UNIT 2 – FORMS OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS AR 6902 HUMAN SETTLEMENTS AND PLANNING

UNIT 2 FORMS OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

 Structure and form of Human settlements
 Linear, non-linear and circular – Combinations
 Reasons for development – advantages and disadvantages – case studies
 Factors influencing the growth and decay of human settlements.

 STRUCTURE AND FORM OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

Mankind has been living in towns,big and small,from times immemorial and the pattern of the
town plan has generally been influenced by various factors such as situation of the site, the
nature of the terrain, the period of development, the economic structure, the nature of
industry and trade practiced.
As urban areas have grown over time they have become increasingly complex.Each urban
area has a variety of functions.The different activities that take place mean that the way
which humans use the land changes throughout the urban area.Due to the complexity of land
uses found throughout a city a number of models have been created to identify patterns of
land use.

SETTLEMENT SITE AND SITUATION:

 The situation of a settlement is its position in relation to the surrounding and physical
features, many of which will have an impact on the settlement’s type, size and function.
 However, the importance of many of the factors explained before diminish over time as
technological advances enable people to overcome difficulties.
 For example, a modern settlement does not need to be close to a river because drinking
water is now piped to our homes and waterways are no longer important for transport.

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

TYPES OF RURAL SETTLEMENT IN INDIA

It is a sparsely populated place, like a village, with few built-up areas where the inhabitants
are engaged in primary activities such as farming, fishing and mining. The type of rural
settlements in India is determined by the extent of built-up area and the inter-house
distance. They are of 4 types:
1. Compact, clustered & nucleated Settlements: -
1. Clustered Rural Settlements- a rural settlement where a number of families live in close
proximity to each other, with fields surrounding the collection of houses and farm buildings.
2. A clustered rural settlement typically includes homes, barns , tool sheds, and other farm
structures along with religious and school structures.
3. Each person that lives on a clustered rural settlement is allocated strips of land in the
surrounding fields. The strips of land are allocated differently, some people own or rent the

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land. When the population of a settlement grows too large for the capacity of the
surrounding fields, new settlements are established nearby.
4. Homes, public buildings, and fields in a clustered rural settlement are arranged according to
local cultural and physical characteristics. Clustered rural settlements are often arranged in
one of two types of patterns: circular and linear.

Linear settlements: Grouping of houses along a line, Mostly along roads, railway tracks, coast
or river banks
Nucleated settlements: Grouping of many houses together around a centre area, Favourable
sites at road junctions, focal points of an area or confluences of rivers.

2. Semi-clustered settlements: -
a. In this type of settlement the built-up area is less compact as compared to the clustered
settlement.
b. It may result from segregation or fragmentation of a large compact village.
c. Some sections of a village society choose or is forced to live a little away from the main
cluster or village.
d. The land-owning and dominant community occupies the central part of the main village,
whereas people of lower status of settle on the outer flanks of the village.

It is also called hamleted clustered or quasi-compact rural settlement. In this typebesides the
main human settlement, one or more satellite settlements (wadi, wasti) are found,which
linked with the footpath may be metalled or unmetlled road.

3. Hamleted settlement: -
a. When a large settlement gets fragmented into several smaller units physically separated
from each other but bears a common name it forms hamleted settlement.
b. It occurs due to social and ethnic factors.
c. These small units of settlements are known as panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani etc.
d. Such settlements are found in Ganga plains, lower valleys of Himalayas.

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4. Dispersed settlement: -
a. When a settlement has a few isolated huts it is called dispersed settlement.
b. These types of settlements are found in remote jungles, small hills with a few farms and
pastures on the slope.
c. It results from extremely fragmented and small resource support.
d. They are found in Meghalaya, Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala.

RURAL SETTLEMENT CHARACTERISTICS

 Scattered throughout India are approximately 500,000 villages.
 The Census of India regards most settlements of fewer than 5,000 as a village. These
settlements range from tiny hamlets of thatched huts to larger settlements of tile-roofed
stone and brick houses.
 Most villages are small; nearly 80 percent have fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, according to
the 1991 census.
 Most are nucleated settlements, while others are more dispersed.
 It is in villages that India's most basic business--agriculture--takes place.
Dominant Functions:
- mainly primary activities
( eg farming, mining and lumbering)
Amenities:
- few amenities, poor accessibility
- gets water from rivers and wells
- may not have schools and clinics
- travel long hours to get to nearest amenities in town or city
- footpaths, unpaved and narrow roads used to move around
Way of life:
In LDCs (least developed countries):
- simple way of life, slower pace of life
- less traffic, less pollution
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- open interaction between people in the same community

( eg, children play in an open space in a rural settlement in china)
- family unit tend to be closely knit and community activities throughout the year draw
people together
In DCs ( Developed countries):
- higher standards of living
- greater access to amenities and services ( eg, healthcare, education)
-
TYPES OF URBAN SETTLEMENTS IN INDIA
Its is a densely populated area, like a town or city, where the inhabitants are engaged in
secondary industry such as manufacturing and tertiary industry such as tourism.

As per Census of India 2001-Urban area adopted is as follows:

(a) All statutory places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area
committee, etc.
(b) A place satisfying the following three criteria simultaneously:
 A minimum population of 5,000;
 At least 75 per cent of male working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits;
 Density of population of at least 400 per sq. km. (1,000 per sq. mile).
Urban population in NSS (National Sample Survey) consumption expenditure surveys have
been classified in three size-class of towns,
1. population less than 50000 -small towns
2. population between 50000 and one million –medium towns
3. population above one million -large towns

CLASSIFICATION OF INDIAN TOWNS ON THE BASIS OF THEIR EVOLUTION

Ancient towns: -
a. Towns which are more than 2000 years old and have long history of existence are
termed as ancient towns.
b. These towns developed as religious and cultural centres.
c. Important towns are –Varanasi, Ayodhya, Prayag, Pataliputra, Madurai, etc.
Medieval towns: -
a. Towns which emergedduring medieval period as headquarters of kingdoms are termed as
medieval towns.
b. Important towns are –Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Agra, etc.3.
Modern towns: -
a. Pre-independence towns: these towns were developed by the British and other Europeans
rulers. They were port towns such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Surat, Goa, and Pondicherry.
Later some hill stations and summer resorts were developed by them such as Shimla, etc.
Post-independence towns: -
I. These towns were developed as administrative centres such as Chandigarh,
Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar.
II. Some developed as industrial towns such as Jamshedpur, Durgapur, Bhilai, Sindri,
Barauni.

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III. Some old towns also developed as satellite towns around metropolitan cities such as
Ghaziabad, Rohtak, Gurgaon around Delhi.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN URBAN AND RURAL INDIA

 Population
 Land use-growth pattern –rural mostly organic and urban is planned
 Physical planning
 Infrastructure and services delivery-water supply and sanitation system
 Health care
 Education
 Environmental planning
 Housing design (kutchha –pucca houses) and construction technology
 Cultural heritage
 Administration
 Occupation in rural areas is agriculture (primary source of income)while in urban areas
industrial sector and others(Secondary and tertiary sector)
 Living conditions
 Community facilities
 Socio-cultural facilities

Urban areas can include town and cities while rural areas include villages and hamlets.
Rural areas may develop randomly on the basis of natural vegetation and fauna available in a
region, urban settlements are proper, planned settlements built up according to a process
called urbanization.
Unlike rural areas, urban settlements are defined by their advanced civic amenities,
opportunities for education, facilities for transport, business and social interaction and overall
better standard of living. Socio-cultural statistics are usually based on an urban population.
While rural settlements are based more on natural resources and events, the urban
population receives the benefits of man‟s advancements in the areas of science and
technology and is not nature-dependent for its day to day functions.
Rural areas do not have pollution or traffic problems that beset regular urban areas.

CITY FORM
Introduction
 A city is a group of people and a number of permanent structures within a limited
geographical area, so organized as to facilitate the interchange of goods and services among
its residents and with the outside world.
 The settlements grew into villages, villages transformed into cities.
 Cities created when large number of people live together, in a specific geographic
location leading to the Creation of urban areas.
 Cities exist for many reasons, and the diversity of urban forms depends on the complex
functions that cities perform.

 Urban Form refers to the-

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• physical layout and design of the city

• spatial imprint of an urban transport system
• adjacent physical infrastructures.
Jointly, they confer a level of spatial arrangement to cities.
 Urban form or city form defined as-
‘ the spatial pattern of human activities at a certain point in time’.

 FACTORS INFLUENCING CITY FORM

 DIFFERENT FORMS OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

 CIRCULAR form OR THE RADIO CENTRIC
(CONCENTRIC) city form
 Towns with geographical possibility of spreading in all
directions on a relatively level site have usually tend to grow
in a roughly circular form with inner and outer ring roads,
linked together by radiating roads emanating from the
centre.
 The residential areas in such towns are located around the
core, between the ring and radial roads.
 The core itself forms the main business area and the early
industry is usually mixed up with residential localities.
 As the town grows, new ring and radial roads come into existence simultaneously with
peripheral growth.
 Periphery has green belts.
 Example : Washington DC, Pre-industrial Baghdad in Iraq.

Advantages Disadvantages

• A direct line of travel for centrally • Central congestion ,

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directed flows, • difficult building sites

• economics of a single- centralised • local flow problems ,
terminal or origin point.

CASE STUDY The Radio centric (concentric) city- MASCOW

Moscow, the world biggest Megapolis

(Russian Moskva) is the capital of Russia.
The city grew in a pattern of rings and
radials that marked Moscow's growth
from ancient time to modern layout.
The center of all rings is Moscow Kremlin
and famous Red Square.

• Successive epochs of development are traced by

the
• The Boulevard Ring and
• The Garden Ring,
• The Moscow Little Ring Railway, and the
Moscow Ring Road.

 THE GRID IRON CITY FORM

• It is composed of straight streets crossing at right angles to
create many regular city blocks.
• This form is typical of cities built after the industrial revolution – because only then did cities
place such importance on economic activity.
• A city grid iron plan facilitates the movement of people and product throughout the city.
Advantages Disadvantages

• High accessibility, • Requires flow hierarchies,

• minimum disruption of flow,
• expansion flexibility,
• Excellent psychological orientation,
adaptability to level or moderately
rolling terrain.
• limited in its adaptability to the
terrain,
• potentially monotonous

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CASE STUDY 1- Grid iron city – Chandigarh

 The population of a sector varies between 3000-20000

depending upon sizes of plots and topography of the area.
 The shopping street of each sector is linked to the adjoining
sectors thus forming one long, continuous ribbon .
 The central green of each Sector also stretches to the green
of the next sector
 The primary module of city’s design is a Sector, a
neighbourhood unit of size 800 m X1200 m.
 It is a self-sufficient unit having shops, school, health centres
and places of recreations

CASE STUDY 2 – The Grid iron city - San Francisco

 San Francisco was designed to accommodate

outrageous number of people that came to the
city during the Gold Rush.
 It was laid out in a grid pattern imposed on a city
of hills built on the end of a peninsula.
 Both grids and irregular forms can
be seen in San Francisco.
 Downtown San Francisco is extremely dense.
 The planning commission split downtown into
four separate zones with different purposes.
 Office District
 Retail District
 General Commercial District
 Support District

 THE LINEAR CITY FORM

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 Initially proposed by Soria Y Mata.

 Expand the city along the spine of transport
 The Linear City concept is a Conscious Form Of
Urban Development with Housing And Industry
Growing Along The Highway Between existing
cities and contained by the continuous open space
of the rural countryside.
 Geographical features often dictate the form and
a linear city form sometimes results there
from.Such elongated city are not convenient to live,more particularly if the population
exceeds 2 to 3 lakhs,because the distances to be covered to reach the town centre where the
major amenities are located are too long and the journey thereto causes fatigue.A well known
town of this type is Stalingrad in Russia.The new town of Cumbernauld in Scotland is also an
elongated town,but since its population is limited to 70,000, difficulties cannot crop up there.

Advantages Disadvantages

• High accessibility • Very sensitive to blockage

• adaptability to linear growth requires control of growth
• useful along the limited edge. • lacks focus,
• The choice of connection or of direction
of movement are much less.

CASE STUDY - The linear city – Navi Mumbai

The growth of Mumbai city is constrained by sea at
south, east and west. As a result total land area
available for development of Mumbai is limited.

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The cost of real estate and housing in Navi Mumbai is much less than costs in Mumbai and sub-
urban areas.
Many government and corporate offices have
been shifted from Mumbai to Navi Mumbai .

The Taloja and Thane Belapur Industrial Belt of Navi

Mumbai offer job opportunities of every conceivable kind -
from engineers to mechanics to clerks to peons.
As a result a large population of service class and middle
class population shifted to Navi Mumbai.

 RADIAL CITY, FINGER CITY, THE URBAN STAR OR STAR SHAPED CITY
FORMS

COPENHAGEN
A star shaped plan having green wedges of agricultural fields, fruit orchards, forests and park
radiates from the centre of the town. These wedges alternate with compact residential
localities served by commuter rail lines having populations of 25000 to 75000, depending
upon the size of the city.
At the outer edges, the green wedges merge into the country side, which serve the purpose of
the green belt without any of its disadvantages.

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Copenhagen, capital of Denmark, has a plan based on the same principle,but with water on
three sides,its development can take place only in one direction.Due to this, the shape of the
plan looks like the fingers of the hand and hence its development plan is called the “ Finger
plan” of Copenhagen.
CASE STUDY
Map of the fortress in the 17th century

CASE STUDY
Tokyo with two Loop structure

CASE STUDY
Ebenezer Howard’s GARDEN CITY
Decentralized concentration

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 SELF CONTAINED NEW TOWNS

In large towns and in cases where employment is widely
dispersed throughout the metropolitan region, the
growing population can be channelled into new self-
contained towns having large populations of 1 to 2.5
lakhs. Such towns can be separated by strips of open
country from the parent town, so that they have their
own identity, yet they can draw upon the benefits, the
parent town has to offer.

Land Use Pattern-Shapes

• Linear
Usually the result of natural topography which restricts growth; may also be a transportation
spine.
• Branch
A linear span with connecting arms.
• Sheet
A vast urban area with little or no articulation.
• Articulated sheet
A sheet accented by one or more central clusters and several subclusters.
• Constellation
A series of nearly equal sized cities in close proximity
• Satellite
Constellation of cities around a main cluster

CITY GROWTH
 According to urbanist HANS BLUMENFELD, cities can grow in any of three ways:
1.Outward (expanding horizontally)
2. Upward (expanding vertically)
3. Toward greater density (expanding interstitially)
 As long as intra city traffic moved only by foot or hoof, possibilities vertical expansion were
strictly limited.
 Growth was mainly interstitial, filling up every square yard of vacant land left between
buildings.
 With the advent of the elevator and the steel frame, the vertical growth of skyscrapers
began.
 Suburbs spread out horizontally along streetcar and bus lines and around suburban railroad
stations, surrounded by wide-open spaces.

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What is a Urban Model?

 A model is useful in understanding a society
 It shows how a city develops
 It gives insight into the society’s urban planning skills, their social classes and economy
 Land use models are theories which attempt to explain the layout of urban areas
 A model is used to simplify complex, real world situations and make them easier to
explain & understand
 Each city or town has a different shape due to:
- Its evolution
- Its location factors
- Its history
- Its function
But many cities and towns shared a common pattern and we can set models.

 Ecological urban land-use Model

 Concentric zone model
Developed in 1925 by Ernest w. Burgess.
 Cities grow radially outward away from a single centre.
 Different land uses are distributed like concentric rings around the city centre.
 They are: CBD, zone in transition, low-class residential zone, middle-class residential zone,
high-class residential zone.

 Criticisms about concentric zone theory

• Physical features - land may restrict growth of certain sectors
• Commuter villages defy the theory, being in the commuter zone but located far from the
city
• Decentralization of shops, manufacturing industry, and entertainment
• It assumes an isotropic plain - an even, unchanging landscape

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 Sector model
Developed in 1939 by Homer Hoyt ,states that a city develops in sectors, not rings
• All land uses except the CBD form sectors around the city centre.
• The land use zones are influenced by radial transport routes.
• High-rental and low-rental areas repel one another.

 Criticisms about sector model

 Applies well to Chicago.
 Low cost housing is near industry and transportation proving Hoyt’s model
 Theory based on 20th century and does not take into account cars which make
Commerce easier
 With cars, people can live anywhere and further from the city and still travel to the CBD using
their car. Not only do high-class residents have cars, but also middle and lower class people
may have cars.

CASE STUDY-1 Sector model- Gandhinagar

GANDHINAGAR is planned to function mainly
as administrative center for the state.

The sectors are numbered from 1 to 30 and they are

formed by seven roads running in each direction and
cutting each other perpendicularly.

They are planned on the neighborhood

concept in two phases:
First Phase : The basic amenities were constructed.
Second Phase : Constructions of capital
complex,sports complex,town halls,research
institutions, cinemas & cultural centers, residential
bungalows,etc.

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 MULTIPLE NUCLEI MODEL

 A model of urban land use in which a city grows from several independent points rather
than from one central business district.
 Apart from the CBD, there are several separated, secondary centres.
 Certain functions require specialised facilities or sites, e.g. a port district needs a suitable
waterfront.
 Similar functions may group together for agglomeration economies.

Criticisms about the Multiple nuclei model

• Negligence of height of buildings.
• Non-existence of abrupt divisions between zones.
• No consideration of influence of physical relief and government policy.
• The concepts may not be totally applicable to oriental cities with different cultural, economic
and political backgrounds.

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Advantages
• Optional locations for focal activities
and system terminals ,
• good psychological orientation
• adaptability to existing conditions
Radial to multi-nuclei or polycentric city form Delhi
Disadvantages
• Depends on stability to key points,
• potential accessibility problems
• tendency to dilute focal activities

 GROWTH AND DECAY OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

Primitive man lived in caves, tree holes and tree tops and fed himself on plants, fruit roots,
animals and water, directly collected from nature, without much effort on his part. When his
number increased and his food requirements became enormous he came out of the forests to
live in the plains, to cultivate and make more food materials. Availability of water was the
main criterion for selecting land for cultivation and habitation.

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This happened according to scientist, about 10,000 years back and that was the beginning of
human settlements, when manmade houses to live in and worked for his food. Thus it was a
transition from cave to village. Protection from the vagaries of climate and wild animals was
the main purpose of a house, rightly called a shelter. He built houses with whatever materials
were available near about him, like mud, wood, reeds boughs, leaves and what not. For better
protection and mutual help he used to live in groups, surrounded by the cultivated lands,
which invariably were selected where water was available throughout the seasons.

This gave rise to villages or small human settlements, all of them are near perennial fresh
water sources like rivers, and lakes. Villages were also located on sites offering natural
protection of elevated hills & terrains, islands and peninsulas. Wherever natural protection
was lacking barricades and moats surrounded them. Later, when transportation of men and
materials became necessary, seacoasts and river banks were selected for settlements. As we
learn from history, early civilization spread along the fertile valleys of the Nile, tigres,
Euphrates, Indus rivers etc. where water, food and transportation were at hand.

In all settlements, there were both natural and man-made elements like hills, valleys-
buildings, roads etc. Each settlement had its own boundaries. They were scattered
throughout, especially along river banks and plains, fed by rivers.Inter – relations and inter
actions between settlements, both near and far off, developed gradually and it gave rise to
social,cultural,political,economic and many other institutions.

Conflict between men and environment started when man began to change the environment
for better convenience and better comfort. This conflict is a continuous process, and is
continuing with all its ramifications supported by science and technology.

Man being aggressive in nature, did not easily adjust himself to be part of self-disciplined
community. Personal and group rivalries flared up within settlements. Survival of the fittest
was the order of the day. The winner assumed the role of a leader and maintained discipline.
When the leader gained more and more power and strength, several settlements came under
him. He himself assumed titles of king or emperor. To protect himself and his kingdom, he
wanted an army and a safe place to live. For this he established non-agricultural settlements,
exclusively for himself, his army and the people around him. Such settlements were fortified
and moats built all around, for additional protection from attacking enemies. People from
villages, whose main occupation was agriculture, began to migrate to such urban centers,to
get better employment and better wages.Further,the developments came out of the forts and
moats, to accommodate more people and this gave rise to bigger settlements, what we call
towns and cities.

Socio-economic and socio-cultural changes as well as developments in science and technology

influenced the life styles of the people and their quality of life. In the process, some
settlements, perished, may be by war, floods or drying up of water resources and some other
prospered becoming larger and larger,like our present day giant cities which we call
metropolis,mega polis etc.this makes human settlements a part of history and every
settlement has a history of its own.
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The fundamental human needs, wherever one lives and whichever natural environment one
has,are food, clothing and shelter apart from air & water. Shelter received the lowest priority
from the very beginning of man’s existence. Till the recent past,shelter,especially in small
settlements,was not a serious problem as the shelter requirements were quite simple and
limited.There was no difficulty in getting a piece of land,either owned or rented.

They constructed their own houses with mutual help, making use of locally available materials
and using their own labour.

The harmful impact of intensive urbanization, consequent to industrial revolution, accelerated

deterioration of the living environment. But in spite of all the efforts to improve the living
environment in human settlements, the challenge of poverty, congestion and insanitation still
remains in cities throughout the world. Man had made unprecedented progress during the
current century in the fields of industry,education,health,communication,transportation
etc.as a result of spectacular achievements in science and technology. But it is a paradox that
the majority of the world’s population still does not have a shelter providing minimum
privacy, and protection against the elements. The struggle for shelter still continues. A
significant reason, for this lag is the population explosion followed by urban explosion.

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