HUMAN SETTLEMENTS PLANNING

UNIT 1
INTRODUCTION
CONTENTS:

 Introduction to the Science of Human Settlements,

 Principles on the Creation of Human Settlements ,

 Elements of Human Settlements ,

 Basic Parts of Composite Human Settlements ,

 Classification of Human Settlements ,

 Evolution of Human Settlements .(Five Phases)

 Settlement Patterns
How did the first settlements start?

Look what I Look what I

found!
found!

… our ancestors appeared. They lived by eating fruit and

berries, and hunting… meant they were always on the
move, chasing food…
 This is the life!
Urrrrrr

Then, one day, they noticed something amazing: where they

dropped seeds, plants grew!
So they began to settle down in one place and grow their food.
 Some of
us have
work to do.

They chose a place for a site that had what they needed.
Like good flat land… water… wood for fuel… shelter from
the wind and rain… materials for making things (clay, sand,
iron ore, tin…)
… easy access to other places for trading… and
protection from their enemies.
 What’s wrong with us?

Years passed. The number of humans grew. More and more

settlements appeared... Some grew larger… and larger… and
larger.
 When people first built settlements hundreds of years ago,
they chose things which provided the five things they needed
the most :

Good Sheltered
defence
Fuel and
building
materials
On dry land

Farmland

Water supply
Settlement Characteristics:

Area: How large the area of a settlement is.

Site: describes the actual land upon which a settlement is built.

Population: The size and type of people that live in a settlement.

Function: The function of a settlement relates to its economic and

social development and refers to its main activities.

Situation: describes where a settlement is located in relation to other

surrounding features such as other settlements, rivers and
communications.

Shape: describes how the settlement is laid out. Its pattern.

 Types of settlements

• Temporary
• Permanent
• Rural settlement
• Urban settlement
TEMPORARY
PERMANENT
•There are many reasons why humans make the choices they do about
building settlements.

Factors include:
Physical Features
• Body of water (transportation routes, water for drinking and farming)
• Flat land (easy to build)
• Fertile soil (for crops)
• Forests (timber and housing)

•Human Factors
• people who share a common language, religion or culture,social network
or supports
• quality of life
• employment
Factors can be push or pull. Push factors encourage a family
to emigrate (pushes them to leave a location). Pull factors encourage a family
to immigrate (pulls them in to move to a location).
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
 A settlement is a place where people live.

DEF : The fabric of human settlements consists of physical elements and

services to which the settlements provide the material support.
The physical components comprise shelter, i.e. the superstructures of different
shape, size, type and materials erected by mankind for security, privacy, and
protection from the elements and for his singularity within a community;
infrastructure, i.e. the complex networks designed to deliver or remove from the
shelter people, goods, energy of information. Services cover those required by a
community for the fulfillment of its functions as asocial body, such as education,
health, culture, welfare, recreation and nutrition.”
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
Human settlements means the totality of the human community - whether city,
town or village – with all the social, material, organizational, spiritual and cultural
elements that sustain it.

The fabric of human settlements consists of physical elements and services to

which these elements provide the material support.

The physical components comprise,

Shelter
i.e. the superstructures of different shapes, size, type and materials erected by
mankind for security, privacy and protection from the elements and for his
singularity with in a community.

Infrastructure
i.e. the complex networks designed to deliver to or remove from the
shelter people, goods, energy or information.

Services
cover those required by a community for the fulfillment of its functions as a social
body, such as education, health, culture, welfare, recreation and nutrition.
 HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
EKISTICS
The term Ekistics (coined by Konstantinos Apostolos Doxiadis in 1942) applies to the
science of human settlements. It includes regional, city, community planning and dwelling design.

Ekistic units :
Doxiadis believed that the conclusion from biological and social experience was
clear: to avoid chaos means confusion or place of great disorder, we must organize
our system of life from anthropos (individual) to ecumenopolis (global city) in
hierarchical levels, represented by human settlements.

so he articulated a general
hierarchical scale with fifteen
levels of ekistic units:
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
EKISTICS

includes regional, city, community planning and dwelling design ,

Involves the study of all kinds of human settlements, with a view to geography and
ecology — the physical environment.

Ekistics as a science:

" to reexamine all principles and theories and to readjust the disciplines and
professions connected with settlements”

Ekistics Framework

“Settlements are man's response to his combined economic,

social, political, technological and cultural human needs. As a
result, man becomes successful with his response to this need
only if he is happy and safe within the settlement that he creates for
himself.”
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

HUMAN SETTLEMENTS INHABITED BY MAN –

Cluster of dwellings of any type or size where human beings live

Created through movement of man in space and definition of boundaries of
territorial interest for physical and institutional purposes

HUMAN SETTLEMENTS CONSIST OF:

•The Content: Man, Society and Networks

•The Container: Physical Settlement (Nature and Shell)
• Natural Elements
• Man-made (artificial) Elements

HUMAN SETTLEMENTS COMPRISE OF ALL SETTLEMENTS.

from primitive to most elaborate, from old to new, from small to big, from
temporary to permanent, from single to composite
CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN SETTLEMENT

• SIZES
• LOCATION OF SETTLEMENTS
• PHYSICAL FORMS
• FUNCTIONS
Type of settlement based on population size:
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
 Conurbation/metropolitan area – a supercity consisting of multiple cities and
towns. The population is usually several million.

 Large City – a city with a large population and many services. The population is >1
million people.

 City – a city would have abundant services, but not as many as a large city. The
population of a city is over 100,000 people.

 Large town – a large town has a population of 20,000 to 100,000.

 Town – a town has a population of 1,000 to 20,000

 Village – a village generally does not have many services, possibly only a small
corner shop or post office. A village has a population of 100 to 1,000.

 Hamlet – a hamlet has a tiny population (<100) and very few (if any) services, and
few buildings.

 Isolated dwelling – an isolated dwelling would only have 1 or 2 buildings or

families in it. It would have negligible services, if any.
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

ISOLATED DWELLING
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
DISPERSED
SETTLEMENTS
A dispersed settlement is an area in
which people settle but there
homes are far away from each
other it is now said to be a
scattered area.

HAMLET – Human
settlements may consist of
only a few dwelling units
(hamlets)

a hamlet has a tiny

population (<100) and very
few (if any) services, and few
buildings
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
HAMLET
A hamlet is a rural community —a small settlement — which is too
small to be considered a village. A hamlet has a tiny population (<100)
and very few (if any) services, and few buildings.
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

It includes the temporary camp of

the hunters and herders;
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

The Permanent Settlements

Called Villages.
Village
A village is a
clustered human
settlement or
community, larger
than a hamlet, but
smaller than a town
or city. Though
generally located in
rural areas.

A village generally
does not have many
services, possibly
only a small corner
shop or post office.
A village has a
population of 100
to 1,000.
Town
A town has a
population of
1,000 to 20,000.

A town is a type of
settlement ranging
from a few to
several thousand
(occasionally
hundreds of
thousands)
inhabitants.

Usually, a "town"
is thought of as
larger than a
village but smaller
than a "city",
CITY
A city would have
abundant services,
but not as many as
a large city. The
population of a city
is over 100,000
people.

A city is an urban
area with a large
population and a
particular
administrative,
legal, or historical
status.
METROPOLITAN AREA
A metropolitan
area is a large
population center
consisting of a
large metropolis
and its adjacent
zone of influence.

A large city and its

suburbs consisting
of multiple cities
and towns.

The population is
usually one to
three million
CONURBATION: A group of large cities and their suburbs, consisting of three to ten
million people
Also urban agglomeration

A conurbation is an urban area or

agglomeration comprising a number of
cities, large towns and larger urban
areas that, through population growth
and physical expansion, have merged to
form one continuous urban and
industrially developed area.

A conurbation can be confused with a

metropolitan area.

As the term is used in North America, a

metropolitan area consists of many
neighborhoods, while a conurbation
consists of many different metropolitan
areas that are connected with one
another and are usually interdependent
economically and socially.
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
And Large Urban Agglomerations.
The term agglomeration is also linked to conurbation, which is a more specific
term for large urban clusters where the built-up zones of influence of distinct cities
or towns are connected by continuous built-up development

The Greater
Tokyo Area,
the world's
largest urban
agglomeration
, with 38.4
million people.
LOCATION OF SETTLEMENTS

• PLAIN
• PLATEAUE
• COASTAL
• FOREST
• DESERT

PHYSICAL FORMS

• LINEAR
• RECTANGULAR
• CIRCULAR
• STAR
• CROSS-SHAPED
 Settlement patterns
• When early settlements began to grow there
were no planning regulations. People built houses
where they wanted to. Some houses were built
far apart from each other (dispersed). Other
houses were built close together, making villages.
Villages began to grow outwards and the shape
of the settlements changed. Some settlements
became long and narrow (linear), others stayed
clustered together (nucleated). Today, people
must have permission from the local authority to
build houses. Settlements now grow in a planned
way.
• Dispersed settlements are usually farms. They
are spread out because of the space taken up
by fields. Other dispersed settlements are
found in mountainous areas where it is
difficult to live.
• Linear settlements sometimes follow the
shape of the land. It is easier to build on the
floor of a valley than on the steep sides. Linear
settlements also follow features such as roads,
railway lines or rivers.
• Nucleated settlements are where buildings are
clustered round a central point. The centre of
the settlement may be a crossroads, a church,
a water supply, or a market place. Nucleated
settlements also occur on hill tops.
• Planned settlements often have a regular
pattern. They may have a square shape, or a
crescent shape for example. Brasilia, the
capital of Brazil, is a planned settlement in the
shape of an aeroplane
 City layout
• The layout of a city is the way its estreets and
buildings are distributed.

• There are different types of layout:

 Irregular layout
• The urban growth has not been planned.
• It has no particular order. The streets may be
narrow and winding. There are few open
spaces. There are typical of Muslim and
medieval towns.
 Grid plan
• The grid plan or gridiron plan is a type of city
plan in which streets run at right angles to
each other, forming a grid. It is typical of
North American cities, and of newer districts
in European cities.
 Radiocentric layout
• The streets radiate out from a central point.
BASED ON FUNCTIONS:

• ADMINISTRATIVE
• EDUCATION
• CULTURAL (religion)
• INDUSTRIAL
• TRADING AND COMMERCIAL
• DEFENCE
Resource-Based Settlement
settlement a result of a product or resources
these included fishing, forestry, mining, and recreation
Occurred in Atlantic Maritimes, Boreal Shield, Boreal Plain, Montane
Cordillera, Pacific Maritimes

Service-Based Settlement
Often based on transportation
Provides a variety of services which are needed by people in lightly
populated areas
These may include gas stations, motels, post offices, restaurants