◄UNIT 10: POPULATION GROWTH IN THE WORLDUNIT 12:AGRICULTURE IN THE WORLD►

UNIT 11:SETTLEMENT AND URBANIZATION IN THE WORLD

  • UNIT 11:SETTLEMENT AND URBANIZATION IN THE WORLD

    Key unit competency: The student-teachers should be able to discuss
                                                     the impact of settlement and urbanization on the
                                                    sustainable development of different countries.

    Introductory activity
    Most cities, including your home town or city, have in common a land use
    pattern that stretches from the center to the rural-urban fringe and to the
    rural area.
    1. Compare and contrast the areas presented, what are common on the three pictures?
    2. Which of the following photographs best explains a village? Support
    your answer with evidence.
    3. Identify the main activities found in urban areas.
    4. What are the environmental impacts of both rural and urban settlements?
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    The concept of urbanization is well defined from the concept of settlement.
    A settlement refers to a place where people live. It can be large or small,
    permanent or temporary. A settlement also means the process of settling in such
    a place. Settlement is associated with the concepts of shelter, infrastructure and
    community services like health, culture and education. There are two types of
    settlements: rural settlement and urban settlement.

    The term     ‘urban’, is opposed to rural which can refer to isolated building,
    hamlet, village, small market town while urban is related to towns or cities.
    Urban settlement is large nucleated settlement in which the majority of the
    employed inhabitants are engaged in non-agricultural activities. Urban areas
    may be defined by national governments according to different criteria; for
    example, size population density, occupation of the people, and type of local
    government. However, the United Nation defines an urban place as a permanent
    settlement with not less than 20,000 inhabitants.

    Urbanisation     is defined as the process by which an increasing proportion of
    the total population, usually that of a country, lives in towns and cities. For
    example, according to 2012 national census, 16.5 % of Rwandans live in urban
    areas. Urbanization refers also to the physical expansion of urban areas, or the

    increase in number of urban areas or towns.

    11.1. Rural settlement
    Activity 11.1
    With reference to your own observation and the knowledge acquired from past studies
    1. From your experience, what do you understand by the term rural settlement?
    2. Describe the different types of rural settlement.
    3. What are the factors that would influence someone to create a
    settlement somewhere?

    Rural settlement is sparsely populated community that exists in a given area.
    The population density in rural areas is very low compared to the urban areas
    and the houses are scattered. The largest land use is agriculture. This means that
    most people are engaged in agricultural activities and other related activities
    such as livestock farming, fishing, mining, hunting etc. Sometimes, there are
    larger agricultural agglomerations but cannot be considered as urban centers

    due to the primary activity common in that region.

    11.1.1. Types of rural settlement
    The following are the various types of rural settlements:
    i) Nucleated settlements pattern: it is also known as clustered or grouped
    settlements. Houses are concentrated in one place without proper
    arrangement. Nucleated or clustered settlements often form at crossroads
    or route centres. These types of settlements are known as “Imidugudu” in

    Rwanda. Socially, the people are closely knit.

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    ii) Linear settlement pattern: this is where houses are well planned and
    concentrated along the communication lines like roads, railway stations
    or along the coast. The fields extend behind the buildings in long, narrow
    strips. These are mainly influenced by economic factors. Linear settlement

    patterns are also known as ribbon settlement.

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    iii) Dispersed/ scattered settlement pattern: this is where houses
    are scattered all over the area. The settlements are located at distance
    apart from each other. This type of settlement dominates in area where

    agricultural and livestock activities are dominant.

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    iv) Isolated settlement pattern: this is a type of settlement which
    characterizes people who are hunters, shifting cultivators and food
    gathers or other specific activity. That is people who are socially isolated

    by other people.

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    v) Ring settlement pattern: in this type of settlement, houses make a circle.

    There is an open ground at the centre.

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    vi) Planned settlement pattern: These are settlements which are
    deliberately designed to assume a certain shape and pattern. They may
    develop due to planning from the government. The emergence of the

    various patterns of settlement is influenced by the following factors.

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    11.1.2. Factors influencing rural settlement
    A place where a settlement starts is called a site of a settlement. Any settlement
    site is chosen because it has lots of good reasons for locating a settlement there.
    The following are the main factors influencing rural settlement:
    • Water supply: Water is an important human need. It helps in deciding
    where a settlement might be located. Thus most settlements are
    located near water sources such as rivers and lakes.
    • Soil fertility: Farmers often choose to settle at points where the land
    is suitable for crops growing as agriculture and livestock are the key
    activities in rural areas.
    • Security: More people settle in areas where there is peace. They are
    able to live without fear of anything.
    • Building materials liketimber and stone attract people to settle
    where they are easily available.
    • Absence of natural hazards: Very few people live in places likely to
    be hit by natural hazards.
    • Climate: People are much more attracted to settle in temperate climate
    areas. Few people live in very hot or very cold areas.
    • Means of transport and services: The presence of roads, schools and
    hospitals attract many people for settling around them.
    • Presence of minerals: People like to settle where mining activities
    are taking places as jobs are available in those areas. In those areas, the
    markets, schools and hospital are built to serve them.
    • Government policy: The government decides where people should
    and should not settle. This is done as part of planning.
    • Cultural and social factors: For example, a father dividing his land
    among his children. The children settle in the same area.
    • Relief: Few people live on the steep slopes of mountains. On the other
    hand, Flat land is easier to build on and it is good for growing crops
    that is why many people live in plateaus and the plains.

    11.1.3. Effects of rural settlement
    The concentration of people in rural areas has both negative and positive effects:
    Positive effects
    • The development of rural settlement, especially grouped and planned
    settlement facilitates the establishment of community services like
    schools, shops, hospital, electricity, water points and other basic
    infrastructure at the center of settlement.
    • Rural settlement leads to the development of trading activities with
    surrounding settlements and urban centers.
    • Rural settlement produce food stuffs to the urban areas.

    Negative effects
    • Rural settlements, especially dispersed settlements, experience
    shortage/lack of basic infrastructures such as water, electricity, roads,etc.
    • They are exposed to pollution resulting from uncollected garbage and
    contaminated water.
    • Rural settlement experience shortage of social services such as
    hospitals, schools and markets. People make a long distance to access
    such services.
    • In rural settlement people fight for land for settlement and agriculture.
    • There is high spread of disease like dysentery, cholera, and malaria
    due to poor hygiene and compaction of individuals.
    • There is environmental degradation due to high demand for building
    materials, firewood, charcoal which further result into soil erosion
    reduction in rainfall and landslides.
    • The family plots are fragmented and which makes them to be too small

    for commercial mechanized farming.

    11.1.4. Solutions to the problems affecting rural settlement
    • To avail the basic infrastructures such as water, electricity, roads, etc.
    in the areas to be settled.
    • Construction of social facilities and services such as hospitals, schools, market.
    • Regular registration of land to reduce the conflicts related to the land
    ownership and use.
    • Preparation of master plan and land use guide for all country to avoid
    unplanned settlement.
    • Making environment management policies to avoid environment degradation.
    • Establish good governance to avoid any kind of division, insecurity in population, etc.
    • Sensitizing the rural settlers on the most effective way of managing the environment.

    Application Activity 11.1
    Make an excursion in rural areas not far from your school and
    a) Examine the predominant activities.
    b) Basing on what you have learnt in this lesson, associate the below

    diagrams with their corresponding names/ types.

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    11.2. Urbanization in the world

    Activity 11.2

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    1. Read this map above and show the most urbanized regions in the world.
    2. Discuss the major factors influencing urban development in the world.
    3. From your understanding, what are the socio-economic benefits of

    the big cities compared to small cities?

    11.2.1. Definition of basic terms
    Different terms are used to express urban centers according to their size or
    their characteristics. The following are the commonly used terms.
    • Trading center: A trading is a given settlement whose major occupation
    is associated with trading activities. It may be an area within a city or
    located away from the main city.
    • Town is the smallest unit of urban settlement. Here urban functions
    are well marked although the possibility of some rural activities is not ruled out.
    • Town board is the legislative body that governs a town/city.
    • Municipality refers to a political subdivision of a state for a specific
    population concentration in a defined area. The municipality is bigger
    than a town in terms of covered area and number of population settled in that area.
    • City: The term derived from the Latin word ‘civitas’ which means
    community/city/town or state. It is a full-fledged urban agglomeration
    depicting predominance of urban occupations and complex internal
    structure. Any town with a population of one 100,000 or above is
    termed as city.
    • Agglomeration is an extended city or town area comprising the builtup
    area of a central place (usually a municipality) and any suburbs
    linked by continuous urban area.
    • Megalopolis denotes a large urban region formed by the out-growth
    of many metropolises. A megalopolis (sometimes called a megapolis;
    also megaregion, or super city) is typically defined as a chain of roughly
    adjacent metropolitan areas, which may be somewhat separated or
    may merge into a continuous urban region. Megalopolis also expresses
    the full mature stage of urban growth.
    • Conurbation is a large continuous built-up area formed by the joining
    together of several urban settlements or town. It is an urban region
    consisting of a large metropolis and a number of small towns huddled
    together.
    • Suburb is a mixed-use or residential area, existing either as part of
    a city or urban area or as a separate residential community within
    commuting distance of a city. Some suburbs have a degree of political
    autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city
    neighborhoods.
    • Green city refers to a broader metropolitan area. For example,
    “Chicago” represents the greater metropolitan area surrounding
    the city of Chicago. It aims to inform and stimulate the interest with
    authorities, organizations and companies which are professionally
    involved in planning and developing the urban area, ensuring green
    will be applied appropriately.
    • Slum is defined as a highly populated urban residential area consisting
    mostly of closely packed, decrepit housing units in a situation of
    deteriorated or incomplete infrastructure, inhabited primarily by

    impoverished persons.

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    11.2.2. Factors influencing urban development in the world

    Urbanization is the function of socio-economic changes that take place through
    time. The following are its determinants, which are mainly economic, social and demographic.
    • The economic determinants are the type of economy, degree of
    commercialization of agriculture, the extent of diversification of
    economy, the changing size of agricultural landholdings, the stage of
    economic advancement and the degree of development of means of
    transportation and communication.
    • The social factors that determine the nature and magnitude of
    urbanization are the degree of socio-economic awakening, the social
    value system, the stage of technological advancement, the public
    policies and the government decisions.
    • Among the demographic factors, the rate of population growth,
    magnitude of migration and pressure of population are significant.
    • Improvement of transportation can bring raw materials to any point quite cheaply.
    • Improvement of information and technology which raised the
    population awareness about the available opportunities in other urban centers.

    11.2.3. Impact of the world urbanization on the environment.
    Urbanization might cause the following problems:
    • Urbanization results into pollution of land, air, water and noise: This
    is because of poor disposal of garbage from the domestic remaining.
    • Urbanization results into noise pollution from industry machineries,
    vehicles, and other means of transport,
    • High energy consumption increases the release of CO2 in the
    atmosphere. This leads to global warming.
    • Most of people do not have access to safe drinking water especially
    in developing countries. Thus, poor sanitation and poor quality of
    drinking water result into water-borne diseases like Cholera, Typhoid,
    tuberculosis, dysentery and gastro-enteritis.
    • Sewage also provides nutrition to a vast array of microbes, bacteria and
    fungus adding to the eutrophication of surface water bodies, seriously
    affecting the human environment and the entire food web in the eco
    system. Even the ground contaminated by the industrial effluents in
    the atmosphere, brought down by precipitation.

    • Waste disposal is a major problem in large cities.

    Application Activity 11.2
    Assess the effects that urban centers have on the environment
    1. With reference to the below pyramid, arrange the settlement from

    the lowest to the highest level

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    2. Describe the effects of urbanization on the world and suggest some solutions.

    Skills lab
    Suggest ways for improving infrastructure and social amenities in rural area for

    sustainable development of the country like Rwanda.

    End unit Assessment
    1. With reference to Kigali city explain why towns are constantly
    growing both in population and area.
    2. Suppose you are one of the urban planners, design a program that
    would address the problems caused by urbanization.
    3. Describe the impact of expansion of Kigali City on the environment in Rwanda.
    4. Kigali is currently experiencing rapid urban development in our
    region. From the knowledge acquired in this unit, identify the

    major factors which are contributing to that urban development.

    ◄UNIT 10: POPULATION GROWTH IN THE WORLDUNIT 12:AGRICULTURE IN THE WORLD►