Cambridge Geography: Settlement Dynamics Flashcards

6.1 Changes in Rural Settlements

Drivers of Change in Rural Settlements Rural settlements in both developed and developing nations have experienced significant transformations in recent decades. These changes are attributed to several factors:

• Migration Patterns: Both rural-to-urban migration (movement to cities) and urban-to-rural migration (counterurbanisation).
• Urban Growth: The physical and social consequences of expanding cities.
• Technological Change: Advancements affecting how people work and communicate.
• Policy and Funding: Rural planning policies and the specific balance of government funding allocated between urban and rural sectors.

Changing Rural Environments in the United Kingdom The UK serves as a representative model for changes in developed countries. Over the last $50$ years, rural society has shifted from being distinctly different from urban society to a more integrated and complex structure:

• Economic Shift: Agriculture no longer dominates. Jobs have shifted toward manufacturing, high technology, and the service sector.
• New Land Users: Significant use of rural space now includes recreation, tourism, and environmental conservation.
• Multiple-Use Resource: The landscape has evolved into a complex resource with a population that has changed in social character due to in-migration.
• Containment Policies: Post-war government efforts have tried to limit expansion into the countryside through Green Belts and by allocating housing to urban areas or specific "key villages."

Key Definitions

• Rural Landscape: A mental or visual picture of countryside scenery. It is difficult to define precisely because rural areas are constantly changing and vary by location.
• Rural Population: People living in the countryside in farms, isolated houses, hamlets, and villages. Some definitions include small market towns.
• Green Belts: Areas of open land retained around a city or town with wide-ranging planning restrictions to prevent development.

Agricultural Structural Changes Agriculture has undergone major structural shifts despite occupying a large amount of land:

• Land Use vs. Employment: While agricultural land accounts for $73\%$ of the total land area in the UK, less than $2\%$ of the workforce is employed in this sector.
• Farm Consolidation: The average size of farms has steadily increased.
• Environmental Impact: These changes have led to the loss of hedgerows, which are vital ecological networks.
• Economic Pressures: Agricultural wages are significantly below the national average; farmers are often categorized among the "working poor."
• Farm Diversification: Establishing sources of income beyond traditional farming.     * Examples: Bed-and-breakfast accommodation and farm shops.

Counterurbanisation and Depopulation

• Counterurbanisation: Since the $1960$s, this has replaced urbanisation as the dominant force in settlement patterns, leading to a "rural population turnaround."
• Spatial Patterns: The greatest impact is seen just beyond green belts where commuting is viable. Depopulation is now mostly confined to the most isolated areas or areas with dire economic conditions.
• Model of Rural Depopulation:     1. Young adults migrate to regional centers for opportunities.     2. The population decreases and ages; birth rates fall below replacement levels.     3. Social services (schools, libraries) are cut.     4. Loss of services induces out-migration of young families.     5. Reduction in business services (buses, pubs, stores) due to falling demand.     6. Aging population leads to the disintegration of a balanced community.

The Issue of Rural Services Rural services (healthcare, shops, post offices) provide the basis for sustainable communities. Their decline impacts quality of life, especially for those without cars.

• Factors in Decline (ACRE - Action with Communities in Rural England):     * Market Forces: Supermarkets making local shops uncompetitive.     * Mobile Residents: Residents with different consumer patterns often shop outside the village.     * Changing Expectations: Residents are no longer satisfied with poor or expensive local services and have the means to go elsewhere.

Settlement Policies and Problems

• Key Villages: Between the $1950$s and $1970$s, the "key settlement" concept (based on central place theory) was used to focus services in one large village to serve surrounding hamlets and satisfy "threshold populations."
• The Rural Transport Problem: High car ownership has devastated public transport. This isolates the poor, elderly, and young. Increased fuel prices and the threat of further railway cuts (similar to the "Beeching cuts" of the $1960$s) worsen the issue.
• The Rural Housing Problem: Only $12\%$ of rural housing is subsidized compared to $25\%$ in urban areas. High competition for houses and the rise of second homes make housing unaffordable for local youth.

Case Study: The Isle of Purbeck

• Location: Southeastern part of Purbeck District, Dorset. Classified as remote rural.
• Settlement Type: Clustered villages (Corfe Castle is the largest) amid isolated farms. Few hamlets.
• Service Hierarchy: Lower-order services in Swanage and Wareham; higher-order services in the Bournemouth–Poole conurbation.
• Population: Rising over the past $40$ years but older than the national average due to retirement popularity. Suffering out-migration of young adults.
• Deprivation: High house prices (above national average) outpace low local wages. "Opportunity deprivation" exists in health and education, while "mobility deprivation" stems from limited public transport.

Rural Settlements in LEDCs

• Rural-Urban Migration: The primary process.     * Benefits (Safety Valve): Reduces population pressure on resources, limits underemployment, and provides remittances.     * Negatives: Depopulation, aging populations, service closures, and labor shortages for agriculture.
• External Factors: In Botswana, the AIDS epidemic has caused significant rural depopulation.
• Rural Poverty: Accounts for over $60\%$ of global poverty ($90\%$ in Bangladesh). Access to potable water and health is far worse than in urban areas.
• Mongolia Example: Nomadic herders moved to the capital, Ulaanbaatar, after droughts and cold winters decimated livestock, illustrating the "urbanisation of poverty."

6.2 Urban Trends and Issues of Urbanisation

Historical Context

• First Urban Revolution: Gordon Childe’s term for the emergence of cities around $5,500$ years ago.
• Second Urban Revolution: Began in the late $18$th century UK, fueled by industrialisation and factory mass production.
• Global Status (1950): Only $27\%$ of people lived in urban areas, mostly in the developed world.
• Contemporary Explosion: Modern urban growth in the developing world often outpaces economic development. By $2025$, $80\%$ of urban dwellers will live in LEDCs.

The Cycle of Urbanisation

1. Urbanisation: Increasing proportion of population living in urban settlements.
2. Suburbanisation: Outward growth to engulf surrounding villages. Driven by rail developments, government support, building societies, and low interest rates.
3. Counterurbanisation: Movement from large urban areas to smaller settlements or rural areas.
4. Reurbanisation: Population increase in a city (especially inner areas) after a period of decline. Seen in London since the mid-$1980$s due to overseas immigration and natural increase.

Key Urban Issues

• Land Competition: Measured by land price and rents. Controlled by Land Use Zoning (local government mapping to decide land use).
• Development Types:     * Redevelopment: Complete clearance of buildings and infrastructure to build anew.     * Renewal: Keeping the best elements of the environment and adapting them.     * Regeneration: Large-scale improvement involving both redevelopment and renewal (e.g., London Docklands Development Corporation, $1981$, and the Lower Lea Valley for the $2012$ Olympics).
• Gentrification: Termed by Ruth Glass ($1963$) to describe wealthier people moving into and renovating run-down inner-city housing (e.g., Paddington, Fulham).
• Accessibility: Ease of reaching a place. Urban car use is rising due to higher incomes, decentralisation, and perceived low quality of public transport.
• Global (World) Cities: Important nodal points in the global economy (e.g., Alpha ++ cities: New York and London). Growth is driven by demographic trends, economic development, cultural status, and political importance.

6.3 The Changing Structure of Urban Settlements

Theoretical Models

• Concentric Zone Model (Burgess): Based on invasion and succession. Zones include the CBD, Zone in Transition (twilight zone of deterioration/in-migrants), working-men's homes, residential zone (middle class), and commuters' zone.
• Sector Model (Hoyt): Urban land use develops in wedges along transport routes. High-income housing seeks attractions; industry follows transport lines.
• Multiple-Nuclei Model (Harris and Ullman, 1945): Cities grow around several discrete nuclei (e.g., old villages, industrial estates). Similar activities group for agglomeration.
• Bid-Rent Theory (Alonso, 1964): Land use is determined by the ability to pay for accessibility. Shops and offices bid highest for central locations; residences bid least and are peripheral.

Developing City Models

• Latin American City Model (Griffin and Ford): Features a commercial spine, a zone of maturity, a zone of in situ accretion (mixed housing quality), and peripheral squatter settlements (shanty towns).
• Density Gradients: In developed cities, central densities initially rise then decline over time. In developing cities, central area densities continue to increase, maintaining stable gradients.

Location of Activities

• Manufacturing: Declining in inner cities due to Constrained Location Theory (unsuitable multi-storey buildings, lack of space for expansion, high land competition, and reclamation costs for contaminated land). Leading to Deindustrialisation and the rise of the Post-Industrial City.
• Retailing: Shifting to retail parks, urban superstores, and internet shopping.
• CBD Structure: Comprises a Core (PED: Peak Land Value Intersection, high-rise, pedestrianized) and a Frame (warehouses, car sales, specialists). Expanding zones are "zones of assimilation"; declining parts are "zones of discard."

6.4 The Management of Urban Settlements

São Paulo, Brazil

• Stats: Metropolitan population of almost $18$ million ($2000$ census), density of $8,110/km^2$.
• Housing: $70\%$ of the area is substandard housing.     * Favelas: Informal shanty towns (illegal land occupation). $2$ million residents. Heliopolis is the largest.     * Cortiços: Decaying formal housing in the inner city. $500,000$ residents.
• Solutions: Mutiroes (self-help housing partnerships) and Projeto Cingapura (Singapore Project, $1995$-$2001$), which aimed for $100,000$ units but only built $14,000$.

Cairo, Egypt

• Infrastructural Strain: Density of $30,000/km^2$. Infrastructure designed for $2$ million serves much more.
• Transport: Metro handles $2$ million rides/day. Cairo is the second most congested city in the Middle East (after Dubai).
• Pollution: High air/noise/land pollution. The city uses rice-straw presses and monitoring stations ($36$ established in $1998$) to manage sulfur and nitrogen oxides.
• Infrastructure Types: Soft (housing, health, education) and Hard (roads, water, electricity).

London: MEDC Inner City Issues

• Web of Decline: Population loss, declining industries, aging infrastructure, illness, and social unrest.
• Deprivation: Top deprived boroughs include Tower Hamlets, Hackney, and Lambeth ($2004$ Index).
• Social Exclusion: Certain groups are pushed to the margins, preventing participation in job markets or education.
• Environmental Solutions: Congestion Charge zone and Low Emissions zone to tackle nitrogen oxide and fine particulate emissions.

China: Strategies for Reducing Urbanisation

• Hukou System: A population register (urban vs. rural) used since the $1950$s to control migration. Includes "back to the villages" movements.
• Balanced Development: Promoting small and medium-sized cities to relieve pressure on large cities.
• In Situ Urbanisation: Transformation of rural settlements into urban entities with little population movement (e.g., Quanzhou, Fujian Province, through Township and Village Enterprises - TVEs).

Questions & Discussion

1. Define rural population: People living in countryside farms, isolated houses, hamlets, and villages (sometimes including small market towns).
2. UK Agricultural Workforce: Less than $2\%$.
3. Counterurbanisation Definition: Population decentralisation from large urban areas to smaller settlements/rural areas.
4. Reasons for Rural Service Decline: Market forces/supermarkets, changing resident consumer patterns, higher resident expectations.
5. Main Housing Issue: Lack of affordable housing for youth and competition for properties.
6. Purbeck House Prices: Risen above average due to high competition among different groups for limited property.
7. Global Rural Poverty: Accounts for over $60\%$ of worldwide poverty.
8. Urbanisation of Poverty: Increasing concentration of poverty in urban areas of LEDCs due to migration.
9. Urbanisation vs. Urban Growth: Urbanisation is the proportion increase; Urban growth is the absolute increase in physical size/population.
10. Cycle of Urbanisation Processes: Suburbanisation, counterurbanisation, reurbanisation.
11. Land Use Zoning: Mapping exercise by local government to decide land usage.
12. Redevelopment vs. Renewal: Redevelopment clears everything; renewal keeps/adapts the best elements.
13. Olympic Regeneration Area: Lower Lea Valley.
14. Gentrification Origin: Ruth Glass, $1963$.
15. Accessibility Definition: Relative ease with which a place can be reached.
16. Global City Definition: An important nodal point in the global economic system.
17. Alpha ++ Cities: New York and London.
18. Concentric Zone Model Creator: E. W. Burgess.
19. Area Outside CBD (Burgess): Zone in transition.
20. CBD Centrality Factor: Maximum accessibility.
21. Squatter Locations (Griffin & Ford): Peripheral zone.
22. Population Density Variations: Urban density gradients.
23. Deindustrialisation Definition: Long-term absolute decline of manufacturing employment.
24. Constrained Location Theory Elements: Unsuitable multi-storey buildings; intensive usage preventing expansion.
25. CBD Sub-sections: Core and frame.
26. Residential Mosaic: Complex pattern of different residential areas reflecting socioeconomic status, age, and ethnicity.
27. São Paulo Stats: Population almost $18$ million; density approx. $8,110/km^2$.
28. São Paulo Largest Slum: Heliopolis.
29. Singapore Project Period: $1995$-$2001$.
30. Cairo Population 2000: Approximately $10$ million (based on Figure 6.10).
31. Cairo Sewerage Project: Greater Cairo Waste Water Project.
32. Cairo Peripheral Cities: $10$ new cities.
33. Inner London Peak Population: Approximately $1901$.
34. Inner London Owner-Occupiers: $38\%$.
35. Late 1990s Target: Social exclusion.