Why People Move to Cities: Causes and Problems Essay (Band 9)
Band-9 double-question essay on rural-to-urban migration causes and problems, with criteria breakdown and urbanization vocabulary.
In many countries, people are moving from rural areas to cities. Why is this happening, and what problems does it cause?
Band-9 sample essay
Urbanization now absorbs two-thirds of humanity's growth, and its drivers are rational responses to uneven opportunity. Migrants chase livelihoods cities concentrate — and their arrival strains the very systems that attracted them.
People move primarily for economics. Cities cluster formal jobs, higher wages, and entrepreneurial markets that villages cannot match; a young person choosing between subsistence farming and urban employment faces no real choice. Education compounds the pull: universities, training centers, and English-medium schools cluster urbanely, so ambitious families migrate for children's prospects. Services seal the decision — hospitals, entertainment, connectivity — making rural life feel like deprivation by comparison.
The problems concentrate in housing and livability. Demand shocks inflate rents beyond service-worker wages, spawning informal settlements without sanitation where disease and fire spread. Infrastructure lags arrivals: water systems, transit, and schools designed for smaller populations buckle, producing shortages, gridlock, and classroom overcrowding. Culturally, villages hollow — losing youth, labor, and continuity — while cities inherit diversity without cohesion, occasionally erupting in friction.
Urbanization itself is unstoppable and largely beneficial; its unmanaged form is the problem. The policy answer is balance: invest in rural towns to narrow the gap, while planning cities for arrivals rather than against them. People will keep chasing opportunity — wisdom lies in spreading it.
(251 words)
Why this scores Band 9
Task Response (9): Both questions answered with developed mechanisms — economics/education/services for why, housing/infrastructure/hollowing for problems — linked by causation chains.
Coherence & Cohesion (9): Why-paragraph then problems-paragraph with explicit linkage ("strains the very systems that attracted them"). Each point extends, never lists.
Lexical Resource (9): Urbanization precision: "subsistence farming," "demand shocks," "informal settlements," "buckle," "hollow." Formal, vivid, exact.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy (9): Semicolon-linked contrasts, em-dash qualifications, concessive framing. Full control.
Vocabulary to steal
- absorbs growth — urbanization as sponge
- no real choice — constrained decision framing
- deprivation by comparison — relative poverty mechanism
- buckle under arrivals — infrastructure strain (strong verb)
- diversity without cohesion — integration challenge phrase
- spreading opportunity — decentralization close
FAQs
How is double-question different from problem/solution?
It asks two direct questions (why + what effects) rather than causes plus your solutions. Answer both fully; propose fixes only if asked.
Should the two answers connect?
Yes — show causation chains: migrants seek jobs, cities strain housing. Linked answers demonstrate thinking, not listing.
How do I split paragraphs for two questions?
One body paragraph per question, each with two developed points. Clean separation with a linking transition scores highest.
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