The SITE of a settlement is the position on the ground where it is built. This decision, often made hundreds of years ago was in response to a series of locational factors, including:
- defence
- availability of water supply: rivers, wells, springs, lakes
- ease of access to/from other nearby settlements
- safety from flooding
- quality of nearby farmland
- availability of wood for fuel and building materials, and as an area for hunting
- other building materials e.g clay and stone, reeds for thatch etc.
Many of these factors are retained as part of the place-name, which also reflects the area of the country, and the group which had colonised or invaded that area.
Also need to consider the SHAPE of settlements: Nucleated, Linear, Cruciform or Dispersed ?
SIZE of settlements is shown on a Hierarchy. Individual farms, become hamlets, then villages, towns, cities, conurbations, and megalopolis such as Bosnywash, San-San.
Settlements also have FUNCTIONS. These include resort towns, spa, market, dormitory, industrial, port and new towns. The functions often relate to the services which are found there. These will tend to be either High order or Low order, and will serve an area called the sphere of influence.
Settlements tend to have certain functional zones within them, and there are a series of geographical models as to how cities develop (these tend to vary depending on whether the city is in an LEDC or an MEDC. For most cities, the central area is known as the CBD or Central Business District. This will be the main area of shops, offices and financial buildings. It will also tend to have the town or city hall, railway station, cathedral etc. It will also tend to be surrounded by a ring road in busy cities, although there may well be more than one ring road: an outer and inner.
You need to be aware of, and be able to recognise the models of Burgess (Concentric circle), Hoyt (Sector model) and Marsden (who combined the two..) There are many other models of course, Human Geography is full of...models, but for GCSE you need to know only the basics. Come back next year to find out more!
Read this article on the BURGESS MODEL at a Canadian site.
Then go to the S-COOL site, GCSE Revision. They have some nice FLASH images (ie. don't even think about right-clicking..)
You can also use GEONET's useful GCSE SETTLEMENT pages.
There's a characteristically uesful resource at PUPILVISION.
Read about the different models of Urban Land Use (also called Morphology, as it refers to the study of the changing shape of cities, like the plasticine character 'Morph'... no, it's not a Pokemon character)
Using Word, and some of the other REVISION sites, build up a couple of illustrated A4 sides of notes which covers the following points:
1) Models of how cities develop in both MEDC's and LEDC's.
2) Description of the typical features to be found in the CBD
3) Description of the typical features to be found in the INNER CITY, and some of the problems which areas like this face.
(We'll look at the Suburbs, and the Rural-Urban Fringe (Rurban areas) later on, plus the issues of Dormitory or Satellite villages, commuting and 2nd home ownership.
For the final question, you will probably want to use the excellent GEOGRAPHY PORTAL article which has sketch maps and diagrams of the likely characteristics of each area.
Doing a project on the CBD of a city or town ? You might find this outline of how to go about it from TRINITY HIGH SCHOOL useful. (Based in Manchester, but obviously transferrable to other areas...)
If you're prepared for a large download, there's an excellent Geofile article (amongst many others) HERE. It's got some very useful descriptions of the various urban zones.
Go to the BBC BITESIZE pages for revision and test bites on the themes of:
Cities in MEDC's
Cities in LEDC's
Urban Renewal
Urban Structure
One of the other aspects of settlement that we cover at GCSE is the effect of traffic congestion on the development of the city and its impact on the quality of life of city dwellers.
There are some useful materials on the E-GFL site which has been put together by Steve Smith, and are based around the city of Glasgow. There are images of the problems, and a factfile on Glasgow (and a comparison with Montpelier)
Go HERE for the first page of the work, and a link to the relevant task sheets.
Urban Land Use models show the SUBURBS as being the outer most layer of the city.
Available from a link elsewhere on the site is the VIRTUAL SALFORD QUAYS: Urban Regeneration Case Study site which has been put together with Manchester University. This is a rather good resource.
Other useful case studies which you may use instead:
LONDON DOCKLANDS
The London Docklands were still in use in the 1970's, until the development of Tilbury docks in Essex. The docklands went into decline and were cleared away to asset strip what was left. The area was left derelict for some time, and has recently been developed into offices. notably in the area of Canary Wharf.
SHEFFIELD : DON VALLEY
This is an area I have more personal knowledge of, and can remember the demolishing of Hyde Park flats, notorious high rise estates on the hill crests above the town centre.
GLASGOW EASTERN AREA RENEWAL (GEAR Scheme)
Glasgow has undergone comprehensive redevelopment in the Eastern area, notably the Gorbals.