HUMAN SETTLEMENTS AND PLANNING

UNIT I INTRODUCTION
Elements of Human Settlements
– human beings and settlements
– nature shells& Net work
–their functions and Linkages
– Anatomy & classification of Human
settlements
– Locational, Resource based, Population
size & Occupational structure.
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
•It involves the study of all kinds of human settlements, with
a view to geography and ecology
•the physical environment and human psychology and
anthropology, and cultural, political, and occasionally
aesthetics.
HUMAN SETTLEMENTS – GENERAL
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

1. Shelter
2. Infrastructure
3. Services
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 within 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.
ELEMENTS OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

NATURE

NETWORK MAN

SHELL SOCIETY

•These elements always interact with one another.

•A human being has some invisible spheres around him.
EVOLUTION Of HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

•The evolution of human settlements is a continuous cyclic

process from
1. the smallest,
2. the room,
3. to the largest possible,
4. the universal human settlement.
• The process are born, develop, decline and die which can
be compared to plant and animal which are everywhere
in this universe.

• Settlements may have an initial structure, which only

allows for a certain degree of growth, but nothing
excludes the possibility of an expansion and
transformation of this structure, which will allow them to
surpass the initial structural limitations.
The evolution of human settlements can be divided into five
major phases:

1. Primitive non-organised human settlements (started with

the evolution of man.)

2. Primitive organised settlements ( the period of villages -

eopolis - which lasted about 10,000 years.)

3. Static urban settlements or cities (polis - which lasted

about 5,000-6,000 years.)

4. Dynamic urban settlements (dynapolis - which lasted 200

- 400 years.)

5. The universal city (ecumenopolis - which is now

beginning.)
1.Primitive - non-organised human settlements (started with the
evolution of man.)
• The man began to modify Nature and to settle temporarily or
permanently in different location.
• Probably began with fire, they went on to animal husbandry and
the domestication of grazing animals; afterwards came
deforestation and agriculture, and with it, permanent human
settlements

• Man had settled first in natural shelters such as hollows in the

ground, hollow trees or shallow caves, before he began to build
his own primitive and un organised habitat.
• For example observing the level of agriculture communities.
The communities take up a smaller area where they are
agricultural, and a larger one where they are hunting and
cattle-breeding communities.
• There are no transportation and communication lines
between the communities
2.Primitive - organised human settlements
• Man, some ten to twelve thousand years ago, began to enter the
era of organised agriculture, his settlements also began to show
some characteristics of organisation.
•It required time and acquisition of experience in organising the
relationship between man and man, man and nature, and finally
expressing these relationships through cohesive forms of
settlements.

•In initial the human had one-room dwelling in circular form, to

organise the relationship of his community with other communities
he expanded his dwelling by placing many round forms side by side,
then elongated to elliptical ones and at some point came to
conclusion and adopted the rectilinear forms.
• Due to the loss of space between them, they developed more
regular shapes with no space lost between them.
• The evolution reached the stage at which a rectilinear pattern
develops into a regular grid - iron one.
On the micro-scale, where man must divide the land, construct one
or more shells (rooms and houses), and circulate within a built-up
area (neighbourhood), the solution leads to a synthesis at a right
angle;

On the macro-scale, where man must own and use space but not
build it, and circulate within it, although to a much lesser degree
than before (usually non more than one movement to and fro every
day), man continues to follow the course of nature towards
hexagonal patterns.

During this era of the development of human settlements the

patterns or regional distribution of the settlements differ depending
on the phase of evolution and the prevailing conditions of safety, the
population still small, the villages can be found in the plains,
Static urban settlements (polis - which lasted about 5,000-6,000
years.)
•At some point 5,000 or 6,000 years ago, the first urban settlement
appeared as small cities in a plain or as fortresses on hills and
mountains.
•As settlements grew in size, man came to realise that the principle
of the single-nucleus was not always valid in the internal
organisation of the total shells of the community, at this single nodal
point, which was adequate for the village and for small cities, no
longer sufficed.
•The first thing to happen was the expansion of the nucleus in one
or more directions; it was no longer limited to the settlement's
center of gravity.
•Example: The small settlement of Priene, in ancient Greece, where
the central nucleus expanded in two ways:
• first in a linear form along a main street which contained shops
that would normally be clustered in the central agora,
•the secondly through the decentralisation of some functions, such
as temples.
•In larger cities additional nodal points and central places gradually
came into being within the shells of the settlements - a
phenomenon that is unique to human settlements.
Dynamic urban settlement (dynapolis - which lasted 200 - 400
years.)
•Started in the seventeenth century and became apparent only a
century later in all probability, it wall last for another 100 or 200
years until we reach the next phase that of the universal settlement.
•In the dynamic urban phase settlements in space are characterised
by continuous growth. Hence, all their problems are continuously
intensified and new ones continuously created.

•Dynamic settlements, created as a result of an industrial

technological revolution, multiplying in number and form, and now
being created at an even higher rate.
•The evils described in them are the evils of yesterday which are
being multiplied today in a very dangerous manner.
Example: London - atmospheric pollution may be so severe as to
account for 4,000 deaths in a single week of intense "fog".
Hydrocarbons, lead, carcinogenic agents, deteriorating conditions of
atmospheric electricity -- all of these represent retrogressive
processes introduced and supported by man.

The man's position is dangerous in the dynamic settlement

Dynapolis:
1. First expansion of the urban settlement.
2. 30 miles in diameter.
3. All part of the land it covers is not sterilised.
4. The microorganisms in the soil no longer exist.
5. The original animal inhabit ants have largely been banished.
6. Rivers are foul and the atmosphere is polluted.
7. Climate and microclimate have retrogressed.
The first dynamic urban settlement - the early Dynapolis.

•This is the phase when small independent human settlements

when small independent human settlements with independent
administrative units are beginning to grow beyond their initial
boundaries.
•From the economic point of view this development is related to
industrialisation, and from the technological point of view to the rail
road era, which first made commuting from distance points possible.

•The settlements expands in all directions, instead of spreading only

along the railway lines creating new islands of dependent
settlements around railway stations, as during the phase of the early
Dynapolis.
•The city is breaking its walls and spreading into the countryside in a
disorgnised manner.
Universal human settlement: Ecumenopolis

•Regardless of whether dynamic settlements are simple (Dynapolis),

or composite (metropolises and megalopolises), they have been
growing continuously during the last centuries and this is apparent
everywhere at present i.e. the whole Earth will be covered by one
human settlement.
•The population explosion, will be definitely be the most decisive
factor in the next phase of human settlements.
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.

Site Factors: Some sites have specific advantages that mean
settlements developed in that place
Function of a Settlement:

•The function of a Settlement relates to its economic and social

development and refers to its main activities.
Settlement Hierarchy
•This refers to the arrangement of settlements in an order of
importance , usually from many isolated dwelling or hamlets at the
base of the Hierarchy to a Conurbation.

The order of importance is based on the following:

•The area and population of the settlement (size)

•The range and number of services/functions within each settlement
•The relative sphere of influence of each settlement
Sphere of Influence
Sphere of Influence is defined as the area served by a particular
settlement.

The size of this sphere of influence depends on

•the size and functions of a town and its surrounding settlement ,
•the transport facilities available and
•the level of competition from a rival settlement.

In general, the larger the settlement the larger the sphere of

Influence.

Eg: London compared to Barnsley

Sphere of Influence is based upon two main principles:
1. Threshold Population: The minimum number of people needed
to support a settlement or service.
2. Range: The maximum distance that people are prepared to
travel to obtain a particular service.