Types Of Settlements

Types of settlements

Most of us live in settlements, a settlement is a place or a group of houses were people live and carry out their activities (residence, trade, agriculture, and others). There are 2 types of settlements, the RURALS and the URBANS. The differences between this 2 types of settlements are becoming less clear (because in some countries urban settlements are growing inexpenses of the rural ones).
RURAL SETTLEMENTS…
Most of the rural settlements are hamlets or villages. When we study a rural settlement we have to take in account:
• THE PATTERN
• THE FORM, OR THE SHAPE
• THE SITUATION AND SITE
• THE FUNCTION AND HIERARCHY
• CHANGES
THE PATTERN
A dispersed settlement pattern is one in which houses are not all together but separated, scattered in thecountryside. They are common in places where there is no much population, such as the Sahel region of Africa.
A nucleated settlement it is one in which buildings are together, around something, that can be a church, a green village, or other thing. Some favour factors of the nucleated settlements are:
• The work of the land can be a co-operative work
• The shortage of water that make people gonear to springs
• The swampy conditions that make people to locate in dry ground
• They are located near important junctions and crossroads as these favour trade and communications
VILLAGE FORM
Village form is the same that the shape. In linear settlement houses are separated along a road o river. In cruciform settlement houses are found in the intersections of roads. A green village, consistin houses, and other buildings around a green village.




SITE AND SITUATION
The site of a settlement is the real ground where it is build, and the situation is the relationship between the settlement and it surrounding.
Early settlers took into account advantages and disadvantages of alternatives sites for agriculture and housing, these included:
• AVAILABILITY OF WATER
• FREEDOMFROM FLOODING
• LEVEL SITES TO BUILDING
• SUNNY, SOUTH-FACING SLOPES
• PROXIMITY TO RICH SOILS FOR CULTIVATION
SETTLEMENT HIERARCHY:
The term hierarchy means order. Settlements generally are order by their sizes. This is the order of hierarchy:
RANGE OF A GOOD, THRESHOLD, SPHERE OF INFLUENCE .
• The RANGE OF A GOOD is the distance you have to travel to buy a good. Low order goods, havea smaller range than high order ones.
• The THRESHOLD is the minimum number of people required to support a particular good, shop or office.
• The SPHERE OF INFLUENCE is the area served by a settlement.
• This things change a lot according to the settlement hierarchy.

FACTORS AFFECTING THE SIZE, GROWTH AND FUNCTION OF SETTLEMENTS…
There are too many factors that affect the size,growth and function of a settlement. For example, in extreme conditions, settlements are small, because the food you can produce is not much, but if there is too much food, the settlements will be bigger because more people will be able to live in well conditions.
In MEDCs (more economical developed countries), rural settlements have become dormitory settlements, this means that rural settlementsthat had been urbanized, also many of the rural settlements of the MEDCs, are becoming big center of industry.



URBAN LAND USE
BID –RENT THEORY:
The concept of BID-RENT is vital to models of urban land use. Bid rent is the value of land for different proposes. It shows how the prices increase in the center. The center is the most expensive, because is the more accessible, and there isonly a small amount.

BURGESS´S CONCENTRIC MODEL (1925)
In this model, houses quality and social class increase with distance from the city center. Land in the center is dominated by commerce. Around the central business district, it was manufacturing.
HOYT´S SECTOR MODEL (1939)
Homer Hoyt emphasised the importance of transport routes and incompatibility of certain land use.

URBAN LAND...