UNIT 1 – INTRODUCTION AR 6902 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.

WHAT IS SETTLEMENT?

 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.

SETTLEMENTS EVOLUTION Figure 1 Aerial view of rectilinear land

In the long history from camp to village a handful of innovations division in a farming area.
accelerated the art of settlement design. In the agricultural
societies such an innovation may be symbolized by the plow, for it boosted food production enough to
free some people from tilling the soil and enabled them to attend other pursuits. with the plow, man put
his first lines on the earth‟s surface. On the flat riverside flood lands- civilization‟s first tilled soil- the
plow etched parallel furrows which added up to a number of plots, more or less rectangular shape.

Agricultural societies needed a system of easy land division

for crop planning and land ownership. They also needed a
system of land plotting for re-division and reapportionment
after the flood, an annual event on the Nile, the Tigris, and
Euphrates rivers. Rectilinear plotting suited all these needs
perfectly. It enabled men to plan the use of land.

As the logic of the plow led to rectilinear plotting in the field,

the geometry of mud brick house construction, as well as the
need for easy land division, led to rectilinear plotting in the
town Village dwellers too had to be able to measure and
Figure 2 A circular village ,aerial view of Ba Ila village in
record land plots for ownerships, transferral, or rudimentary northern Rhodesia. Small huts form the outer [Link]
planning. chief’s compound is in the center. Cattle pens line the outer
circle of the huts.
They also had to divide their urban lots into squares, yards,
or gardens. Mud brick, convenient lengths of roofing lumber, and house planning were all combined in the
logic of rectilinear town plotting.

Rectilinear layout is found in the entire history of town [Link] was used in the ancient and later Greek
towns, in Roman colonial out posts, and in the Indian, Chinese, and pre Columbian cities. But rectilinear
was not the only geometric system used in the history.

The grid iron layout was accompanied and probably preceded by an equally important system that is the
circular form of settlements. The grid had been the product of the farmer the circle was originally the

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product of herdsman, the descendant of the hunter and the ancestor of the warrior.

In the circle was found an ideal form for fencing in cattle, for its enclosed a maximum of land with
minimum of fence. That, however, was not its only advantage, for a fence could, besides keeping cattle in,
also keep an enemy out.

The major role of the circular form of town layout was to be a defensive one. Early fortified towns, usually
built on hilltops or on islands, had protective walls which were more or less circular enclosures.

The immediate descendant of the circular form was the radio centric, the means by which circular
settlement enlarge. The radio centric pattern develops from the circular by first growing outward along
the radial routes; the wedge shaped areas between the radials filling in gradually.

Fortress cities, for example, developed small settlements around their gates along the road ways.
Eventually these circular settlements grew enough to require a second encircling wall, and then a third and
fourth. This process kept repeating itself, from ancient Athens or Rome to nineteenth century.

FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR DIFFERENT TYPES OF SETTLEMENTS

1. Physical factors

 Nature of terrain: Dispersed type of settlements is found in remote jungles, hilly areas. Compact
settlements are found in highly productive alluvial plains.

 Altitude:-Dispersed settlements are found in hills of Meghalaya and clustered and semi clustered
settlements are found in Gujarat plains.

 Climate:-due to frequent droughts settlement may become hamleted.

 Availability of water: Scarcity of water in Rajasthan has resulted in development of compact

settlements.

2. Cultural and ethnic factors

• Caste and tribal structure: due to ethnic factors settlement may become fragmented and Hamleted
[Link].

• Religion: people of same religion prefer to live together making a settlement large or small.

3. Security factors

• Defence from invasions and Wild animals: due to defence from dacoits, wild animals or fear
settlements may cluster and form compact settlements.

SETTLEMENT FORMS

• Broadly classified into four types:

• Shapeless cluster-without any regular street or with an irregular road which comes up according to
the local requirements, it may be of the massive type and dispersed type.

• Linear cluster-with a straight and spacious street running network parallel rows of houses.

• Square or rectangular cluster-with straight streets running parallel or at right angles to one another.

• Settlement formed of isolated or dispersed homestead Settlements can further be classified

according to size and spacing into: clustered or compact and dispersed or scattered.

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SETTLEMENT HIERARCHY

Isolated dwellings
Such settlement consists of individual units. It can be termed as the initial stage of development of a
settlement.
An isolated dwelling would only have 1 or 2 buildings or families in it.
Hamlets
When many individual units are cluster together they form hamlets. The grouping may be due to similar
occupational patterns, religion, cultural factors etc. A hamlet has a tiny population (<100) and very few (if
any) services
Villages
When many hamlets combine they form a village. The reason for such grouping may be due to
interdependencies of one hamlet on another, thus to form a self- sufficient unit.
Towns
A town is a larger entity which is more self-sufficient, has a stronger economic base.
Cities
Where large concentration of people exists, multiple economic activities exist.
Metropolis
A metropolis is a large city, with a population of at least one million living in its urban agglomeration.
Megalopolis
An extensive, metropolitan area or a long chain of continuous metropolitan areas.
TYPES OF SETTLEMENTS
There is a great variation in the settlement types due to geographical, cultural and economical factors,
settlements can be broadly classified into
• Urban settlements
• Rural settlements

EKISTICS
• the science of human settlements
• 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 — and human psychology and
anthropology, and cultural, political, and occasionally aesthetics
• coined by Konstantinos Apostolos Doxiadis in 1942

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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, privacyand 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

Human settlements consists of several elements. Of which five elements and the inter
relationship between these five elements makes the human settlement vital.

1. The Content: Man, Society and Networks

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

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All the five elements must always be taken into consideration:

Nature, including physical geography, soil resources, water resources, plant and animal life & climate.
Human biological and emotional needs, sensations and perceptions and moral values.
Society, including population characteristics, social stratification, cultural patterns, economic
development, education, health and welfare and law and administration.
Shells, or structures, in which people live and function, such as housing, schools, hospitals, shopping
centres and markets, recreational facilities, civic and business centres and industries.
Networks or systems, that facilitate life and day to day functions of inhabitants such as water and
power systems, transportation networks, communication systems and the settlements physical
layout.

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SETTLEMENT CLASSIFICATIONS
 According to the size and number of units which forms the settlement
 Permanency of the settlement or the degree to which it is continually inhabited
 Method of settlement creation, such as a settlement that emerged or evolved naturally or
one that was preconceived
 The purpose or function, the most important form of settlement classification.
The most common functional classifications are rural settlements, institutional settlements established
for a specific purpose and urban settlements.
 Classification of Human settlements – Locational, Resource based, Population size &
Occupational structure.
 CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS BASED ON POPULATION AND DWELLING UNITS

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THE HIERARCHY OF SETTLEMENTS

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SETTLEMENT CHARACTERISTICS

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
and refers to its main activities.

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 CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS BASED ON FUNCTION

The functions of settlement are the things that happen there. The function of most early settlements
was farming .As settlements grew, the functions increased to include things such as markets and inns.
Today settlements have many functions, which continue to change over time.

RESIDENTIAL TOWNS

The main function of many settlements, today is to give people to live.

People may live in one settlement and work in another.

ADMINISTRATIVE TOWNS

National capitals, which have headquarters of the administrative offices of

central governments, are called administrative towns, such as New Delhi, Canberrra, Moscow, and
Washington. Local authority offices run the local services, such as road maintenance and waste
disposal.

Function of a Settlement:

INDUSTRIAL TOWNS

Mining and manufacturing regions constitute

industrial towns.
“Old” Industrial towns tend to have the
Features:
-Found on or near coalfields
-Has railways and canals for transport
-Has housing and industry mixed in together
-Newer industry is found on the outskirts, near main
roads for transport
In newer industrial towns planning ensures the
housing and industry are located apart. Goods are
manufactured in factories. Today many factories are located in business parks on the outskirts of settlements.
Dhanbad and Khetri are examples of mining towns. Towns which have developed due to setting up industries
such as Jameshdpur are called industrial towns.

DEFENCE TOWNS

Centres military activities are known as defence towns. They are of three types: Fort towns, Garrison towns
and Naval bases. Jodhpur is fort town; Mhow is a garrison town; and Kochi is a naval bases.

COMMERCIAL TOWNS

Many old towns were famous as trade centres such as Lahore in Pakistan, Baghdad in Iraq and Agra in India.
Some town are developed as transport towns such as Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Aden in Yemen and
Mumbai in India are port towns. Shopping centres and recreation facilities, such as sports centres and
cinemas, provide services for people.

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MARKET TOWNS

Market Towns tend to have following features

-Found an a fertile farming area

-Many services e.g., shops and offices

-Good transport links – often they are route centres

-They may be the site of important bridges. Often mills

were built on the river

-Market places in the town centre; markets may no

longer be held there

PORT TOWNS

Ports tend to have the following features

-Found where there are sheltered harbours

-Flat land for building on nearby

-Modern ports need deeper water for today’s

larger ships

-Many ports have gone through a lot of

development

The largest ports are found where there is a major

industrial area inland that needed a place to import
and export its goods.

SEASIDE RESORTS

Seaside Resorts tend to have the following features

-Found on the coast with beaches
-Close to industrial areas with large populations, with
good rail and road links
-On the sea-front are hotels and entertainments
-Guest houses found inland where the land is cheaper
to buy
-Housing found further inlands, with industry on the
outskirts
-Caravan, camp-sites and golf courses also on the
edge of town, but near the coast
-Promenades – pedestrianized roads along the front
of the resort

CULTURAL TOWNS
Towns famous for religious, educational or recreational functions are called cultural towns. Places of
pilgrimage, such as Jerusalem, Mecca, JagannathPuri and Varanasi etc. are considered ass religious towns.
There are also recreational towns such as Las Vegas in the USA.

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 CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS BASED ON OCCUPATIONAL

STRUCTURE
Besides population size, occupation is also taken as the criteria. In India, if more than 75% of
workforce is engaged in non-agricultural activities then the settlement is called as Urban.
Other countries have their own criteria. For eg. In Italy it is 50%

 CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS BASED ON LOCATION

Towns & cities all over the world have certain advantages of site and location, which have enabled
them to grow. The size of a town is its topographical location.

For instance, Lagos (Nigerian city) sited on a marshy island that is almost surrounded by lagoon with
an outlet to the sea. Its situation is its position in relation to the rest of the region. Lagos is situated (
or positioned)at the sea end of a rich agricultural region producing cocoa, palm and kernels, ground
nuts,cotton and hides and skins.

Several factors favoured the location and growth of cities and towns in a particular area.

 SETTLEMENTS ON HILLS

 COASTAL SETTLEMENTS

 FOREST SETTLEMENTS

 DESERT SETTLEMENTS

 SETTLEMENTS ALONG RIVERS

EVOLUTION of HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

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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.)

[Link] human settlements - Non - organised settlements

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 unorganised habitat. After first
exploiting natural formations and transforming
them into dwellings, by various changes and additions, he began to create shells independent of, and
unrelated to, pre-existing natural forms and their boundary were within certain limit beyond which the
settlement had no link and transportation.

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. Their nucleus under normal
conditions is in the center of gravity; or of
security problem, in the safest place in their
area, or even beyond their area of cultivation.

There are no transportation and communication

lines between the communities. If we look at
these primitive non-organised communities on a
macro scale, there consists of a nucleus which is
the built up part of the human settlement, and
several parts which lead out into the open,
thinning out until they disappear – either because nobody goes beyond certain limits of the community or
because these trips take place so seldom that they would not be placed on the same scale of densities. There
is no physical lines connecting this primitive settlement with others; there are no networks between
settlements.

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2. Primitive human settlements - Organised 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.

In Nature evolution work towards a compression of circles and the gradual formation of polygonic systems,
the clearest form of which is the hexagon. In evolution of human settlements we see two courses:

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 from 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

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population still small, the villages can be found in the plains, near the rivers and near the sea. When the
population becomes dense, new patterns develop, and the villages come over to cover the entire plain on the
basis of the small hexagonal pattern and the hills and the mountains on a larger hexagonal pattern. The
development of land cultivation, the population might be larger, but would still be smaller than that of the era
of large population and full exploitation of the land, when it would reach five hundred thousand or even one
million.

3. STATIC URBAN SETTLEMENTS OR CITIES

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.

[Link] URBAN SETTLEMENTS

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 (make stronger) 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. This makes the dynamic settlement completely
different from any other category of settlements and a real threat to humanity itself.

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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, this can be shown through the following graph.

Dynamic urban settlements

 Dynapolis:

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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 railroad 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.

 Metropolis I Dynametropolis :

The next phase of dynamic settlement is of

metropolis, which incorporates several other
urban and rural settlements of the surrounding
area.

The few metropolises from the past became

static following a period of dynamic growth,
then declined and died. This was to a certain
extent, true of ancient Rome in its last phases
and Byzantine Constantinople - which
disintegrated to such a degree that the mobs in
the streets became uncontrollable and
sometimes succeeded in imposing their will on the government. From the economic, social,
administrative or technological point of view, the fate of the historical metropolises has been dynamic
growth, a static phase, and then death. To base our experience on the history of cities, we must recognise
the fact that a static phase for a metropolis is the prelude of its decline and death. In such a case this
should be said as a dynamic metropolis, after losing its momentum for growth, becomes negatively
dynamic.

To calculate the number of metropolises attributed to the effect of the railway and to the effect of the
automobile, we will find the latter to be much greater, out of all proportion to the number of the former.

Dynametropolis, continuing its course towards becoming a megalopolis.

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 Megalopolis I Dynamegalopolis:

The area on a large scale including more than one

metropolis and many other urban settlements and it
cannot be static.

A megalopolis has the same external characteristics as

the metropolis, the only difference being that every
phenomenon appears on a much larger scale. It is
characteristic that all phenomenon of the development
of human settlements up to the metropolis shown on a
100 [Link]. Scale, for megalopolis would be 1,[Link].

5. THE 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.

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