Central+Business+District

= = Characteristics:
 * Multi-storey, high-rise buildings
 * Vertical Zoning
 * Concentration of retailing goods. Shops have a wide range of goods and services rendered in the same buildings
 * Highly concentrated public transport
 * High day-time population and low night-time population
 * Functional segregation of buildings: CBDs are sectioned into areas by land use
 * CBDs have the strictest traffic regulation
 * The structure of the CBD changes drastically over time

CBDs are not permanent, and due to a number of factors eventually shift to new locations over time. Factors influencing CBD decline include:
 * Poor and out-dated facilities Infrastructure
 * Increase in Private car ownership makes it easier for people live outside of the city and commute inward to work, shifting the centre of residence
 * Investors are attracted to out-of-town areas: Many business owners desire to escape the traffic congestion and pollution (air, water, noise, visual) in urban areas relocate the centres of their businesses to outside of the city where they can have a serene environment and wide parking spaces
 * Cost of development and maintaining the CBD. It is expensive to maintain the infrastructure or improve the conditions in the CBD due to high day-time traffic, harbouring movements, or the high cost involved in replacing or renewing the existing infrastructure
 * Congestion, both vehicular and human and their associated problems can cause a CBD to decline by reducing the convenience of common movement. Cars get caught in traffic due things like the weather. This lowers productivity.
 * Poor planning by city authorities. Sanitation for example can lead to CBD decline when poorly planned by creating massive pollution.

Causes of rapid urbanisation Why is there an increase of urban areas? The causes of rapid urbanisation are often classified under the following areas:


 * Rural push
 * Urban Pull
 * Economic growth

Case Studies of shanty towns (informal settlements):


 * Dharavi in Mumbai, India
 * Rio De Janiero (Case study in The New Wider World pg. 80-82)
 * Kolkata in India (New Wider World pg. 70-81)

Efforts made by the government or city authorities to improve shanty towns or slum dwellings: Case studies:
 * Singapore housing success (Advanced Geography by David Waugh pg. 298)

Factors affecting the locations of residential areas within cites or urban areas
 * Historical factors, ancestral influences etc.: the quality or age of the buildings in which dwellings are established
 * Relief and Drainage.
 * Accessibility and transport links
 * Wealth: richer people can afford to live inside the city
 * Ethnicity
 * City planning
 * Location of industries and areas
 * Relative importance of urban processes such as urbanisation, urban sprawl, gentrification, counter urbanisation
 * Natural population increase