Introducing Settlement Patterns
Objective: To be able to recognise the physical shape of settlements and to be able to explain why they look like that.
Task 1 - Study the PowerPoint to the right and practise your skills on the OS maps given out by your teacher. Task 2 - Click on the second blue tab to access the settlement patterns worksheet. Complete all tasks as set out. * - thanks to Caldew School Cumbria VLE for the PowerPoint ** - thanks to firefly.moorhouse.org.uk for inspiring the worksheet. |
Factors influencing the sites, growth and
functions of settlements
functions of settlements
Objective: To be able to explain how physical factors (relief, soil, water supply) and other factors such as accessibility, agricultural land-use, influence the sites and patterns of settlements.
Settlement - A place where people live. A settlement can range from one isolated building to a capital city with over 20 million people like Mexico City. Settlement Site - The site of a settlement is the land upon which it was built. There is a range of human and physical factors that determine the site of a settlement. Settlement Situation - The situation of a settlement is its location in relation to surrounding human and physical features. We usually describe the situation when we are telling someone where a settlement is. Starter: Watch the Human Planet BBC video to the right. This shows people living in areas that are right on the limit of what we can survive. What factors stop people from living in certain places? Task 1 - Settlement site & situation - Click on the tab below to access your worksheet. Complete the activities set out before printing out for your folders. Task 2 - Settlement Situations & Changing Functions Settlement function (what it does) may change over time. Using Google Street View for the settlements in task 1 (Conwy, Toulouse, Chesterfield Inlet & your home town), visit each place and look for evidence of the following ways that functions can change:
Annotate on any changes in function that you can see to your photos using a different colour. |
|
Settlement Hierarchy & Service Hierarchy
Task 1 - Make a copy of the two diagrams above using the worksheet on the blue tab above. Then read and highlight the text beneath.
As you move up the hierarchy, the size of the settlement and the distance between similar sized settlements increases. As you can see from the diagram below, there are more cities than conurbations, more towns than cities and more villages than towns.
The number of services that a settlement provides increases with settlement size.
Small settlements will only provide low-order services such as a post offices, doctors and newsagents. Large towns, cities and conurbations will provide low and high-order services such as leisure centres, chain stores and hospitals.
Larger settlements and conurbations have a much larger sphere of influence than smaller ones. This means they attract people from a wider area because of the facilities they offer. Cities such as Paris have a global sphere of influence, whereas a small hamlet or village may only have a sphere of influence of a couple of kilometres.
Services such as department stores selling high order goods have a higher threshold than those selling low order goods such as newsagents. This means they need a higher number of people to support them and make them profitable, therefore they will only be found in larger settlements. It also means that there are fewer big department stores than small newsagents.
As you move up the hierarchy, the size of the settlement and the distance between similar sized settlements increases. As you can see from the diagram below, there are more cities than conurbations, more towns than cities and more villages than towns.
The number of services that a settlement provides increases with settlement size.
Small settlements will only provide low-order services such as a post offices, doctors and newsagents. Large towns, cities and conurbations will provide low and high-order services such as leisure centres, chain stores and hospitals.
Larger settlements and conurbations have a much larger sphere of influence than smaller ones. This means they attract people from a wider area because of the facilities they offer. Cities such as Paris have a global sphere of influence, whereas a small hamlet or village may only have a sphere of influence of a couple of kilometres.
Services such as department stores selling high order goods have a higher threshold than those selling low order goods such as newsagents. This means they need a higher number of people to support them and make them profitable, therefore they will only be found in larger settlements. It also means that there are fewer big department stores than small newsagents.
Settlement and service provision in Toulouse
Task 2 - Use the second side of the worksheet from Task 1.
Complete the activities on the sheet by using the resources below. Settlement Definitions. Isolated Place - Just one dwelling surrounded by countryside. Hamlet - Perhaps a phone and a few houses. Village - Village shop, church, post office. Small Town - primary school, supermarket, library, bank, hotel Large Town - Shopping centre, secondary school, college, cinema, sports centre, City - Primark and other department stores, cathedral, university, football and rugby stadiums, airport. Conurbation - A city that has expanded into the surrounding towns (urban sprawl) and is now one big settlement under one name. Task 3 - Click on the blue tab above to access the Google Map and study the location of each of the settlements above.
i. Look carefully at the communication routes through each type of settlement (roads, railways and metro (underground) stations. ii. Complete a piece of writing to complement your worksheet in task 2. Your questions is: Can you find a link between the size of a settlement and: ** the number of roads and railways and other forms of transportation. ** the shape of the land (relief) ** proximity of other settlements. |
Land Use in Urban Areas
Objective: To find out how urban areas are structured in terms of land use and how this is changing in modern times.
Most cities, including your home town or city, have a land use pattern that stretches from the centre to the rural to urban fringe. We need to identify the patterns in our nearest large city - Toulouse.
Most cities, including your home town or city, have a land use pattern that stretches from the centre to the rural to urban fringe. We need to identify the patterns in our nearest large city - Toulouse.
Task 1 - Watch the two videos to the right and fill in your worksheet about both the Burgess & Hoyt Model. ![]()
Task 2 - Study the embedded Google Map of Toulouse below.
Click on each of the five place markers and take a short tour, not forgetting to look up! Complete the worksheet below using the help sheet (also below) to be as detailed as possible in your analysis of our closest big city. ![]()
![]()
|
|
Inequality in Urban Areas - Toulouse
Task - Study the two images below. Complete a piece of analysis that identifies the pattern of wealth inequality in Toulouse. Use the data on the second image for instances of unemployment, family dynamics as well as average annual income €.
Haute Garonne - Data Here Gers - Date Here Pibrac (school) - Data Here
Additional information (in detail and in French) can be found here.
Problems of Urban Areas
Case Study 1 - Toulouse & Congestion
Download the work booklet above.
Task 1 - Complete the first two activities on the first page of the work booklet.
Click here to be taken to a traffic map of the area around our school. On the 'Live Traffic' tab at the bottom of the screen, click the down arrow and select 'Typical Traffic'.
The busiest days in France are Tuesday's and Thursday's (the only days where everyone works!). Choose one of these days, and select 8am to see what the traffic situation is around the school. Check out what red, yellow and green mean.
Task 2 - Complete the two activities on page 2 of the work booklet.
Tackling Congestion in Toulouse
The Backgound - À Toulouse, le groupe Airbus emploie 23 000 salariés au sein de la division Airbus Commercial Aircraft et 5 000 salariés au niveau de la division Airbus Defence and Space. Au total, en comptabilisant les fournisseurs, les sous-traitants, les sociétés de service… ce sont 46 000 personnes qui se déplacent quotidiennement sur l’un des dix sites du géant de l’aéronautique et du spatial dans la métropole toulousaine.
Scheme 3 - New Line C Metro (Toulouse).
|
More information - Click here
|
Task 4 - Read over the information above and complete the table activity on page 3 of the work booklet also using the links and videos above.
How does this look in the examination?
Task 5 - Complete Question 9. This is a five mark question and so needs you to list and explain five different problems. Each one will take you two lines. It doesn't have to be about any particular place, just general information.
Task 6 - Complete question 10 using Toulouse as your example. You will need to state the place 'Toulouse, France' and state the problem 'congestion' before describing the attempts which have been made to solve the problem . You will need to describe three attempts. Don't forget to PEEL:
Task 5 - Complete Question 9. This is a five mark question and so needs you to list and explain five different problems. Each one will take you two lines. It doesn't have to be about any particular place, just general information.
Task 6 - Complete question 10 using Toulouse as your example. You will need to state the place 'Toulouse, France' and state the problem 'congestion' before describing the attempts which have been made to solve the problem . You will need to describe three attempts. Don't forget to PEEL:
Typical Paper 1 Congestion Question
Urban Sprawl - What & How?
Defined as the spreading of urban developments (as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city.
Task 1 - Complete the mind mapping exercise with you teacher using your local city as the example of Urban Sprawl. Task 2 - Use Google Streetview to explore an area around your city and how it has changed in recent years. See street-level imagery from the past. You can see old street-level imagery from the Street View's archives in the full version of Google Maps. For example, see how your neighborhood has changed over time.
|
Toulouse Urban Sprawl (around our school)
|
|
Task 3 - **IST Students** - Take a look at the two embedded Google Streetview tracks from 2008. They are taken in the immediate vicinity of our school. In both cases there is evidence that the surrounding area has developed and urbanised in the last 10 years.
Use the worksheet above to take a 'before and after' screen shot using both the 2008 and most recent Streetview imagery (see instructions above). Annotate on both the features of urban sprawl using information from the mind map in Task 1.
Use the worksheet above to take a 'before and after' screen shot using both the 2008 and most recent Streetview imagery (see instructions above). Annotate on both the features of urban sprawl using information from the mind map in Task 1.
Case Study 2 - Tackling a lack of housing and
redevelopment - London

Objective: To find out how sustainable Greenwich Millennium Village is.
Task 1 - Study this presentation carefully and watch the news report embedded. Make a copy of the explanations of the different types of sustainability (SEE)
Task 2 - Using the map below, write a detailed location description, firstly of the location of London within the UK and secondly, the location of GMV within the conurbation of London.
Task 3 - Familiarise yourself with the project by visiting the official site here. Also, study this article from the BBC which gives readers the chance to comment on the development (bottom of the page) and this article that contains some of the drawbacks of the development.
Task 4 - Complete activities 1-7 on page 94-95 from the OCR B textbook. Use either the electronic copies on your laptop computers or the paper version. For activity 2, use this framework sheet.
Resources
Summary of the project
See below for two fact sheets created by students (thanks to http://rlp.romsey.hants.sch.uk and getrevising.co.uk)
Task 1 - Study this presentation carefully and watch the news report embedded. Make a copy of the explanations of the different types of sustainability (SEE)
Task 2 - Using the map below, write a detailed location description, firstly of the location of London within the UK and secondly, the location of GMV within the conurbation of London.
Task 3 - Familiarise yourself with the project by visiting the official site here. Also, study this article from the BBC which gives readers the chance to comment on the development (bottom of the page) and this article that contains some of the drawbacks of the development.
Task 4 - Complete activities 1-7 on page 94-95 from the OCR B textbook. Use either the electronic copies on your laptop computers or the paper version. For activity 2, use this framework sheet.
Resources
Summary of the project
See below for two fact sheets created by students (thanks to http://rlp.romsey.hants.sch.uk and getrevising.co.uk)
|
|
|