St. Peter’s High School
Geography Department

Mr A Barnard |  Mrs A Dadge  |  Mr J Mitchell  |  Mrs S Miklausic  |  Mrs G Stott | Mr A Williams

GCSE Course - Settlement

QUICK REVISION GUIDE ON SETTLEMENT - what do you need to know?

Site – dry and wet point, aspect, shelter, defence, resources and communications.
Many siting factors important in the past are now no longer important due to technological change. Settlements with a favourable site especially in respect of communications eg. gap towns, route centres and bridging points often grew into trading centres.
know small-scale studies to illustrate the past importance of these factors eg. Glastonbury ( aspect - on South facing slope) Ely (dry point site - on higher ground in a low lying area, Edinburgh ( defence point - castle on hill) Durham (on river Wear meander = wet point site, meander bend = good defence site, possibly gap town between the hills) and GLOUCESTER - know this well!. Another settlement that you could describe the site and function of is Bourton-on-the-Water

Many settlements show the importance of more than one factor. Students should appreciate how many of these are insignificant today and settlements may be built almost anywhere if the economic argument is strong enough - again, Bourton-on-the-Water is a good example of this. What is its function today??

Size – the hierarchy of settlement linked to population size, services and sphere of influence.
Detailed case studies of settlements at each level of the hierarchy are not required. However, examples should be considered in their wider context and the way in which they are interdependent e.g. a village may grow into a market town as a result of increasing trade with surrounding settlement.

Function – types of settlements and how their function may change over time.

Urban morphology models of an MEDC and LEDC city – contrast in morphology.
One example of a model for the MEDC such as Burgess, and one for the LEDC are appropriate.
Students should appreciate the limitations of the models perhaps by considering their application to a settlement in the local area and also the similarities and differences between the models for the MEDC and LEDC.

The characteristics of the urban zones – the CBD, inner city, suburbs and rural urban fringe in the MEDC and the CBD, high class sector, shanty towns in the LEDC.
Students should be able to describe and explain the characteristics of the zones.
Urbanisation- is a global phenomenon and presents
challenges to human populations.
Definition and causes of urbanisation. The different pattern of urbanisation in MEDCs and LEDCs.
Students should appreciate the different pace and causes of urbanisation between MEDCs and LEDCs.
The problems of urbanisation - Chosen case studies should be considered in their wider context.
Social, economic, environmental issues in the CBD and inner city in MEDCs and in the shanty towns in LEDCs.

St Peter's Case studies include MEDCs such as, Manchester & Glasgow and in LEDCs, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Mumbai (Bombay)
The problems should be investigated in the context of one or more urban areas in each of the MEDC and LEDC. These may be the same as those used to study the characteristics of urban zones.

Contemporary solutions to problems of the CBD and inner cities in MEDCs and to shanty towns in LEDCs to achieve sustainable development. Solutions should be considered in the light of Spiritual, Moral, Ethical, Social, Cultural and Other Issues and Values and Attitudes and the growing practice of encouraging local residents and communities to have a say in the nature of changes that take place.
The solutions should also be studied in the context of named urban areas and in their wider context and may include redevelopment schemes, eg UK docklands integrated transport systems, Newcastle gentrification, dockside redevelopments in MEDCs and schemes to
improve shanty towns in LEDCs. E.g. Sao Paulo, Calcutta. Emphasis should be on schemes to solve socio-economic and environmental problems.

The nature of and reasons for urban sprawl in MEDCs eg. demand for new housing, roads, business parks, leisure facilities and shopping centres etc. The advantages and disadvantages of urban sprawl including the values and attitudes of interest groups eg. local residents, commuters, developers and governments. The contemporary efforts to manage the growth of urban areas for a sustainable future and to solve environmental conflicts and issues in the rural urban fringe eg. transport policies, green belts, conservation, the use of brownfield sites within cities rather than greenfield sites.
The study of urban sprawl should be made in the context of one or more urban areas in the MEDW.

Understand issues and viewpoints

Visit these web links to help you revise for the settlement section

1. THE best place to revise for site and situation is S-Cool - great diagrams, good examples - all you need for this section!

2. Use the links to the left for examples to see the 1:50 000 map - you may be asked about situation in the map skills section of the exam.

3. Settlement function - try to stick to UK examples though.

4. Settlment hierarchy

5. Urban morphology, or Urban Landuse Models. Know Burgess and Hoyt - differences and be able to sketch them. Know the difference between MEDC and LEDC land use models. S-Cool is good on this, Internet Geography is also good. Why not try their cross words and multi-choice questions?

6. Know an MEDC land use example well - choose Gloucester because you will be familiar with that.

7. Use Rio de Janeiro for your LEDC model.

8. Urbanisation - know what it is and what the problems are. Urbanisation is the increase in the proportion of people living in towns and cities.

9. Problems of urbanisation - S-Cool

10. LEDC cities and their problems. Internet geography is quite good.

11. Solutions to urban problems - London Docklands .

12. Urban-rural fringe

13. Urban renewal .

Try the BBC - always a good start not only for the bite size revision but alos the news searches for those vital case studies. For example, if you type in "Rio de Janeiro shanty" into the BBC news search engine, you will get news stories such as this.

Rio Shanty becomes tour spot

main page = www.bbc.co.uk

settlement bite size

14. MERRYHILL SHOPPING CENTRE. Have a look at this web page to see what they are offering shoppers. What happened to the centre of Dudley though?

15. Know about Intergrated Transport Systems in Cities - try these links

Manchester

metrolink