What is Settlement in Geography?
The word "settlement" has originated from the German word "seidlung" ---- means the process of human occupancy as well as its arrangement and groupings. Keep in mind that a settlement is a permanently inhabited place and distinct from camps or fairs.
A human settlement can be defined as a collection of man-made structures (buildings), put up with the intention of residential, industrial, commercial, administrative, educational, religious, or other purposes. Settlements may be categorized according to their size, status, and range of facilities provided and in reality, there exists a settlement continuum and each category merges gradually into the next (Settlement Hierarchy).
Settlement forms a spatial unit for human interaction. The interaction of each place with its neighboring settlements lead to the concept of settlement systems. The settlement provides a focus for interdisciplinary study. Geography is a spatial science looking for patterning both within and amongst settlements and getting insights into how things are organized spatially.
Branded definition of Settlement:
A settlement = "any form of human habitation… a single dwelling to a group of dwellings". (A. N. Clark, 1989)
Richthofen defined settlement as the natural manner in which man established himself on the earth's surface.
R. L. Singh (1961) defined settlement as "an occupancy unit represents an organized colony of human beings including the buildings in which they live or work or store or use them otherwise and the tracts or streets over which their movement take place."
Scope & content of Settlement Geography:-
A settlement is an important element in the way of an understanding of man in a matrix of human and physical relationships and interrelationships.
When I was in the University classroom, our Professor often quoted this sentence: "if human geography depicts the interrelationships of who gets what, where and how, then the settlement geography as a branch that deals with who builds/ inhabits settlement, where and how".
In the present context, 'who' means human beings, who have historically emerged through the diverse waves of races, cultures, and technologies.
'Build' simply means the act of construction by putting housing materials together and other facilities attached to it. 'Inhabit' points towards the occupancy of such houses.
'Settlement' represents an organized colony of human beings together with the buildings in which they live or work or store or use them otherwise and the tracts or streets over which they travel.
'Where' focuses immediate attention on the most sensible subdivision of territory for the purpose of investigation.
'How' requires the identification and understanding of the structure, process, and causal mechanisms at work leading to a particular pattern of who builds/inhabit settlements where.
Thus, the settlement geography covers the entire hierarchy from hamlet to the village, to town, to the city, and to the metropolis and even from nomadic to sedentary, the temporary camp of the hunter/ herder.
So, Settlement geography is the scientific study of the distribution of settlement over space in relation to its genesis, functions, and interrelationships with surrounding phenomena.
APPROACHES IN SETTLEMENT GEOGRAPHY
Dickinson expresses the theme of settlement geography in terms of “Structure, process, and Stage”. UGC may ask, who applied Davis’ concept of “Structure, process, and Stage” in Settlement Geography? Surely, Dickinson!
To him, the built-up arrangement represents the structure, the genre de vie (way of life) of the people denotes the process and various phases of development representing the stage.
Doxiades, however, presented the most significant theoretical framework, though not applicable universally, to study the complex settlement system. Within his framework - the Ekistic Logarithmic Scale (ELS), one can apply 3 basic approaches supplemented by better developed quantitative techniques -
Genetic
Spatial
Ecological.
Genetic Approach:
Spatial arrangement and sequent occupancy is the core concern of settlement geography. Thus the histogenetic approach is most appropriate for studying: 1. The degree of continuity of the territorial organization, and 2. Problems of interaction between man and environment. From micro-level (hamlet) to a full-fledged settlement this approach helps in reaching the comprehensive understanding of individual characteristics in relation to the surrounding sub-system.
The genetic approach is further divided into 3:
The retrogressive approach- advocated by Bloch focuses upon the past on the basis of the evidence gathered from the recent past.
Retrospective approach: advocated by Roger Dion focuses upon the present, the past conditions regarding settlements being considered for better understanding of the existing state.
Prospective approach: focuses upon the future, past and present cultural landscape being regarded as relict features projecting towards adjustment with future needs.
The three approaches are not only complementary to each other but also can be fruitfully applied to understand the Spatio-temporal dimension of settlements as well as their prospective planning in the environment concerned.
Spatial Approach:
It is a form of system approach, helps in comprehending the settlements as a whole. Demangeon actually developed the concept of spatial organization in context to a morphological structure. Through this approach, the interrelationships of man, nature, and society are better expressed in any cultural landscape.
Ecological Approach:
Under this approach, plant-ecology theories are applied to explain the process of change in human behavior and settlements over time. A fundamental work was produced by Radha Kamal Mukherjee regarding the adaptation of human society and ecology in his “Man and His Habitations: A Study in Social Ecology”.
The setting process as described by Hudson includes three phases - Colonization, Spread, and Competition --- similar to plant communities.
Quantitative Approach:
After the quantitative revolution (application of statistical techniques allied with computers), this approach has come to play. Nearest Neighbor Analysis has been widely used for studying the concentration and dispersion of settlements. Likewise, Rank Size Rule deals with the spatial arrangement of centers in hierarchical order starting from a primate city up to a hamlet. Thus with the help of a quantitative approach hypotheses were formulated and tested to try to discover geographical concepts, relation to location, patterning, and spacing of settlement, functional zoning within settlements, rural-urban interaction, and so on.
Behavioral Approach:
From the dissatisfaction with the quantitative approach (always judges human beings as rational). But in reality, human beings are not always rational. Goodey suggests that people’s perception of the environment is arrived at through the interaction of primary (work, leisure, shopping trips) and secondary (media or relatives/ friends) sources of information. The behavioral approach thus argues that human decessions can’t be explained in purely rational terms because human actions are greatly influenced by the perceptions people have of their environment.
Conclusion on Settlement Geography
Geography being an integrated science, a settlement geographer must have an understanding of being a historian, cartographer, artist, sociologist, mathematician, and finally an environmentalist. The essence of his work is data collection, based on remote sensing, field study, mapping interpretation, explanation of facts by using qualitative methods as well as quantitative techniques.
Geography is an exciting and dynamic subject, concerned with issues that affect us all no matter where we live. Each successive development within the study of geography has enriched it. One approach does not supersede another, but rather each new development builds on what has gone before.
