Settlement: There are two parts to this part of the course.
What the specification says:
1. The siting of settlements Physical and economic factors affecting the location, shape and growth of settlements- Students should be able to describe and explain the physical and economic factors that affect the location, shape and growth of settlements.
2. Urban structure - a comparison between two cities. A study of one urban area in an MEDC and one in an LEDC to describe and explain the characteristics and locations of the CBD, twilight zone, industrial areas and different residential zones.Students should -be able to recall and explain the characteristics and locations of the CBD, twilight zone, industrial areas and different residential zones in one named MEDC city.
Our chosen case studies are Leeds & Rio de Janeiro. The text book examples are Reading and Bangalore.
You need to be able to draw an annotated sketch map of the two cities, showing different land use zones & explaining how the zones have developed.
This is a detailed account of the Urban Geography of Leeds
For a description of the different zones in Rio de Janeiro click on this link.
You need to know the theory of urban land use & a knowledge of bid rent theory would be good.
The Barcalona Field Studies Centre website provides a useful summary, along with the usual Bitesize & S Cool websites.
Bid rent theory is a geographical theory that refers to how the price and demand on land changes as the distance towards the CBD (Central Business District) increases.
It states that different land users will compete with one and other for land close to the city centre. This is based upon the idea that retail establishments wish to maximise their profitability, so they are much more willing to pay more for land close to the CBD and less for land further away from this area. This theory is based upon the reasoning that the more accessible an area, the more profitable it is going to be.
The different land users all compete with one and other for the more accessible land. The amount that they are willing to pay is called Bid Rent. As a direct result of this, a pattern of concentric rings of land use develops. It could be assumed that, according to this theory, the poorest houses and buildings will be on the very outskirts of the City (the suburbs), as that is the only place that they can afford to occupy. However, in modern times this is rarely the case, as many people prefer to trade off the accessibility of being close to the CBD, and move to the edges of the settlement, where it is possible to buy more land for the same amount of money (as Bid Rent states). Likewise, lower income housing trades off greater living space for greater accessibility to employment. For this reason low income housing is found in the inner city, and high income housing is at the edges of the settlement (from Wikipedia)
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