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.
