JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND

TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

URBAN STUDIES
LECTURE 05
CITY TYPES
SETTLEMENTS
• A settlement, locality or populated place is a
community in which people live.
• A settlement can range from a small number of
dwellings grouped together to the largest of cities with
surrounding urbanized areas.
• Settlements may include hamlets, villages, towns and
cities where people live and work.
• A settlement conventionally includes its constructed
facilities such as roads, enclosures, field systems,
boundary banks and ditches, ponds, parks and woods,
wind and water mills, manor houses, moats and
churches.
TOWN
• A town is a human settlement. Towns are
generally larger than villages but smaller than
cities, though the criteria to distinguish them
vary considerably between different parts of
the world. Some geographers further define a
town as having 2,500 to 20,000 residents.
Towns usually have local self-government, and
they may grow around specialized economic
activities, such as mining or railroading.
URBAN AREA
• An urban area is the region surrounding a city.
Most inhabitants of urban areas have non-
agricultural jobs. Urban areas are very developed,
meaning there is a density of human structures
such as houses, commercial buildings, roads,
bridges, and railways.
• "Urban area" can refer to towns, cities, and
suburbs. An urban area includes the city itself, as
well as the surrounding areas. Many urban areas
are called metropolitan areas, or "greater," as in
Greater New York or Greater London.
SUBURBS
• Suburbs are smaller urban areas that
surround cities. Most suburbs are less densely
populated than cities. They serve as the
residential area for much of the citys work
force. The suburbs are made up of mostly
single-family homes, stores, and services
CITY - DEFINITION
• A city is an area in which a large number of
people live fairly close together.
• Cities usually have their own separate
governments and systems for maintaining and
providing utilities and transportation.
• A town is a human settlement. Towns are
generally larger than villages but smaller than
cities, though the criteria to distinguish them vary
considerably between different parts of the
world.
RURAL AREAS
• Rural areas , often called "the country," have low
population density and large amounts of undeveloped
land.
• Usually, the difference between a rural area and an
urban area is clear. But in developed countries with
large populations, such as Japan, the difference is
becoming less clear.
• In the United States, settlements with 2,500
inhabitants or more are defined as urban. In Japan,
which is far more densely populated than the U.S., only
settlements with 30,000 people or more are
considered urban
• Throughout the world, the dominant pattern
of migration within countries has been from
rural to urban areas. This is partly because
improved technology has decreased the need
for agricultural workers and partly because
cities are seen as offering greater economic
opportunities. Most of the worlds people,
however, still live in rural areas
FACTORS DETERMINING CITY TYPES
• Demographic Factors
• Economic factors
• Social factors
• Technological Factors
 Demographic Factors
The following factors are considered when
determining different city types :
• Most populous
• most densely populated area
• largest area
 Economic Factors
• Besides population, the selected
characteristics are dominated by economic
factors.
– Economic characteristics: GDP, GDP per capita,
and GDP per worker
– Economic growth: GDP growth, GDP per capita
growth, and GDP per worker growth
– Traded Clusters : productivity, foreign direct
investment, foreign direct investment per capita
– Innovation: university research impact, patents
per capita, venture capital per capita
• Non-direct economic factors include:
– Talent: percentage of population with higher
education
– Connectivity: aviation passenger flow, download
speed
Other Factors :
• The following factors have a huge influence on
a city’s economy and growth:
– Landuses
– domestic investment
– global trade flows
– freight and logistics systems
– infrastructure such as roads, trains, and public
transit
– national, regional, and city governance
 CLASSIFYING SETTLEMENTS
1. Classification
according to
pattern
• There are 5 types of
settlement classified
according to their
pattern; these are,
isolated, dispersed,
nucleated, and linear
• An isolated
settlement co
nsists of a
single farm or
house very
remote from
any other one,
usually found
in farming or
hunting rural
communities.
• A dispersed settlement is made up of several
houses, scattered or dispersed (as the name
implies). One house may be up to one or more
kilometers from the next.
• In
a nucleated or co
mpact
settlement, the
buildings are
clustered, linked
by roads, and the
settlement itself
may have a
nearly circular or
irregular shape.
Such settlements
can be either
cultural or urban,
depending on the
size and the
functions they
perform.
• A linear or elongated
settlement forms a
straight or curved line,
following a line of
movement, such as a
road, river, coastline or
the foot of an elongated
escarpment. This type of
settlement is found in
rural area, but linear
developments may
constitute extensions of
towns on their outskirts.
• Finally, the integrated
nucleated and linear settlements combines the
characteristics of both types of settlement and
they are star-like. They often occur at junctions,
and a number of them in urban settlements.
 2.Classification according to size and
housing density
• Size and housing density are used together
with settlement functions to classify
settlements into two major categories:
Rural settlements are often small in size and
have low housing and population densities.
Urban settlements are larger in size and have
many houses built close together.
RURAL SETTLEMENTS
• Rural settlements can further be broken down into these four grades on
the basis of size; homestead*, farmstead, hamlet and village.
• A single homestead has just one compound, usually isolated and owned
by a family, and one may be many kilometres from the next.
• A farmstead consists of two or more homesteads, usually dispersed in a
farmland and occupied by up to fifty individuals.
• A hamlet is made up of several dispersed, nucleated or linear homesteads
generally with shops, schools or other service centres and occupied by
some hundreds of persons who are engaged in primary activities like
farming, hunting and fishing.
• A village, like a hamlet, may be dispersed, nucleated or both nucleated or
linear, but the village has more homesteads and the population may be up
to several thousands. The people engage in primary occupations, but
there may also be craft and cottage industries, and service centres like
schools, post offices, health centers and markets.
URBAN SETTLEMENTS
• Urban settlements can equally be graded into seven,
according to size. These are towns, suburbs,
cities, metropolis, conurbations , megapolis and
ecumenopolis
• Towns are urban settlements of up to several thousand
persons. Houses are built together and the emphasis is
more on secondary and tertiary rather than on primary
occupation. Usually, a town has large chain stores, and
many other social and commercial facilities.
• Large town - a large town has a population of 10,000 to
100,000.
• Suburb - a mixed-use town 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.
• Cities are the major towns of a country, like the
major state capitals which have administrative
functions. The old concept of a city being a
walled town is no longer tenable as cities are no
longer walled these days. They are generally
larger than towns.
– Small City or "Borough"- a city that functions as a
type of municipality or subdivision of a consolidated
city.
– Medium city - a city would have abundant services,
but not as many as a large city. The population of a
city is between 100,000 and 300,000 people.
– Large city - a city with a large population and many
services. The population is less than 1 million but over
300,000
• Metropolis - a large city and its suburbs consisting of multiple cities
and towns. The population is usually one to three million

• A conurbation grows when two or more metropolis or parts have

grown and joined together to form a large urban area of three to
ten million people. The boundary between original towns becomes
blurred, just like we have in Lagos (Ikeja) and Accra (Tema).

• Megapolis are several cities or conurbations consisting of more

than ten million people in total which have grown over the years
and have joined together to form a massive sprawling urban
settlements. Such settlements stretch over several square
kilometers and, as conurbations, it is difficult to known where one
original city ends and the other begins. Megapolis is the highest in
the hierarchy of urban settlements. Examples are New York-Boston-
Philadelphia and Greater Los Angeles (USA), Tokyo (Japan), Greater
London (Britain), Mexico City (Central America), and Dusseldolf-
Duisburg-Essen-Dortmund, in the Rhur manufacturing region of
Germany.
• Ecumenopolis - a theoretical construction in
which the entire area of Earth that is taken up by
human settlements, or at least, that those are
linked so that to create urban areas so big that
they can shape an urban continuum through
thousands of kilometers which cannot be
considered as a megalopolis. As of the year 2009,
the United Nations estimated that for the first
time more than 50% of the world's populations
lived in cities, so if these were linked, the total
population of this area would be about
3,400,000,000 people as of 2010.