Cities

A city is a place where thousands or even millions of people live in a very small area. Cities are much larger and more important than towns or villages. Today, about half of the world’s population live in cities.

 Parts of a city

Today’s modern cities often have three characteristic areas. The centre of the city is called downtown. It consists of stores, banks, government buildings and culturalattractions. Many people come to work in the downtown area. In large cities the downtown area is full of skyscrapers.

An industrial region with factories, warehouses, mills and other industries lies around the downtown area.

Suburbs are the places farthest away from the city centre. They are new residential areas where most people live. Suburbs have their own stores and shopping malls but people often have to travel an hour or longer to work downtown.

Life in Cities

Cities have become very attractive places because they offer people not only jobs and work but also many things they can do in their free time. You can go to museums or art exhibitions, relax in public parks, listen to music at concerts or eat out at expensive restaurants that offer food from all over the world. Big department stores give you the pleasure of buying many things without leaving the building.

Cities offer their residents and the people who work there a variety of ways of getting around. Many people walk or ride a bike, which is often the fastest way to get around in a crowded city.

All cities offer at least some forms of public transport: buses, trains or trams. Large cities have subways that travel underground.

A city has its own government, called the city council. The head of a city is its mayor. City governments have many things to care for. They must organize their own police force to protect the citizens and fight crime. They must provide residents with drinking water,electricity, heating, hospitals and services to get rid of waste. The city council must decide in which parts of the city new factories or houses can be built.

Modern cities of the 20th century

In the 20th century cities grew more than ever before. Architects discovered a new way to get more space in the city. They built skyscrapers.

As time went on more and more people moved away from the inner parts of the city and settled down in the suburbs, which were places where it was quieter and where the quality of life was better. These suburbs became small towns with their own office buildings and shopping centres. Residents can work and live there without having to travel long distances to the centre. Poorer people, however, stayed in the centres and formed ghettos. They lacked the money to buy houses orflats in the more expensive suburbs.

Today’s cities are much larger than cities in previous times. With the help of cars and public transport people can get to all parts of a city very quickly.

City problems

Modern cities all over the world face the same problems. One of them is poor housing. People often live in old houses or huts that don’t have electricity or sanitation. As city population grows governments don’t have the money to build modern apartment buildings.

Cars and industries are polluting city air and rivers more and more. Waste that people throw away is burned or ends up in landfills. All of this makes modern cities an unhealthy place to live in.

Especially during morning and evening rush hours cities become packed with vehicles . Daily traffic jams make it impossible for people to get to work in time. City authorities are spending more and more money on public transportation and are talking othersteps to reduce traffic in cities. A few years ago the London mayor made people pay to drive their cars into the city centre.

Cities of today face many social problems. Crime, alcoholism and drug addiction is especially high in cities. Many young people areunemployed .

Larger multiethnic cities face conflicts between groups with different cultural backgrounds. Blacks and whites in the USA and South Africa had a violent history in the 20th century.

Even though residents of cities have a higher standard of living there remain many poor people. Government organizations work hard toget rid of poverty. They try to give such people better education and jobs.

 Future of cities

As the world’s population is constantly on the rise more and more people are moving to cities. Some local governments are trying to relieve cities of overpopulation by building new towns outside city areas.

Cities will have to become greener. Modern buildings will rely on new energy forms. Traffic will have to change drastically.