OxfordAQA IGCSE Geography: Urban Issues and Challenges — Revision Notes

Condensed for the final weeks. For the full explanation, use the Urban Issues and Challenges study guide.

Causes before consequences — always in that order

The most common weak-answer pattern in this section is listing urban challenges without first establishing why the growth that produced them happened. Fix the order: cause (migration, natural increase) → growth → opportunity/challenge → response. Every full-mark case-study answer follows this chain; skipping the cause step is the single easiest fix for a mid-range answer.

Push and pull factors, and natural increase — kept distinct

• Migration (push-pull) — push factors drive people from rural areas (poverty, limited services); pull factors attract them to cities (jobs, education, healthcare).
• Natural increase — growth from a higher birth rate than death rate, entirely separate from migration.

A scenario may involve both simultaneously — name which mechanism a given fact demonstrates rather than defaulting to “migration” for every instance of urban growth.

The required LIC/NEE case study — a fixed template

Prepare one real, named city with specific recall for each slot:

Slot	What to have ready
Location & importance	Named city, country, regional/national role
Cause of growth	Named push and pull factors, or natural increase
Opportunity (x2)	e.g. access to services; industrial growth as development stimulus
Challenge (x2)	e.g. squatter settlements; water/sanitation/energy provision
Planning response	One named scheme, with an evaluation of how effective it was

A generic, unnamed answer scores poorly against a question that explicitly requires a case study — the named specifics are not optional decoration.

London and New York — compare, do not just describe

Revise these two world cities side by side across shared themes, not as separate profiles:

• Role in finance, business, trade, culture, politics.
• Impact of national and international migration on growth and character.
• Opportunities: employment, recreation, urban greening.
• Challenges: deprivation, housing/education/health/employment inequality, dereliction, urban sprawl, traffic, waste/water/energy management.

For each theme, note one genuine similarity and one genuine difference — comparison questions expect exactly this structure.

Key term precision

Define, don’t gesture at: urbanisation (rising proportion of a population living in urban areas), megacity (urban area with a population over 10 million), natural increase (birth rate exceeding death rate, distinct from migration), squatter settlement (informal housing without legal permission or planning, often lacking services), urban sprawl (unplanned outward spread into surrounding countryside). Confusing natural increase with migration is the most frequent term-precision error examiners report.

Evaluating the planning response, not just describing it

The specification asks specifically for an urban planning example that improved quality of life for the urban poor, and a description-only answer stops short of what is required. After naming the scheme, add a judgement: what improved as a result, for whom, and whether any limitation or trade-off remained (cost, scale, whether it reached everyone affected). This evaluative final step — did it actually work, and how well — is frequently the difference between a mid-band and a top-band case-study answer.

Exam traps

• Listing urban challenges without first explaining what caused the growth.
• Answering a case-study question with a generic, unnamed city.
• Describing London and New York separately instead of comparing them theme by theme.
• Describing a planning response without evaluating how effective it actually was.
• Treating natural increase and migration as the same mechanism.

Where Section A fits in the wider Topic 2 paper

Section A (Urban Issues and Challenges) is the first of three examined sections within Topic 2 Challenges in the Human Environment, followed by Section B (The Changing Economic World) and Section C (Global Issues). Because all three sections are examined within the same paper, confirm the paper’s overall time allocation and treat Section A’s revision as one third of a balanced plan — over-preparing the urban case study at the expense of Sections B and C is a common and avoidable imbalance once revision moves beyond a single-topic focus.

Choosing which case-study city to prepare

If your centre has not fixed a single case-study city, choose one with genuinely accessible, specific detail available (population figures, named districts, a named planning scheme) rather than one that is merely well known. A less famous city with concrete, memorable facts attached will consistently outscore a famous one recalled only in vague generalities, because the mark scheme rewards specificity over familiarity.

Self-test

1. What four-step chain should structure a case-study answer?
2. What is the difference between push-pull migration and natural increase as causes of urban growth?
3. Name the five fixed slots to prepare for the required LIC/NEE case study.
4. Why should London and New York be revised comparatively rather than as separate profiles?
5. Define “urban sprawl” precisely.

Answers: 1. Cause, growth, opportunity/challenge, response. 2. Push-pull migration is people moving to or from an area due to negative conditions at home and positive conditions elsewhere; natural increase is population growth from a higher birth rate than death rate, with no movement of people involved. 3. Location and importance; cause of growth; two named opportunities; two named challenges; one named planning response with an evaluation of its effectiveness. 4. Because exam questions may ask candidates to compare world cities across shared themes, and comparative revision (one similarity, one difference per theme) directly matches that question format. 5. The unplanned outward spread of a city into surrounding countryside.

Related resources

• Urban Issues and Challenges study guide
• Urban Issues and Challenges practice questions