are the urban poor better off or worse compared to their rural counterparts?
1. At the opening of international currency markets on June 7, 2010, the following values were quoted as the value of each currency, in U.S. dollars.
Australian dollar 0.8153
Brazilian real 0.5316
Euro 1.1942
Indonesian rupiah 0.00011
Japanese yen 0.0109
South African rand 0.1279
Check these values to today’s newspaper. Calculate the percentage each has risen or fallen against the dollar or against one another. What flows of goods, or investment, or of tourists should these fluctuations have triggered?
2. There are now about 200 political states that send representatives to the United Nations. Maps of the world often divide the land masses into different political states demarcated by international borders. These borders are often disputed and tend to change over time. Is their location better explained by geography or by history? Why?
3. At the beginning of the 20th century, industrialization was what generated the great urbanization and thus the growth of several cities like New York attracted thousands of immigrants with employment opportunities. The cities began to grow very fast. after many people began to move toward the outside in search of a quieter life, there were already urban transport and also the own car
Now the industry employment has changed. Many companies are not dependent on a specific location factors such as proximity to natural resources or just spread to other smaller cities, now the industry and businesses are more dispersed. New methods of communication approaches and innovative businesses have offered the world of greater opportunities for location is no longer necessary to migrate to big cities for job opportunities.
4. Why are the biggest cities at the beginning of the 20th century no longer the biggest cities at the beginning of the 21st century?
5. Rural-to-urban migration in Latin America cities often results in large squatter settlements surrounding the city. (Answer at minimum two of the following four questions, and respond to at least one other classmates post.)
1) Where did the residents of these slums come from, and why did they move? Who owns the land they move onto? When did this phenomenon begin, and for what reasons? At what rate are these squatter settlements still growing?
2) Many work in the informal economy and live in informal housing. What does this actually mean, in practical terms? Are the urban poor better off or worse compared to their rural counterparts?
3) When one city is much larger than any other, it tends to attract more migrants. How successful are governmental attempts to create second big cities, and do these secondary cities reduce the migration pressure on the largest city?
4) What other programs have governments implemented to address the problems of the peripheral poor, or what programs or policies might be helpful? Mention as many ideas as you can, keeping in mind the limited capital resources.
