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GEG 414

This lesson will introduce the learner to the meaning, process and common terms used
in urban Geography

THIS LESSON WILL INTRODUCE THE LEARNER TO THE MEANING, PROCESS AND
COMMON TERMS USED IN URBAN GEOGRAPHY

Completion requirements

WHAT IS URBANIZATION?

Urbanization refers to a process in which an increasing proportion of an entire

population lives in cities and the suburbs of cities. It is the physical growth of urban
areas as a result of rural migration and even suburban concentration into cities.

-It is a process of transition from a rural to a more urban society, that is, members of a
predominantly rural area becomes residents of an urban area. It can be regarded as the
physical growth of urban areas into rural or natural land as a result of population in-
migration to an existing urban area.

- It is simply the shift from a rural to an urban society, and involves an increase in the
number of people in urban areas during a particular year. As a demographic
phenomenon, urbanization can be considered as:

-An increasing proportion of an area’s population becomes concentrated in a

statistically defined urban place. This involves more of the rural population moving into
defined urban areas.

- An increasing proportion of an area’s population becomes concentrated in large urban

areas leading to extension into the surrounding areas (expansion of the existing urban
areas).
-Statistically, urbanization reflects an increasing proportion of the population living in
settlements defined as urban. This in most cases is primarily through net rural to urban
migration. Urbanization is the outcome of social, economic and political developments
that lead to urban concentration and growth of large cities, changes in land use and
transformation from rural to metropolitan pattern of organization and governance.

-The level of urbanization is the percentage of the total population living in towns and
cities while the rate of urbanization is the rate at which it grows.

The United Nations defines urbanization as movement of people from rural to urban
areas with population growth equating to urban migration. While the exact definition
and population size of urbanized areas varies among different countries, urbanization is
attributed to growth of cities.

Urbanization is increasing in both the developed and developing countries. However,

rapid urbanization, particularly the growth of large cities, and the associated problems
of unemployment, poverty, inadequate health, poor sanitation, urban slums and
environmental degradation pose a formidable challenge in many developing countries.

The worst affected is Africa which is currently undergoing an urban population

explosion. Despite slow economic progress, cities in the region are experiencing the
fastest population growth rates, at over 5% a year, and by 2030, urban population will be
more than triple. The rapid urbanization rates result mainly from natural growth and net
migration from rural areas. This strains the capacity to provide basic services leading to
intractable problems such as poverty, unemployment, inadequate shelter, poor or
nonexistent sanitation, contaminated or depleted water supplies, many forms of
environmental degradation, and congestion, among others. This will continuously risk
the lives and health of the urban poor.

The concept of urbanization therefore varies from one country to another. The definition
of an urban area changes from country to country. In general, there are no standards,
and each country develops its own set of criteria for distinguishing cities or urban areas.
Historically, urbanization was directly linked and closely connected to the process of
industrialization/modernization and is often used as a measure of growth and economic
development. Urbanization indicates a change of employment structure from
agriculture and cottage industries to mass production and service industries.

When more and more inanimate sources of energy are used to enhance human
productivity (industrialization), surpluses

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GEG 414

The purpose of this lesson is to familiarize the learner with the classification and
functions of urban areas.

The purpose of this lesson is to familiarize the learner with the classification and
functions of urban areas.

Completion requirements

Basic terms used in Urban Geography (continued)

6) Gentrification:

Is a process by which run-down houses in an inner city or other neglected parts of the
urban area are improved by better off (affluent) people who move there in order to have
easier access to the jobs and services of the city centre. In other words, it is the
transforming of a run-down or aging neighborhood into a more prosperous one (ie
renovating aging neighbourhood), e.g. through investment in remodeling buildings or
houses. It is movement into the inner portions of a city by middle- and upper-income
people who replace low-income populations, rehabilitate the structures they occupied,
and change the social character of neighborhoods. It is those changes that result when
wealthier people ("gentry") acquire or rent property in low income and working class
communities. In a community undergoing gentrification, the average income increases
and average family size decreases. This generally results in the displacement of the
poorer, pre-gentrification residents, who are unable to pay increased rents or house
prices and property taxes. Often old industrial buildings are converted to residences
and shops. In addition, new businesses, catering to a more affluent base of consumers,
move in, further increasing the appeal to more affluent migrants and decreasing the
accessibility to the poor.

Urban gentrification occasionally changes the culturally heterogeneous character of a

community or neighborhood to a more economically homogeneous community that
some describe as having a suburban character. Old terraced houses and industrial
buildings are converted to high-quality housing (e.g. London Docklands). The
'improving' social group changes attract more people of the similar wealthier social
group. This process is sometimes made feasible by government-promoted private real
estate investment repairing the local infrastructure. The rise in property values causes
property taxes based on property values to increase; resident owners unable to pay the
taxes are forced to sell their dwellings at a profit and move to a cheaper community.

7) Urban Renewal/Regeneration: It is the redevelopment of urban areas that have

become run down or impoverished, by demolishing or renovating old buildings or
building new ones. It is the improvement of old houses and the addition of amenities in
an attempt to bring new life to old inner city areas. Derelict factories and wasteland
redeveloped with office blocks, shops and leisure facilities (e.g. Millennium Dome,
Greenwich, London). It aims to attract industry back into older areas and encourage
investment in new housing, amenities and employment (e.g. London Docklands).

8) Market Town: a town whose main function is that of a shopping and service centre
for the surrounding region.

9) Peri-urban: Any expanse of land or region located on the outskirts of a city or town.

10) Primate City: A primate city is one which far out-ranks all other cities of the
country in which it is located in terms of population, commercial activities, industrial
output and political influences. In other words, it is a leading city which is
disproportionately larger than any other and dominant not only in population size but
also in its functions/role as the political, economic and social centre of the country.

11) Re-urbanization: the process whereby towns and cities which have been
experiencing a loss of population are able to reverse the decline and begin to grow
again. Some form of redevelopment is often required to start re-urbanization.

12) Rural-Urban Fringe: It is a zone of transition between an urban area and the
surrounding rural area. It is the area between the heavily built up area of the town or city
and the surrounding rural area - open countryside. It is the area where the built up urban
area meets the open countryside. Usually at the edge of the city, it is part-urban and
part-rural. It is a zone of mixed land uses, from shopping malls and golf courses to
farmland and motorways.

13) Settlement Pattern: It is the arrangement or layout of buildings in an urban area. It

is the way that buildings and houses are distributed in a settlement.

14) Shanty Town: a settlement of poor-quality housing, lacking in amenities such as

water supply, sewerage and electricity, which often develops spontaneously and
illegally (as a squatter settlement) in a city. The improvised dwellings made from scrap
materials: often plywood, corrugated metal and sheets of plastic. Shanty towns, which
are usually built on the periphery of cities, often do not have proper sanitation,
electricity or telephone services.

15) Slum: It is a run-down and heavily populated area of an urban area characterized by
substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. It is a residential area
within an urban area that is physically and socially deteriorated and in which
satisfactory family life is impossible. It has high density and low standards of housing (in
terms of structure and services) and “squalor” (shabbiness and dirtiness resulting from
poverty and neglect).

16) Suburbs: It is an outlying, functionally uniform part of an urban area, often (but not
always) adjacent to the central city. It is a residential area on the edge of a city or a large
town. In other words, it is a residential area situated on the outskirts of a city or town.
17) Sub-urbanization: Is the creation of built-up area at the edge of the city in the
suburb (the suburban area). It is a situation where the rural areas on the outskirts of
towns increasingly develop the characteristics of urban areas. It is also known as
Commuter/Dormitory towns. It is the process by which people, factories, offices and
shops move out from the central areas of cities and into the suburbs. It often takes
place radially along transport routes for better accessibility. The area between the major
roads is gradually filled in by settlement and feeder roads.

18) Urban area: Area within the legal boundaries of cities and towns; suburban areas
developed for residential, industrial or recreational purposes. It is characterized by
higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding
it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations. Urban areas are created and
further developed by the process of urbanization.

19) Urbanism: A way of life associated with residence in an urban area. It is the typical
way of life of people who live in a city or town

20) Urban Sprawl/deconcentration: It is the outward spread of built-up areas of an

urban area into the surrounding areas as a result of expansion. It is simply the
expansion of urban area into the surrounding rural areas. It can also be considered as
the rapid, haphazard, uncoordinated, unchecked or unplanned outward
expansion/growth of an urban area at their fringes. It is the spreading out of a city and its
suburbs into the surrounding rural land at the periphery of an urban area.

Classification of Urban areas

Urban areas are classified on the basis of its size of the population, occupational
structure and administration.

a) Population size: Depending on the country in which it is located, an urban area

must have a certain population. The cut off figure depends on the density of population
in the country. In more developed countries, an area is not considered urban until it has
at least 20,000 people. The majority of the population must sustain itself without relying
on agricultural occupations for work. In India, a settlement having population more than
5000 persons is called urban. In Japan it is 30000 persons whereas in Sweden it is 250
persons. In the United States, the U.S. Census Bureau defines an urban area as having
more than 50,000 people and at least 1,000 people per square mile. Since 2000, the
bureau bases its classification solely on population density regardless if the area is
incorporated or not as a municipality.

b) Occupational structure: Besides population size, occupation is also taken as the

criteria. Since the majority of people living in an urban area work outside agriculture,
professional occupations and industrial manufacturing provide the economy's basis. A
centralized government and banking system exist with residents relying on a cash or
credit system as opposed to barter. In India, if more than 75% of workforce is engaged in
nonagricultural activities then the settlement is called as urban. Other countries have
their own criteria for e.g. in Italy it is 50 percent.

c) Administrative structure: In India and even Kenya, a settlement is classified as

urban if it has a municipality, cantonment board or a notified area. It is governed by a
local authority with administrative functions and responsibilities. In Brazil any
administrative centre is termed as urban.

Depending on the size and the services available and functions rendered, urban centres
are designated as town, city, million city, conurbation, and megalopolis.

a) Town: A town is an urban area dominated by economic functions and larger than a
village but smaller than a city. Population size in town is higher than the village.
Functions such as, manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade, and professional
services exist in towns. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town"
varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American
"small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while many British
"small towns" would qualify as cities in the United States.

b) City: A city may be regarded as a leading town. The difference between towns and
cities is differently understood in different parts of the world. Even within the English-
speaking world there is no one standard definition of a city: the term may be used either
for a town possessing city status; for an urban locality exceeding an arbitrary population
size; for a town dominating other towns with particular regional economic or
administrative significance. Although there is no agreement on how a city is
distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a
particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law. Cities are much
larger than towns and have a greater number of economic functions. They tend to have
transport terminals, major financial institutions and regional administrative offices.
When the population crosses the one million mark it is designated as a million city.

c) Conurbation: This is a large continuous built-up area formed by the joining together
of several urban areas. It is a large urban area which is the result of towns and cities
spreading out and merging together. It describes an urban area created by the
coalescence of once-separate urban areas. Conurbations are often formed as a result
of urban sprawl and suburbanization. The term conurbation was coined by Patrick
Geddes in 1915 and applied to a large area of urban development that resulted from the
merging of originally separate towns or cities. The best example is the North-eastern
Seaboard stretches from Boston through New York to Washington, DC. This conurbation
is also known as Bosnywash. Other examples include the Greater London, Greater
Mumbai, Manchester, Chicago and Greater Tokyo (which includes Tokyo , Kawasaki and
Yokohama). In Africa, we have the merger of Midrand with Pretoria in South Africa,
merger of Nairobi, Machackos and Thika in the Nairobi metropolitan city.

d) Megalopolis: A continuous stretch of urban area which results from towns cities
and conurbations merging together. It is formed by the merging of conurbations. This
Greek word meaning “great city”, was popularised by Jean Gottman (1957) and signifies
‘super- metropolitan’ region extending, as union of conurbations. The urban landscape
stretching from Boston in the north to south of Washington in U.S.A., and New York and
the urban areas on the east coast of the US, are the best known example of a
megalopolis.

Functions of Urban area

The function of an area is its reason or purpose for being. The function of an urban area
is what it does or its purpose, that is purpose of a land use. The dominant function in
different cities varies, for example, London is known for its function as a financial
centre, whilst Newcastle is now attempting to be a science/education city. Functions
can change over time as well, in Newcastle the original function was as a coal mining
region, which then changed to heavy industry and manufacturing with ship building and
armaments at the forefront, and presently high tech industries and education dominate.
Many urban centres have a large range of functions and are multi-function cities, e.g.
Shanghai and Nairobi. Some urban centres are dominated by one particular function
are called single-function cities, e.g. Canberra (the most dominant function is
administration). These urban centres can be classified according to the major function,
e.g.

Capital city, e.g. Canberra (Australia).

Industrial cities, e.g. Pittsburgh (USA).

Holiday resorts, e.g. Pattaya (Thailand).

Types of urban areas according to their MAIN function:

1) Trade and transport towns and cities: Many old towns were famous as trade
centres. Some towns have developed as transport towns such as Rotterdam in the
Netherlands, Aden in Yemen and Mumbai in India are port towns. These transport towns
can further be classified as:

i) Gap or gateway towns form where traffic routes converge – at mountain passes,
ports and bridges, for instance. An example is Worcester in the Western Cape.

ii) Junction towns form at railway or road junctions. An example is De Aar in the
Northern Cape.

iii) Break-of-bulk towns form where one type of transport is changed for another – at a
harbour goods are offloaded from the ship and onto a truck to be transported inland. An
example is Port Elizabeth (South Eastern of South Africa) and the port of Mombasa
(Kenya).

In addition, some town have specialized in trade/commercial functions including Hong

Kong, Dubai, Singapore and Tokyo
2) Specialized towns and cities: These towns have one dominant function and are
located where the resource needed for this function is available. They are dominated by
one activity such as mining, manufacturing or recreation and serving national and
international markets. Recreational towns, for example, Mombasa (tourist town in
Kenya), and Plettenburg Bay (South Africa), and mining towns, for example, Kimberley
(South Africa).

3) Administrative Towns: National capitals, which have headquarters of the

administrative offices of Central Government, are called administrative towns, such as
Nairobi (Kenya), New Delhi (India), Moscow (Russia), Kampala (Uganda) and
Washington (USA).

4) Cultural Towns: Towns famous for religious, educational or recreational functions

are called cultural towns. Places of pilgrimage, such as Jerusalem (Israel), Mecca (Saudi
Arabia), Jagannath Puri (Eastern India) and Varanasi (Northern India) etc. are
considered as religious towns. There are also recreational towns such as Las Vegas in
the USA, Lamu in Kenya.

5) Tourist towns: Towns famous for offering tourism services as a result of the location
of major tourist sites. They include seaside resort like Pataya, Thailand; Spa town:
Hakodate, Japan; and Winter sports resorts, Zermatt, Switzerland

6) Industrial Towns: Mining and manufacturing regions. Towns which have developed
due to setting up of industries such as Thika (in Kenya) are called industrial towns.

7) Central places: These towns provide services to the surrounding population.

Central places functioning primarily as service centers for local hinterlands.Every town
/ city acts as a focus for its surrounding area by providing services and goods to them.
The services include retailing, legal, medical, education, banking, recreational…etc. The
goods: industrial products, newspaper, books…etc. Examples are Harrismith (South
Africa) and Bethlehem (West Bank, Israel). Many South African towns are central
places. In many cases the original main function of an urban area has changed, for
example, Johannesburg was originally a mining town but its main functions now are
commercial and government.
Last modified: Monday, 14 September 2020, 7:41 PM

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GEG 414
This lesson looks at the importance of urban areas in the development of a country. It
also looks at the challenges that urban areas face.

This lesson looks at the importance of urban areas in the development of a country. It
also looks at the challenges that urban areas face.

Completion requirements

Role of Urban Settlement and Urbanization in Development

The United Nations (UN) reports that urban population will increase by more than 2
billion people by 2030 and a half of them will be born into poverty; by 2050, two-thirds of
the population is likely to live in cities and towns. In developing countries, urban
population is growing three times faster than rural population and a large proportion of
the future population growth will be mostly in urban areas (UN, 2008). The worst
affected is Africa which is currently undergoing an urban population explosion. Despite
slow economic progress, cities in the region are experiencing the fastest population
growth rates, at over 5% a year, and by 2030, urban population will be more than triple.
Though this carries with it numerous challenges, urban settlement harbour major
potentials for development in the following ways:

1) Efficiency - The concentration of the population in a small area makes it possible to

provide the necessary infrastructure and basic services at a lower cost in most cases.
This in turn makes it easier to meet the people’s basic needs, which benefits the poor in
particular. For example, imagine 100 families living in 100 separate houses spread out
over many acres of land. Now imagine the same 100 families in a single block of flats.
Obviously, in the flats, far less effort is required to supply basic services such as energy,
water, and waste disposal to these families. Additionally, only in cities are measures
such as waste management are possible - recycling programmes possible, because
waste collection can be made so efficient.

2) Convenience – In a city, most of the amenities are concentrated in a small area.

Access to education, health, social services and cultural events is much more readily
available in a city than in a rural setting. Such services are more likely to benefit more
people compared to the rural areas. It is possible for one to access more than one
service at the same time. Because things are located so closely, cities can have efficient
mass transportation systems in place, systems which are not feasible for rural
populations.
3) Concentration of Resources – Because of the density of people, wealth, and other
resources in cities, many institutions become possible that would not be in areas where
such things are more spread out. Basically, when enough people are put together in a
small area, they start coming up with ideas to do things (innovations and inventions) –
cultural, political, commercial and social activities that just don’t occur outside of
cities. For example, without cities, there never would have been universities.

4) Economies of scale: Urbanization facilitates agglomeration (concentration)

economies as a result of the benefits that firms, workers, and consumers obtain when
locating near each other. These benefits arise due to economies of scale and network
effects. These agglomeration economies are of two types: Urbanization Economies and
Localization Economies. For urbanization economies, it is easier to provide residential
infrastructures, schools, health-care and other service activities, and consumer
oriented activities. These benefits are general in nature. Localization Economies refers
to the benefits accruing to particular sector or particular type of firms from locating in
the urban area. Clustering of firms may lower the cost of production (due to bigger
market, competing multiple suppliers, greater specialization and division of labor, lower
transportation cost, access to specialized services etc.).

5) Backward and forward linkages with the agricultural sector (rural areas): There is a
functional relationship between urban settlement and the surrounding agricultural rural
areas. Rural areas provide food and agricultural raw materials for the urban areas and
their industries. Urban centres provide market for the food and agricultural
commodities from the rural areas.

Urban centres create employment opportunities for both itself and the surrounding
rural areas. This creates linkages between farms and the urban centres in terms of
transfer of goods and services. Agricultural commodities are collected, exchanged and
redistributed through urban-rural linkages. This facilitates income transfers from the
urban centres to rural areas. Thus, agricultural production in surrounding rural areas
benefit from urbanization and expansion of urban centres in a variety of ways including:

a) Easy access to appropriate farm inputs

b) Easy access to marketing and support technological information

c) Easy access to support for maintenance and repair of farm equipment.

Lack of the above services from the urban centres will jeopardize the capacity of
farmers to utilize emerging and high productive technologies. On the other hand,
improved technologies would expand farm output considerably. It is necessary to have
convenient markets, transport systems and facilities to store, grade and package farm
output

6) Urban settlement acts as nodes of economic growth and development. The growth
of the urban settlement act as an indicator of a country’s level of development by acting
as:

a) A locus of production, that is, areas where there are concentration and dispersal of
economic activities.

b) A locus of processes. These are centres where finance, credit and manipulation of
liquid capita for production of goods and services take place.

c) A locus of consumption. These include both private and public goods for collective
consumption. The current trends in many cities is that the modes of production and
consumption are more and more closely linked together by increasing tendency for
cities to be designated as major markets. For example, development of mega retail
outlets.

d) A locus of meaning. This is a means of representation, source of understanding

and as an anchor of culture. There are cities that have developed mainly as cultural
resource and which are viewed as a way of creating and expressing meaning.

7) Political and democracy centres: Urban centres are generally the starting points for
democratization processes and development of new visions of ways to live and work in
future. They act as centres of information diffusion. The process of urbanization should
also be seen as a means whereby skills and aptitudes are constantly being innovated
and upgraded. From the centres, there is diffusion of knowledge to the surrounding
areas (innovation diffusion).
Conclusion:

Development and expansion of urban centres is crucial not only for the region but also
for the entire country. Each region should have an urban centre to provide what is
needed in the rural areas and decentralize the concentration of economic activities in
large urban centres.

Challenges Facing Urban areas and Urbanization

Although urbanization and urban settlement are the driving force for modernization,
economic growth and development, there is increasing concern about the effects of
expanding cities, principally on human health, livelihoods and the environment. High
urban populations place enormous stress on natural resources and impose ‘ecological
footprints’ on the peri-urban areas. The implications of rapid urbanization and
demographic trends for employment, food security, water supply, shelter and
sanitation, especially the disposal of wastes (solid and liquid) that the cities produce
are staggering. Rapid urban growth is responsible for many environmental and social
changes in the urban environment and its effects are strongly related to global change
issues. The rapid growth of cities strains their capacity to provide services such as
energy, education, health care, transportation, sanitation and physical security.
Because governments have less revenue to spend on the basic upkeep of cities and the
provision of services, cities have become areas of massive sprawl, serious
environmental problems, and widespread poverty. The question that arises is whether
the current trend in urban growth is sustainable considering the accompanying urban
challenges such as unemployment, slum development, poverty and environmental
degradation, especially in the developing countries. The most specific challenges
include:

i) Encroachment of the urban areas into surrounding productive agricultural rural

areas and peri-urban areas: Urbanization leads to the outward expansion of cities and
results in changes in land use whereby urban residents buy up the surrounding prime
agricultural land for residential or commercial purposes. The conversion of prime farm
lands and watersheds for residential purposes have negative consequences on food
security, water supply as well as the health of the people, both in the cities and in the
peri-urban areas.
The high rural-urban migration, mostly involving the youth who are energetic, educated
and receptive to new agricultural techniques, deprives the agricultural rural areas the
much needed labour. This has contributed to low agricultural production to feed not
only the rural areas but also the urban areas which depends on them.

Although, cities serve as ‘engines’ of growth in most developing countries by providing

opportunities for employment, education, knowledge and technology transfer and
ready markets for industrial and agricultural products, high urban populations place
enormous stress on natural resources and imposes ‘ecological footprints’ on the peri-
urban areas.

ii) Urban poverty: Majority of the urban poor live in slums, where they are subjected to
numerous health threats. They cannot adequately provide for their basic needs in terms
of shelter, employment, water and health. The United Nations (UN) adds that urban
population will increase by more than 2 billion people by 2030 and a half of them will be
born into poverty. In developing countries, urban population is growing three times
faster than rural population and a large proportion of the future population growth will
be mostly in urban areas. According to the latest Global Report on Human Settlements,
43% of the urban population in developing countries lives in slums. Majority of urban
dwellers in Africa and two-thirds in sub-Saharan Africa lives in overcrowded slums with
poor health conditions and livelihood opportunities.

iii) Strain on the existing socio-economic infrastructure. There exists imbalance

between the planned capacity of the infrastructure and the unexpected increase in the
population (natural increase and net immigration). Most of the infrastructure were
planned and targeted small populations at the time. The planning did not anticipate the
current population explosion in urban areas. The influx of people into urban areas has
not been accompanied by an increase in the provision of certain amenities and as a
result, health care facilities, educational institutions, water and sewerage facilities,
electricity, housing has not matched the demand. As a result there is a lot of pressure
that has created a ripple effect to certain illicit activities. There is an increase in crime,
drug-peddling, prostitution and street families as a result of the pressures described
above.

iv) Cities impact on health in many ways. In the areas of the environment and health,
problems of emission reduction, supply of clean drinking water, sewage and rubbish
disposal, food security and poverty reduction are the most important. Vulnerability of
the urban population to natural disasters and diseases, especially HIV/AIDS and
atmospheric pollution has also been recognized. Although, data about pollution levels
are fragmentary, the air and water quality in many cities threatens the health of millions
of city residents. Although, a significant positive impact of urbanization is promotion of
urban agriculture and the cultivation of staple crops, vegetables, poultry and dairying,
which are demanded by urban consumers, cultivation of vegetables through sewage
irrigation and the use of chemical pesticides affect the health of consumers who are not
notified of the circumstances of cultivation of these products.

v) Pollution and waste management: Waste is a major problem in large cities. Air
pollution results from over-dependence on motorized transport and from burning of
coal to supply energy. Water pollution results from poor sewage facilities and disposal
of industrial heavy metals into waterways. Vast quantities of solid waste are produced
in industries. Traffic congestion and noise pollution are major environmental impacts of
large cities. A large proportion of the urban population is also affected by poor
sanitation that threatens their health. River pollution is particularly found to be worse
where rivers pass through cities and the most widespread is contamination from human
excreta, sewage and oxygen loss Pesticide contamination from urban agriculture,
residues from sawmills and manufacturing industries, wastewater from urban drains
and municipal dumping of waste especially human excreta pollute drinking water
sources that affect the health of the urban and peri-urban populations. In the long-term,
treatment of sewage would be required for safer vegetable production and to reduce
water pollution.

vi) Pollution and health: Drinking water is often contaminated due to poor sewerage
systems and inadequate supply. This exposes the population to the risks of outbreaks of
cholera, typhoid and dysentery. The uncollected rubbish is an ideal breeding ground for
disease. Pollution from industries also exacerbates respiratory diseases, especially
among children and pregnant mothers. Urban populations are also vulnerable to
diseases such as malaria or those associated with air pollution. Other malfunctions
that are associated with industrial and traffic injuries and psychological disorders,
especially in low-income urban and peri-urban area are also disturbing. The unhealthy
environment and overcrowded housing in the slums expose the urban poor to high rates
of infectious diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and diarrhoea. Although it is
clear that cities in the developing countries act as nodes through which development
occur, it is important to note that rapid urbanization poses particular risks that affect
sustainable livelihoods of millions of people. The wide range of effects includes
degradation of the environment (soil erosion, deforestation), destruction of watersheds
and wetlands, traffic congestion, contamination/pollution of water, and environmental
risks associated with low-income housing areas.

vii) Unemployment and underemployment: This is caused by imbalance between

creation of job opportunities and the influx of new arrivals to urban areas. New arrivals
to urban centres far outnumbers the job opportunities available and so high
unemployment rates result. Worse still, majority of the new arrivals are usually
unskilled to be employed in gainful employment. For those people who end up getting
jobs, majority of them are underemployed and live at a subsistence level. Unemployed
youth may end up engaging in crime and delinquent behaviours.

viii) Transportation: Few developing cities can afford elaborate public transport systems
and what they have tend to be outdated and over-used. The wealthy have cars but the
road network is often inadequate to cope with the large volume of traffic. Air pollution is
a major problem. The poor rely on risk and cheap means of transport such as motor
cycles and bicycles.

ix) Housing: despite some promising initiatives, most authorities have been unable to
provide adequate shelter and services for their rapidly growing urban population and so
the majority of the poor have to fend for themselves and to survive by their own efforts.
This is the reason for the mashrooming of slums and shanties that can not meet basic
health and safety standards.

Last modified: Monday, 14 September 2020, 7:44 PM

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GEG 414

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce the learner to the structure of urban areas and
some of the models that have been put forward to explain the structure

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce the learner to the structure of urban areas and
some of the models that have been put forward to explain the structure

Completion requirements

What is Urban morphology/Structure?

An urban area is not simply random collection of buildings and people. It is defined by
various linkages between elements within its urban activity. These could be
competitive, complementary, or even ancillary to territory within the city, but it suggests
that cities have structure. This structure has order and in turn this order has spatial
character. However, every city is unique. In addition, this order responds to historical,
cultural, social, and economic influences and thus expresses itself quite differently in
different regions. For example, North American cities tend to have a defined Central
Business District.
In other words, an urban area exhibit functional structure: it is spatially organized to
perform its functions as places of commerce, production, education, and much more.
As an urban area grows, there is a tendency for these different functions to occupy
different areas within it so that housing, industry or commercial activities become the
dominant functions in different parts of the urban area. In most cases, these broadly
dissimilar functional areas or zones are readily recognizable. Residential areas can be
distinguished from the town centre where commercial activities dominate, and from
extensive industrial estates. Sometimes there are discrete boundaries to functional
zones which are easily recognizable. This is by no means always the case and at times
the functions overlap and intertwine. This makes it hard to easily designate such areas
with a single descriptive name. Therefore, careful mapping has to be done in order to
distinguish the functional zones of a town. One of the most important forces
determining where certain urban functions are located within a city deals with the price
of land. This tends to be the highest in the downtown area (urban centre) and declines
as one move outward from the center.

The arrangement and layout of functions or use of land in an urban area are collectively
described as urban morphology/structure. Urban morphology is the spatial relationship
between the broad land use zones in an urban area. It can also be defined as an
approach that provides an understanding of the form, creation and transformation
processes, spatial structure and character of urban settlements through an analysis of
historical development processes and the constituent parts that compose the
settlements. In simple terms, it is the arrangement of land use in urban areas. It is the
study of the form and shape of urban settlements and the process of their formation
and transformation. It is the analysis of the physical structures of urban centres. In this
essence, it is used as an important assessment tool or method in determining the
change – transformation processes of urban fabrics, making sense of the historical
roots of spatial and functional structures and bringing them to the present day. It deals
with the physical layout and internal functional structure (functional morphology) of an
urban area. Here 'physical layout' means 'urban structure' and may be termed as
internal geography of the city. Similarly functional morphology may be interchanged
with urban land use.
Urban morphology is thus the internal organization or "anatomy" of a city, including the
pattern of land uses, ethnic and income groups, infrastructure, housing types, industrial
types, and so on. It seeks to understand the spatial structure and character of an urban
area by examining the patterns of its component parts and the process of its
development. This can involve the analysis of physical structures at different scales as
well as patterns of movement, land use, ownership or control and occupation. The
study of urban morphology/structure attempts to emphasize significant spatial
relationships between the broad land use zones in a town. It is concerned with the
arrangement of public and private space in cities and the degree of connectivity and
accessibility. In every town, there are variations in the use to which land is put but these
variations in land use shows standard patterns, which are similar to all urban areas.

Models of Urban Growth/Land Use

The search for pattern and order in a town inevitably involves an attempt to distinguish
clearly identifiable morphological zones. In order to gain some understanding of the
spatial relationships that exist within the complexities of a town, we must use some
form of simplification. The distinguishing of morphological functional zones using
models of land use provides useful starting point in this respect. Sociologists,
economists, and geographers have attempted to describe the patterns of land use in
towns and cities around the world by using descriptive models that summarize the
pattern of land use.

Various models/theories have been advanced by urban geographers to analyse the

morphology of urban centres. Such models seek to identify certain spatial
characteristics which are common to all towns and provide some understanding of the
processes which brings these about. The three common models include the
Con­centric Zone Theory by E.W. Burgess (1923), the Sector Theory by Homer Hoy t
(1939), and the Mul­tiple Nuclei Theory by C.D. Harris and E.L. Ullman (1945). These
models help in identifying various functional zones within the territorial limit of the city.
These include business area (including C.B.D.), residential area, industrial area,
adminis­trative area, educational area, cultural area, other areas, and gardens and
open area.
Concentric Zone Model

Concentric Zone Model (1923), also known as the Burgess model, is one of the earliest
attempts to provide some insight into urban structure. It was created by a sociologist
Ernest. W. Burgess in 1923. The model was based on empirical research in a number of
American cities, particularly Chicago in 1920s, and it described the concentric
arrangement of functional zones within a city. He attempted to delineate the basic
patterns of land use of the town. Burgess looked at the growth of Chicago in the late
19th and early 20th century. The concentric zone/ring model depicts urban land use in
concentric rings: the Central Business District (or CBD) was in the middle of the model,
and the city expanded in rings with different land uses. It was an ideal-type
representation of city growth assuming the absence of natural features, like waterfronts
and hills. It may not always be a representation of reality.

This theory states that the concentric circles are based on the land rent/value and
amount that people are willing pay for the land in the urban area. This value is based on
the profits that are obtainable from maintaining a business on that land. The center of
the town will have the highest number of customers so it is profitable for retail activities.
Manufacturing will pay slightly less for the land as they are only interested in the
accessibility for workers, 'goods in' and 'goods out'. Residential land use will take the
surrounding land. He envisaged that, within the city, people compete for the limited
space and thus high land value. Those people and functions capable of paying for them
achieved the most desirable locations. Those individuals and functions with the lowest
level of economic competence had the least choice and were, therefore, left with the
poorest locations. Burgess suggested that this process led to the functional zoning and
residential segregation within cities. In other words, within different areas of the city
different single functions formed the dominant element. Burgess observed that the
zones are arranged concentrically around the city centre, and that each is distinctive in
age and character. When the city grew, the city center would grow; the rings would also
shift outwards. Burgess claimed that although no one city perfectly exemplified the
concentric zone model, all “approximate in greater or lesser degree this ideal
construction”.
According to this model, a city grows outward from a central point in a series of rings.
The innermost ring represents the central business district. It is surrounded by a second
ring, the zone of transition, which contains industry and poorer-quality housing. The
third ring contains housing for the working-class and is called the zone of independent
workers' homes. The fourth ring has newer and larger houses usually occupied by the
middle-class. This ring is called the zone of better residences. The outermost ring is
called the commuter's zone. This zone represents people who choose to live in
residential suburbs and take a daily commute into the CBD to work.

a) Central Business District (CBD)

At the heart of the city is the Central Business District (CBD) which forms the
commercial, social and cultural hub. The CBD is the most accessible part of the urban
system, being at the focus of the urban transport networks. Here are situated mainly
offices, large departmental stores, specialist and variety goods shops as well as the
main theatres, cinemas and best hotels. Buildings are very tall and are closely packed
together to make the most intensive use of the site. Land rents are high due to keen land
use competition by different urban land uses. There are high order retail shops selling
luxury commodities (e.g. jewellery and fashion). There are high order service businesses
and offices (e.g. banks, stockbrokers and legal firms). These activities can best afford to
pay the high rates and rents required for such advantageous sites. These high order
functions need a central location with high accessibility. There is a large number of
potential customers; and they have a high economic return and can afford to pay the
high land rent. There is horizontal zonation of land use where zones of different types of
commercial businesses can be identified. For example, zone of government offices,
zone of banks, zone of high order retail shops and office buildings. There is also vertical
zonation of land use. There is also vertical zoning in the tall buildings. On the lower
floors, there are banks, restaurants and shops selling high-order luxury goods. On the
upper floors, there are airlines, trading firms, accounting firms, legal firms and
consulates.

b) Zone in transition

Surrounding the CBD is a zone in transition or deterioration, where the land use is very
mixed and is constantly changing. It is an area of mixed uses mainly determined by the
need to be near the CBD. The transition zone has a mixed residential and commercial
uses – contains industries and residential houses. It is too inaccessible for prosperous
commercial enterprises, but too near to the city to provide sites for anything but the
poorest residential buildings where the most deprived social groups live. It is occupied
by older buildings (mostly, decaying and abandoned) which are gradually replaced
during the growth of the CBD. These areas suffer from urban decay and needs urban
renewal. It is called the zone in transition undergoing changes to the functions
associated with the CBD. It is also called the twilight zone because it is a slum area with
old buildings and poor facilities. Land rents are lower than the CBD. The zone contains
retail services of poor quality, derelict buildings, and barren spaces of demolished
slums. Being a zone of change, it may have many large and formally fine houses, which
are now used for other purposes.

c) Working-class Zone

The zone in transition is surrounded by a zone of working-class houses. Working people

need to live near the place of work. This zone contains some of the older residential
buildings in the city which originally housed families who moved from poorer quality
property in the zone in transition. But the two were still compelled by travelling costs
and rents to live near their places of work.

d) Middle-class Zone

Adjacent to the zone of working-class houses is a zone of residence characterized by

semi-detached houses of the middle class. Some light industries are also situated here.
The houses are newer and larger. It is a zone of better residence.

e) Commuters Zone

It represents people who choose to live in residential suburb and commute daily to
work. This is the rural-urban fringe zone. Suburbs also develop here in additional to
essential urban functions including public utilities such as sewerage disposal plants
and refuse tips, and recreational facilities. There urban functions will probably be
interspersed with non-urban land use such as agricultural land and woodland.
Criticisms of the concentric zone model

i) The model considers ground floor functions only, and little attention is paid to the
height of buildings and variations of functions on different floors.

ii) The model emphasizes clear cut boundaries between concentric zones. These
cannot, however, be justified by since there no abrupt division between zones rather
they merge gradually from one to another.

iii) The concentric zones are displayed as distinctive ecological areas but in reality,
where the zones can be identified, they lack homogeneity. In fact they display a
significant degree of internal heterogeneity.

iv) The model pays little attention to the distribution of industry. The location of
industry within the urban system plays a great role in determining the location of other
functions.

v) The model does not work well with cities outside the United States, in particular
with those developed under different historical contexts. Even in the United States,
because of changes such as advancement in transportation and information
technology and transformation in global economy, cities are no longer organized with
clear "zones"

vi) The model is rooted in a specific historical and cultural context (the USA of the
1920s). It is limited to a particular situation, at a particular time and in a particular
country and this inevitably limits its universality. Therefore, it is most applicable to cities
of the developed Western world but certain trends operating since the 1920s makes the
model less appropriate. They include the decline of CBD and the emergence of
suburban business centres; transport innovations has increased the mobility of the
urban population; and the increasing level of public intervention such as zoning laws in
some countries like USA regulate the type of use, density of use and the height of
buildings.
vii) Burgess failed to state the preconditions which must exist if the model is to be
applicable without modification.

Conclusion:

The model has been demonstrated to be of little value in attempting to interpret the
internal structure of the pre-industrial city, either past or present. In many cities, there
are no clear cut functional differentiations of land use. For example, merchants and
craftsmen often live at their places of work. Where zonal pattern of land use can be
identified, it is many respect the inverse of that identified by Burgess. However, the
Burgess model remains useful as a concept explaining concentric urban development,
as a way to introduce the complexity of urban land use and to explain urban growth in
American cities in the early-mid 20th century.

2) Sector Model

The concentric zone model has proved to be remarkably persistent and has acted as
the point of reference for much later research into urban structure, the most notable
example being the sector model, also known as the Hoyt model, proposed in 1939 by
economist Homer Hoyt. It is a modification of the Burgess concentric zone model. The
benefits of the application of this model include the fact it allows for an outward
progression of growth. Hoyt conducted a research into residential rent patterns which
were mapped by blocks in 64 widely distributed American cities. Hoyt concluded that
there is a general pattern of rent that applies to all cities.

While accepting the existence of a CBD, Hoyt suggested that zones expand outward
from the city center along railroads, highways, and other transportation arteries. As the
city grows and these activities flourish and expand outward, they do so in a wedge and
become a sector of the city. In developing this model, Hoyt observed that it was
common for low-income households to be near railroad lines, and commercial
establishments to be along business thoroughfares (public roads and means of
access). He further suggested that because the high-income groups could afford to pay
for the most desirable sites. The high-class housing estates were built in those sectors
where transport links with the city were particularly good as, for example, along a
suburban railway line. Recognizing that the various transportation routes into an urban
area, including railroads, sea ports, and tram lines, represented greater access, Hoyt
theorized that cities tended to grow in wedge-shaped patterns -- or sectors -- emanating
from the CBD and centered on major transportation routes. Higher levels of access
meant higher land values, thus, many commercial functions would remain in the CBD
but manufacturing functions would develop in a wedge surrounding transportation
routes. Residential functions would grow in wedge-shaped patterns with a sector of
low-income housing bordering manufacturing/industrial sectors (traffic, noise, and
pollution makes these areas the least desirable) while sectors of middle- and high-
income households were located furthest away from these functions. Hoyt's model
attempts to state a broad principle of urban organization

The model has been criticized because it was based on early twentieth century rail
transport and does not make allowances for private cars that enable commuting from
cheaper land outside city boundaries. It is also constrained by its narrow focusing on
housing and rent. There have, however, been a number of attempts to extend the scope
of the model. R. L. Morrill, for example, suggests that a variety of complementary uses
occurs within each sector, with the intensity of land use decreasing with distance from
the CBD.

The sector model complements rather than contradicts the concentric zone model by
adding a directional element while not discounting the distance variable. It pays more
attention than Burgess model to the importance of transport in the functioning of a city,
and has proved to be a more useful tool in incorporating industrial districts into an
analysis of urban structure.

It has been suggested that the two models are essentially complementary because
each describes a different facet of urban social structure. Hoyt’s research into rents and
house values was essentially concerned with the distribution of socio-economic
variable, social status and class, within the city and this was found to sectoral. In
contrast, Burgess’s research was based primarily on the density of settlement and the
distribution of different housing types.

3) Multiple-Nuclei Model (Harris and Ullman, 1945)

Both the concentric and sector models envisage zones developing outwards from a
single centre. Chauncy, Dennison Haris and Edward, L. Ullman challenged this idea,
abandoning the CBD as the sole focal point, and suggesting alternatively that the zones
will develop around a number of quite separate discrete nuclei in addition to the CBD.
Therefore, a part from the CBD, there are several separated, secondary centres.
According to this model, a city contains more than one center around which activities
revolve. Some activities are attracted to particular nodes while others try to avoid them.
For example, a university node may attract well-educated residents, pizzerias, and
bookstores, whereas an airport may attract hotels and warehouses. Incompatible land
use activities will avoid clustering in the same area, explaining why heavy industry and
high-income housing rarely exist in the same neighbourhood.

In addition, certain functions require specialised facilities or sites, e.g. a port district
needs a suitable waterfront. Similar functions may group together for agglomeration
economies. The number of nuclei will depend on the size of the city, and the larger the
city, the more numerous and specialized are the nuclei. Some of the nuclei, such as
some of the suburban shopping centres, could be quite recent developments, while
others will have been former village and small town centres which have been enveloped
by the city’s growth. Harris and Ullman suggested that then reasons for the
development of functional zones were combinations of:

i) Specialized requirements of certain activities. For example, shops need to be

accessible to their customers; industry requires large blocks of relatively cheap land.

ii) Tendency for like activities to group together. With this arrangement shops benefit
through an increase in the number of potential customers and the customers benefit
because they can compare goods and prices in nearby shops before making a
purchase.
iii) The repulsion of some activities by others. Certain unlike activities such as heavy
industry and high-class housing are detrimental to each other and are, therefore,
unlikely to be located close together.

iv) Differences in the ability of various activities to pay rents and rates. Only large
prosperous commercial enterprises can afford to pay the high site values demanded in
the city centre whereas warehousing, which requires much space, is commercially
feasible only on cheaper sites.

The multiple nuclei model envisages that the city will neither develop along zonal nor
sectoral lines but will take a cellular structure in which distinctive forms of land use
have developed around certain nuclei within the urban area.

Factors Affecting the Distribution of Urban Land Use Zones

i) Competition for location and space

All land uses compete for the sites at the city centre where

the accessibility is the best, and

sites are in limited supply.

There is keen land use competition among different land uses.

The city centre has the highest land rent (land value).

Land rent declines with increasing distance from the city centre.

Commercial land use can bid a very high rent for a central location because

it has high economic return,

it requires less space.

Industrial and residential land uses can bid a lower rent because

they have low economic returns,

they require more space.

Each land use has its own bid rent curve which shows the land rents it affords to pay.
Commercial land use has a steep bid rent curve.

Industrial and residential land uses have gentle bid rent curves.

The land use which affords to pay the highest land rent will outbid other land uses.

Commercial land use has the highest rent-paying ability and occupies the city centre.

Industrial and residential land uses have lower rent-paying abilities and are located
further away.

A concentric pattern of land use is formed. However, in reality

Places along or at the intersections of major roads have better accessibility.

Such places form minor peaks and ridges in the land-value surface.

ii) Historical factors

a) A certain type of land use is located in a particular area because it has a long
history of development.

b) Many mixed land use zones exist because there was no urban planning in the past.

c) Geographical inertia is the tendency of activities to remain in an existing location

after the locational factors no longer exist.

iii) Institutional factors

The government influences urban land use through urban planning.

Urban renewal and new town development are planned by the government.

Land use zoning reduces conflicts among different land uses.

iv) Social values and perception

Differences in race, religion and socio-economic status lead to social segregation.

These create high-class and low-class residential zones

GEG 414

In this llesson we will look at the central place theory as put forward by Walter
Christaller.

In this llesson we will look at the central place theory as put forward by Walter
Christaller.

Completion requirements

URBAN HIERARCHY AND LOCATION OF URBAN CENTRES

Urban hierarchy is a ranking of urban areas on the basis of what services are available. A
casual examination of the distribution of towns or service centres within a given
geographical unit gives the impression these centres are randomly distributed.
However, a closer look indicates a regular pattern and distribution of urban settlements
within an area is a product of careful and rational decision-making. Larger, more
dominant towns tend to be spaced further apart as compared to smaller, less dominant
ones which are spaced closer together. Certain services require a large customer base,
so they can only be found in larger cities at higher levels of the urban hierarchy. At the
top of the urban hierarchy lie global cities, sometimes also called world cities. A global
city is a city that acts as a "control point" for global economic networks. This control
may be directly economic, as when the city serves as a headquarters for major
international corporations and corporate services like advertising agencies, banks, and
law firms. The control may also be political, as in the case of the economic policies that
emerge from both national (e.g. the US Congress) and international (e.g. the
International Monetary Fund) institutions headquartered in Washington, DC. Or it may
be cultural, as innovations in the world of fashion and design emanating from Milan
shapes the world economy.

To examine the regularity of the location of urban centres and to account for the
observed pattern is well illustrated using the Central Place Theory.
Central Place Theory

Central place theory is a spatial/geographical theory that seeks to explain the

distributional of the number, size and spacing of the urban areas. The theory states that
there is a pattern in the distribution and location of urban areas of different sizes, and a
pattern in the way in which they provide services to the inhabitants living within their
sphere of influence.

The central place theory was first propounded (put forward or suggested for others to
consider) by a German Geographer Walter Christaller (1894-1975) in 1933 (and
translated in 1966) and later modified by a German Economist, August Losch (1906-
1945), in 1954 (first published in 1940, but translated in 1954). Walter Christaller
asserted that settlements simply functioned as 'central places' providing services to
surrounding areas (hinterland/market area/complementary region). A central place is a
place that functionally serves the surrounding area (hinterland). It is a place to which
people travel from the surrounding area to obtain various goods and services. A central
place might be Nairobi city with its numerous businesses and business types and that
serve Kenya and even the world, or it might be Njokerio market centre with its small
number of businesses that serve only the people and villagers from there, and not even
all of them.

Christaller attempted to explain the distribution and sizes of urban centres in terms of
the services they provided for the surrounding hinterland. He was looking for a
relationship between the size, the number and the geographic distribution of urban
centres. The theory studies how cities and towns (urban centres) develop hierarchies of
economic activity from the population size (threshold); and the distance inhabitants
(people in the hinterland) are prepared to travel looking for goods and services (range).

This pattern of the distribution and sizes of urban centres is best understood by a
central place and its market area (hinterland). The influence of a central place is
undertaken by its market area, and the size of this market area will determine the nature
of the spatial order of a central place.

Christaller studied an area in Southern Germany and asked: Are locations of urban
areas/towns haphazard or do they involve a decision making process? He observed an
element of order in terms of spacing and the sizes of urban centres in Southern
Germany. He observed that the large centres were relatively fewer, spaced further a part
(were longer distance apart) and offered specialized goods and services to a large
hinterland (market area). He called these large centres as “higher-order central places”.
They offer more functions. Conversely, he also observed that smaller centres were
relatively more numerous, located closer together and provided less specialized goods
and services mainly to the local populations. These, Christaller termed as “lower-order
central places”. They offer fewer functions.

Christaller’s theory sought to explain the principle which determined the nature of such
a system. Based on these observations, he wanted to devise a spatial arrangement of
central places which could minimize the travel costs of the population in gaining access
to the service they require.

The theory is based on the following assumptions:

i) There is an unbounded isotropic plain which is homogeneous in all aspects

(abstract space). It has even distribution of population, similar consumer purchasing
power and demand for goods and services, and even distribution of natural resources
and topography.

ii) There is a uniform transportation surface, services and costs from the market area
to the central place. Hence transportation costs are uniform in all directions. Therefore,
the relative accessibility of one point to any other was a direct function of distance.

iii) Human beings will always purchase goods and services from the closest central
place that offers the good in order to minimize the distance (nearest centre assumption)

iv) Each point in the town or service centres has an equal chance of being a central
place. In other words, no particular location had advantages over others. Therefore, a
central place could be located at any point in the landscape.

The theory was based on two concepts: threshold and the range. A threshold is the
minimum demand (market) by the population that is required to necessitate the
production and distribution of goods and services in a central place. It is the minimum
market size necessary for the functions of the urban area to be profitable. Christaller
considered that each central function (a good or a service) has a minimum viable scale
of activity.

Goods with a higher threshold (require higher demand) are called higher order goods.
High-order goods are specialized items, more durable and valuable such as
automobiles, furniture, fine jewelry, and household appliances that are bought less
often. Because they require a large threshold/population to support them and people
do not purchase them regularly, many businesses selling these items cannot survive in
areas where the population is small. Therefore, they often locate in large cities that can
serve a large population in the surrounding hinterland. The higher the order of the goods
and services (more durable, valuable and variable), the larger the range of the goods
and services, the longer the distance people is willing to travel to acquire them.

Goods with a lower threshold (require low demand) are called low order goods. Low-
order goods are goods that replenish frequently such as food and other routine
household items. They are bought more often. Because these items are less costly and
purchased regularly, they require small populations (smaller market area – smaller
threshold) to sustain them. Small businesses in small towns can survive because
people will buy frequently at the closer locations instead of going into the city. Examples
for low order goods and services are: newspaper stalls, groceries, bakeries and post
offices. They are supported by a smaller threshold population and demand.

The maximum distance that consumers are willing to travel to obtain a good or a service
depends on the nature of that good or service. Higher-order goods and services have a
wider market area and therefore longer distance to the central place and vice versa.
This maximum distance is known as the range of a good or service. A range is the
maximum distance that consumers are willing to travel to acquire a good or service.

Every good or service provided from a central place has a range with an upper and a
lower limit. The upper limit of the range is the maximum distance that a consumer is
willing to travel to a centre to obtain a good or service. Beyond this maximum distance,
the cost or inconvenience will outweigh the need for the good and the consumer is more
likely to travel to an alternative nearer centre. In the absence of an alternative centre,
the consumer may be forced to do without the good or service altogether.
According to this configuration, the maximum area to be served from a centre will be
circular region around the central place determined by the range (maximum demand).
Higher order goods or services have a higher range and moves longer distance than
lower order goods or services. For example, a consumer may travel hundreds of
kilometers from Vihiga district to Nairobi or Mombasa to purchase a car, but may hardly
travel a kilometer looking for a loaf of bread. Such assertions assume uni-purpose
journeys whereas in reality the majority of the trips have multiple purposes.

The lower limit of the range is the minimum distance necessary to circumscribe (give) a
service area with sufficient population to generate enough consumer demand to make
the offering of the good/service just economically viable from a centre. The threshold of
a good/service (t) is the minimum demand (population) required to necessitate the
production and distribution of a good or service. It may be viewed as the minimum
population required to bring about the offering of a certain good for sale or to sustain
any service.

If the principles of the threshold and the range are applied, it is possible to derive a
model of a town distribution or a hierarchy of central places with towns of equal rank
equidistant from each other.

All the consumers within the market area or complementary region must be served by
the system of central places. However, with the circular market area/complementary
regions, some areas (and consumers) will not be served at all or will be under-served as
illustrated in Figure 6a below. In order to ensure that the unserved areas are served, the
circles must overlap, this implies that the entrepreneurs will have to compete for the
consumers (to maximize the market) within areas of overlap who are, in reality, over-
served (Figure 6b).

Consumers are expected to be rational economic beings who will minimize their
traveling costs. Thus, the areas of overlap will be bisected, and the trade or
complementary areas become hexagons (a six-sided figure) and not circles (Figure 7).

Christaller developed a hierarchy of urban settlements based on the threshold and

range. From the theory, there are relatively few higher-order centres compared to
centres at successively lower orders. The higher order centres serve the widest
complementary regions (market areas) with highest order goods and services. However,
they will also serve their own local hinterlands with all the low-order functions. On the
other hand, the lower order centres provide goods and services with smaller ranges,
mainly door to door (unspecialized) goods and services, which are purchased by
localized populations. The consumers will use the nearest centre offering goods and
services which they require. This has been termed as the “nearest centre assumption”.

Criticism of the theory

1. Many hinterlands of complementary regions overlap in reality instead of being

neatly independent and hexagonal as the theory suggests. In other words, the
hexagonal lattices may be doubtful. This is due to the fact that a central place may offer
goods and services whose threshold may differ markedly.

2. The population of a town cannot be used as a measure of the centrality of a centre

since most towns, and particularly the larger ones tend increasingly to be
multifunctional, even if their original development was related to the service function.
Populations tend to measure the overall importance of a town rather than its centrality
alone.

3. Big cities tend to discourage the growth of small ones nearby at the appropriate
distance predicted by Christaller’s theory. The domination of a large center may create a
“shadow effect”, discouraging the growth of smaller centers. Christaller had identified
four levels of the urban hierarchy, where regional cities tends to occur at 178 km apart,
provincial cities at 108 km apart, county towns at 21 km apart, and village centres at 7
km apart. This is not true in reality.

4. The ratio of lower-order centres and higher-order centres may not be realized in
practice given the level of economic development in the world.

5. The assumption that consumer behaviour is determined by the nearest centre

assumption whereby consumers tend to minimize distance traveled. Studies have
shown that consumer behaviour is complex and reflect a combination of income,
personal mobility, and the specialization of the outlets providing goods and services.
Studies of perception have also shown that consumer(s) do not behave as suggested by
the model. The dependence on the “economic man” concept is not always true
because consumers are unlikely to always have perfect information. Therefore, instead
of maximizing or optimizing (looking for goods and services that are as good as
possible), they are likely to be satisfied with some sub-optimal behaviour where they
aim at satisfying themselves. Man is a satisfier than an optimizer. For example, seeking
treatment a broad or buying imported goods.

6. The hierarchical order of urban centres may not be strictly followed partly because
the theory relates only to the service sector. Of course, settlements may develop due to
other factors such as the location of natural resources. The Christaller model holds
such factors constant and assumed an even plain and a uniform distribution of natural
resources. As such, central place theory cannot provide an all-inclusive general theory.
The theory is a purely deductive theory of a highly simplified and abstract nature
developed on the basis of very idealized assumptions. It relates only to the service
element of regional structure, failing to explain distortions in the hierarchy caused by
the location of primary and manufacturing industry, which tends to group into cluster or
agglomerations due to resource location.

7. The theory also assumes a uniform distribution of population. This rarely occurs in
practice since factors such as soil fertility and climate vary from a place to another and
distort the structure.

In conclusion, although Christaller’s work provided more than a theoretical framework,

since he applied his theory to Southern Germany, the theoretical part had the most
impacts on geography. His observations have enabled the elaboration of an important
theory of spatial structure and order, mandatory in the study of urban, economic and
transport geography. In 1940 German economist August Losch modified Christaller's
central place theory because he believed it was too rigid (first published in 1940 but the
American Edition released in 1954). He thought that Christaller's model led to patterns
where the distribution of goods and the accumulation of profits were based entirely on
location. He instead focused on maximizing consumer welfare and creating an ideal
consumer landscape where the need to travel for any good was minimized and profits
were held level, not maximized to accrue extra.

GEG 414
This lesson looks at urban poverty and some of the measures that have been put in
place the improve the lives of the urban poor.

This lesson looks at urban poverty and some of the measures that have been put in
place the improve the lives of the urban poor.

Completion requirements

Meaning of Urban Slum

The origin of the word slum is thought to be the Irish phrase 'S lom é (pron. s'lum ae)
meaning "it is a bleak or destitute place." In early 1800s, the term was used to refer to a
physically dilapidated room/house. With time it came to refer to the entire
neighbourhood dominated with such dilapidated houses/rooms.

The United Nations agency UN-HABITAT has defined a slum as a run-down and heavily
populated area of an urban area characterized by substandard housing and squalor and
lacking in tenure security.

It is a residential area within an urban area that is physically and socially deteriorated
and in which satisfactory family life is impossible. This definition encapsulates three
essential characteristics of slums: high densities and low standards of housing (in
terms of structure and services), and ‘squalor’ (shabbiness and dirtiness resulting from
poverty and neglect). The first two criteria (high densities and low standards of housing)
are physical and spatial, while the third (‘squalor’) is social and behavioural. A slum is
therefore simply a densely populated usually urban area marked by crowding, dirty run-
down housing, poverty, and social disorganization.

A slum settlement is referred to by a wide range of names and includes a variety of

tenure arrangements in different parts of the world. Some of these terms that are used
interchangeably with "slum" include shanty town, favela (Brazil), skid row (USA), barrio
(Spain), Rookery and Purlieu (London, England), Gecekondu (Turkey) and ghetto;
although each of these may have a somewhat different meaning and usage. Slums are
distinguished from shanty towns and favelas in that the latter initially are low-class
settlements, whereas slums are generally constructed early on as relatively affluent or
possibly a prestigious communities. The term "shanty town" also suggests that the
dwellings are improvised shacks, made from scrap materials, and usually without
proper sanitation, electricity, or telephone services. Skid row refers to an urban area
with a high homeless population and a term is most commonly used in the United
States. Bario may refer to an upper-class area in some Spanish-speaking countries and
is used to describe only a low-class community in the United States. Ghetto refers to a
neighbourhood based on shared ethnicity. By contrast, identification of an area as a
slum is based solely on socio-economic criteria, not on racial, ethnic, or religious
criteria.

Slums themselves are the physical manifestation of several overlapping forces. On the
one hand, they are the manifestation of deep urban poverty, unrealistic regulatory
frameworks, ill-conceived policies, inadequate urban planning, weak institutional
capacity, and larger macroeconomic factors. But on the other hand, slums are a
manifestation of the ingenuity and resilience with which extremely disadvantaged
populations have organized themselves in the face of these very challenges.

Characteristics of slums

Slums are usually characterized by:

· urban decay,

· high rates of poverty,

· illiteracy, and unemployment.

· inadequate access to safe water;

· inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure;

· poor structural quality of housing;

· overcrowding; and insecure residential status. They are commonly seen as

"breeding grounds" for social problems such as crime, drug addiction, alcoholism, high
rates of mental illness, and suicide. In many poor countries, slums exhibit high rates of
disease due to unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and lack of basic health care.

· The quality of dwellings in the slum settlement varies from the simplest shacks to
permanent structures, while access to water, electricity, sanitation and other basic
services and infrastructure is usually limited. Most of the dwellings are made from scrap
materials: often plywood, corrugated metal and sheets of plastic.

Slums have, however, also come to include the vast informal settlements that are
quickly becoming the most visible expression of urban poverty in the developing world,
including squatter settlements and illegal subdivisions.

The UN-HABITAT estimates that the global urban slum population is expected to double
from 1 billion (estimated in 2002) to nearly 2 billion by 2030 (from 32% to 41% of the
urban population), and 3 billion by 2050, with the highest percentage of them found in
Asia, Africa and Latin America. For instance, in the city of Mumbai in India, official
figures show that about 6.5 million of its total 12 million people live in slums. The slum
population in this single city is larger than the national population of Norway. According
to the latest Global Report on Human Settlements, 43% of the urban population in
developing countries lives in slums. In 2001, slum dwellers made up 72% (about 166
million) of the urban population in Sub-Saharan Africa. This was expected to increase to
more than 325 million by 2020 which will be more than the current population of the
United States of America. Nairobi has one of the most acute urban housing crises in the
world. Sixty-five percent of the population lives in slums, which occupy only 5% of the
city’s land mass. About 318 households (1177 people on average) occupy an acre in the
slums, compare to two households per acre in the up-market Runda estate or one
household per acre in Muthaiga.

Slum development is fuelled by a combination of rapid rural-to-urban migration,

spiralling urban poverty, the inability of the urban poor to access affordable land for
housing, and insecure land tenure. There are various reasons why slums still exist and
why they will continue to exist despite various interventions by the public and private
sectors. One of such reasons is the inability of formal shelter delivery systems to cope
with demand for housing, infrastructure and services. The simplest answer relates to
the economic logic of land and housing markets. A change from policies of
interventions to liberalization has consequently brought about an increase in
commercialization of land and housing markets. And as rightly pointed out in United
Nations Commission on Human Settlements - UNCHS (1993), “in any commercial
market, choice is a positive function of income”. The consequences is that the very
poor have no choice in housing at all, and have to live where no else chooses to live.
Secondly, slum development is closely linked to general economic development as it
relates to employment and wages. As stated recently in the Habitat Debate; Slums
“play a useful role in providing cheap (though not necessarily cheerful) housing for
those who cannot or, as likely, will not, want to spend more on housing than they
possibly can” (UNCHS, 1993).

Combating the Challenges of Slums

The lives of slum dwellers are threatened by the lack of access to the most basic human
requirements: water, sanitation, shelter, health, and education. The nature and extent of
the daily challenges posed by existing slums are not just daunting, they are life
threatening. If local and national policies do not change, much of the imminent
urbanization will be characterized by more slums. Hundreds of millions of new slum
dwellers will suffer from the relentlessly inhuman conditions that affect the already very
large population living in slums.

There is no need to underscore the magnitude of the challenge or the dire implications
of ignoring it. Ironically, the solutions to slums are well known and are not difficult. What
is required is political will and ongoing commitment. What slum dwellers really need is
a chance to improve their own lives, and to make a positive contribution to the city.
Plenty of evidence shows that resources spent on improving the lives of the poor are
investments that will yield global economic and social returns. Affordable and
successful adaptive measures for existing slums have, and can, improve the well-being
of slum dwellers. These measures also further unlock the productivity of the urban poor,
creating a powerful upward spiral that strengthens both urban and national economies.
At the same time, effective proactive measures - measures that create conditions that
allow the future urban poor to find affordable housing and not be forced to settle in
slums — have proved extremely beneficial to cities, national governments, and the
urban poor. These measures are cost-effective, affordable, and implementable.

The pertinent question is how can the problem of slum development in urban areas in
developing countries be solved? There is no “quick fix” solution to the problem of slum
development. However, the following suggested solutions will go a long way in
addressing the problem of slum development.
These measures can be broken into two categories: adaptive approaches and proactive
approaches.

Adaptive Approaches

Adaptive approaches are affordable and meaningful strategies that improve the
situation of existing slum dwellers and further strengthen their integration into the social
and economic fiber of the city. They involve upgrading the level of urban services in
slums (including physical, social, and economic services) and seeking pragmatic
solutions to deal with the tricky issue of land and tenure. They attempt to make use of
the labour and resources of slum dwellers and seek to preserve and involve the slum
communities in addressing their own problems. They have proven to increase the well-
being of millions of slum dwellers while simultaneously strengthening urban and
national economies. They have become the preferred solution to slum improvement.
Some of the common adaptive strategies include:

a) Slum Upgrading

Considering the magnitude and scale of the housing deficit, and the lack of concerted
action or inadequate response on the part of government and the poor socio-economic
state of the developing countries, there is no doubt about the positive role that urban
slum or squatter housing plays in housing millions of the urban poor. Instead of
government and public authorities taking a confrontational attitude of demolition
threat, they should strive to create an enabling environment under which people, using
and generating their own resources, could find unique local solutions for their housing
and shelter needs. This conceptual approach is referred to as slum upgrading. Slum
upgrading consists of physical, social, economic, organizational and environmental
improvements to slums undertaken cooperatively and locally among citizens,
community groups, businesses and local authorities. It is essentially a strategy for the
improvement of the infrastructure of a slum, such as giving adequate water supply and
sewage to the community. The main objective of slum upgrading is to alleviate the poor
living standards of slum dwellers.

Slum upgrading consists of regularization of the rights to land and housing and
improving the existing infrastructure (for example, water supply (and storage),
sanitation, storm drainage and electricity) up to a satisfactory standard. Typical
upgrading projects provide footpaths and pit latrines, street lighting, drainage and
roads, and often water supply and limited sewerage. Usually, upgrading does not involve
home construction, since the residents can do this themselves, but instead offers
optional loans for home improvements. Further actions include the removal of
environmental hazards, providing incentives for community management and
maintenance, as well as the construction of clinics and schools. Additionally, because
of the tenuous legal status of slum inhabitants, often strategies include regularization
and legislation of the rights to the land on which slums are built. Tenure rights are
primarily given to the occupants. Those who must be moved to make way for
infrastructure may be given sites and services plots.

Slum upgrading may include upgrading of both the physical services as well as the
social and economic services.

a) Physical services in slum upgrading

The physical services in slum upgrading might include water supply, sanitation, roads,
footpaths, drains, street lighting, land readjustment, and a range of other such services.
Physical services can be categorized as on-plot, on-site, and off-site. On-plot services
are those that are used privately by households including individual sanitation facilities,
water connections, or electricity. On-site services are those that are used collectively by
the residents including public sanitation facilities, public standpipes for water, site
preparation, footpaths, street lighting, and the relocation of structures to make room for
more plots or public facilities. Off-site services are those that are used collectively by
the residents and the city at large. These services typically integrate the project site into
the larger infrastructural networks of the city. They might be national or city roads,
municipal water and sanitation networks, transportation services, and markets.

b) Social services in slum upgrading

The social services in slum upgrading initiatives include education, health facilities,
sporting facilities, day care, community facilities, and the creation or strengthening of
institutions that help new migrants integrate themselves into the urban area. Social
services often contribute to increased economic growth, reduced crime, and better
education and awareness.

b) Sites-and-Services Schemes
The proliferation of slums and squatter settlements could be addressed simply by
improving the environmental quality of these areas and by government providing the
basic necessary infrastructure. This concept is known as the “sites-and-services
schemes. Sites-and-services as the provision of plots of land, either on ownership or
land lease tenure, along with a bare minimum of essential infrastructure needed for
habitation. The sites-and services scheme approach advocate for the role of
government agencies only in the preparation of parcels or plots of land with certain
basic infrastructure (roads, water supply, drainage, electricity or a sanitary network),
which is then to be sold outright to those who can afford or to be leased to other low-
income beneficiaries.

The peculiarity of sites-and-services schemes adopts the same basic principle of the
development of a squatter settlement but without degenerating into slums. Therefore,
once the basic necessary infrastructure has been provided, the actual building of the
houses is left to the beneficiaries themselves using their own resources. In addition, the
beneficiaries are allowed build their houses at their own pace, depending on the
availability of financial and other resources.

c) Addressing urban poverty

One major area of concern about the increasing urban population is the simultaneous
rising urban poverty, especially in developing countries. Slums are largely a physical
manifestation of urban poverty. Many governments around the world have attempted to
solve the problems of slums by clearing away old decrepit housing and replacing it with
modern housing with much better sanitation. The displacement of slums is aided by the
fact that many are squatter settlements whose property rights are not recognized by the
state. This process is especially common in the Third World. Critics argue that slum
clearances tend to ignore the social problems that cause slums and simply redistribute
poverty to less valuable real estate. While traditional approaches to the slum problem
have tended to concentrate on improvement of housing, infrastructure and physical
environmental conditions, a more comprehensive approach is to address the issue of
urban poverty.

Future policies must go beyond the physical dimension of slums by addressing the
problems that underlie urban poverty. Slum policies should be integrated with broader,
people-focused urban poverty reduction policies that deal with the varied aspects of
poverty, including employment and incomes, shelter, food, health, education and
access to basic urban infrastructure and services. There is need for provision of
economic services to generate employment and raise incomes. Economic assistance
can include training, job placement, credit and technical assistance to small
businesses, establishment of new community-owned enterprises, microfinance
opportunities, and loans for housing and for building materials. If implemented
correctly, such services will unlock bottlenecks to development and make way for
economic revitalization.

Improving incomes and jobs for slum dwellers, however, requires aggressive national
economic growth, which in itself is dependent upon effective and equitable national
and international economic policies, including trade. Current evidence suggests that
globalization in its present form has not always worked in favour of the urban poor and
has, in fact, exacerbated their social and economic exclusion in some countries.

There is abundant evidence of innovative solutions developed by the poor to improve

their own living environments, leading to the gradual consolidation of informal
settlements. Where appropriate upgrading policies have been put in place, slums have
become increasingly socially cohesive, offering opportunities for security of tenure,
local economic development and improvement of incomes among the urban poor.
Providing secure tenure is seen as essential for a sustainable shelter strategy, and is a
vital element in the promotion of housing rights.

In addition, the quality of urban governance plays a central role in the eradication of
poverty and slums, and the creation of prosperous, more liveable cities. All people
regardless of their economic status, gender, race, ethnicity or religion, should be
enabled and empowered to fully participate in the economic and political opportunities
that cities have to offer. Much more political will is needed at all levels of government to
confront the huge scale of slum problems that many cities face today, and will no doubt
face in the foreseeable future.

d) Land tenure system

Often the trickiest issue in improving slum conditions is land and tenure. Slums are
characterized by lack of land tenure by majority of the dwellers. In order to propose
meaningful solutions to tenure, planners and policy makers need accurate knowledge
of land ownership patterns and precise criteria for the selection of beneficiaries. The
equitable allocation of benefits amongst beneficiaries is extremely important. Several
questions arises about land tenure in the slums:

Who owns the land? Is it owned by the local government? Is it in the freehold ownership
of a few absentee landlords? Has it been leased to private landlords by a public agency,
and is it now informally squatted upon by the slum dwellers? If informal land markets
exist, how do they work? Is some of the land under customary or traditional
administrative structures? Does all the land implicated in the project site fall under a
single ownership pattern? If not, what are the different patterns? Appreciating and
working through the complexity of these issues, while also understanding the social and
economic complexities rooted in land ownership, will ultimately structure the approach
to devising appropriate tenure arrangements for households.

Often, and with good reason, the appropriate tenure arrangements are more complex
than simply handing out individual land titles. Innovative forms of collective tenure
allow accommodating the lowest-income households that cannot afford outright
ownership. Since payments are collective, such arrangements also accommodate the
irregularities in individual income through community-based strategies such as
revolving-credit schemes. Collective tenure can also allow communities to negotiate
from a position of much greater power and thereby secure themselves successive
improvements to their neighborhood. A collective leasehold agreement can help to
discourage premature resale and speculation. Such collective agreements decrease
the likelihood of the beneficiary cashing in on a land title and moving to squat elsewhere
in the city in the hope of repeating the process again. Tenure is often the most
contentious issue in upgrading, and proposals need to be carefully crafted to suit the
particular realities of a given situation.

e) Institutional and stakeholder involvement

Institutional arrangements in the implementation of adaptive approaches vary from

case to case. It is crucial to underscore the central role of local governments and their
leadership in the process. It is also important to identify the existing and potential roles
of other key stakeholders - the poor themselves, national and provincial governments,
civil society groups, the private sector, and other development partners. An important
step is to assess how the relative strengths of each stakeholder group can be combined
to maximize synergies between their contributions. Partnerships that balance the
respective strengths and neutralize the respective weaknesses of all stakeholders are
the best way forward. Clear understanding of protocols for effective project
management and for the project cycle will allow the various components of the project
to be harmonized and the efforts of different stakeholder groups to be coordinated in
the most appropriate and efficient manner.

f) Investment in Key Infrastructure

At the core of efforts to improve the environmental habitability of slums and enhance
economically productive activities is the need to invest in key infrastructure – to provide
water and sanitation, electricity, access roads, footpaths and waste management. Low-
income housing and slum-upgrading policies need to pay attention to the financing of
citywide infrastructure development. However, the main focus of policy makers must be
on poverty reduction and the up-grading of slum communities.

According to UN-HABITAT, upgrading existing slums is more effective than resettling

slum dwellers and should become the normal practice in future slum initiatives. Many
governments around the world have attempted to solve the problems of slums by
clearing away old decrepit housing and replacing it with modern housing with much
better sanitation. The displacement of slums is aided by the fact that many are squatter
settlements whose property rights are not recognized by the state. Eradication of slums
and resettlement of slum dwellers can create more problems than are solved. This
tends to ignore the social problems that cause slums and simply redistribute poverty to
less valuable real estate. Where communities have been moved out of slum areas to
newer housing, social cohesion may be lost. If the original community is moved back
into newer housing after it has been built in the same location, residents of the new
housing face the same problems of poverty and powerlessness. Eradication and
relocation unnecessarily destroy a large stock of housing affordable to the urban poor
and the new housing provided has frequently turned out to be unaffordable, with the
result that relocated households move back into slum accommodation. The case in
point is the recent slum upgrading in Nairobi where majority of the relocated dwellers
are going back to the slums by renting their “new homes”.

Note: Upgrading has significant advantages; it is not only an affordable alternative to

clearance and relocation (which cost up to ten times more than upgrading), but it also
minimizes the disturbance to the social and economic life of the community. The
results of upgrading are highly visible, immediate and make a significant difference in
the quality of life of the urban poor.

LESSON SEVEN

LESSON SEVEN

Completion requirements

Proactive approaches refers to measures that create conditions that allow the future
urban poor to find affordable housing and not be forced to settle in slums — have
proved extremely beneficial to cities, national governments, and the urban poor. These
measures are significantly more cost-effective, affordable, and easy to implement than
retroactive measures. They are both financially and socially beneficial to cities, national
governments, and the urban poor. All cities can and should take such measures.

Managing the process of urban expansion is critical, but can be a complex and multi-
tiered challenge. City development strategies can be effective instruments through
which cities can organize, orient, and initiate their response to the multitude of
challenges and opportunities posed by their urban future. The scope of a city
development strategy is to lay out the agenda and provide the impetus for effective,
participatory, and comprehensive city management that is built on the particular
realties facing a given city. A proactive approach to slums will form an integral
component of city development strategies. In addition, many of the other components
of city development strategies - such as economic development, good governance,
municipal finance, urban environment, job creation, and poverty reduction - will also
have a considerable impact on the ability of cities to manage the needs of the urban
poor living in slums.
Within the broader scope of city development strategies, a focused inquiry into low cost
shelter options for the poor will require understanding and assessing the dimensions of
demand for land and housing. Land prices largely depend on levels of demand and
supply, together with issues of accessibility and topography. To make sure prices are
within the ability of all to pay for them, governments must balance demand and supply
by carefully considering and targeting subsidies. Achieving this balance involves
preparing a land budget based on population growth estimates and other trends, such
as employment and transportation. A land budget will help ensure that land is made
available for development in line with increasing demand and will reduce inflationary
increases in land prices.

Although bringing more land into development is clearly part of the solution, it is not the
only issue. Often a key to the problem of inadequate and substandard shelter for the
poor is regulatory reform. Existing regulatory frameworks significantly influence the
availability of and market prices for land, buildings, and services. They directly affect
the ability of poor households to access land and housing through legal channels. Most
of the time, it is unrealistic regulations that consign large segments of the urban
population to slums and to poverty. In many cases regulatory reform can dramatically
stimulate the supply of affordable, adequate, and legal housing for the poor. It requires
little or no capital outlay and makes it more attractive for the private sector to become
involved in housing the poor.

The regulatory framework in urban development consists of three main elements:

planning and building standards, planning and building regulations, and administrative
procedures. All three elements need to be responsive to the needs of the poor and to
facilitate the inclusion of the poor into the urban system. Unrealistic standards,
suffocating regulations, and endless administrative procedures deepen urban poverty
and stifle the economic growth of cities.
Definition of a Squatter Settlement

The major challenge facing urban settlement is adequate housing. Many urban poor find
themselves unable to secure or afford housing because of financial, political, and
sometimes ethnic reasons. Because of all these factors, the only available option for
the many homeless urban poor is to illegal occupy any vacant piece of land to build a
rudimentary shelter. Such a settlement is referred to as squatter settlement. However,
qualifying definitions, characteristics, quality and examples of squatter settlements
vary widely, with the inherent danger of generalization. Definition of a squatter
settlement varies widely from country to country and depends on a variety of defining
parameters.

A squatter settlement is defined as a residential area which has developed without legal
claims to the land and/or permission from the concerned authorities to build. It is thus a
dwelling put up without authority of the owner of the land, usually without a formal
design and without conforming to any specification as such as laid down rules and
regulations, planning standards, generally accepted methods of workmanship and
construction. Such a settlement is more often than not temporary. It can simply be
considered an area of usually unauthorized, makeshift housing, generally at the edge of
an urban area. As a result of their illegal or semi-legal status, infrastructure and services
are usually inadequate. Squatting refer to as act of occupying an abandoned or
unoccupied space or building (private or public), usually residential. A "squatter" is a
person who settles on land without title or simply a person who takes unauthorized
possession of unoccupied premises. A squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have
permission to use. Houses are made from available cheap materials such as packing
cases, metal cans, plywood, and cardboard.

Since construction is informal and unguided by urban planning, there is a near total
absence of formal street grids, numbered streets, sewage network, electricity, or
telephones. Even if these resources are present, they are likely to be disorganized, old
or inferior. Squatter settlement also tends to lack basic services present in more
formally organized settlements, including policing, medical services and fire fighting.
Fires are a particular danger not only for the lack of fire fighting stations and the
difficulty fire trucks have traversing the absence of formal street grids, but also because
of the high density of buildings and flammability of materials used in construction.

In most cities in developing countries, 70-95% of all new housing is built illegally and it
is common for two-thirds o the population to occupy houses and neighbourhoods
developed in this way. In Nairobi, informal settlement occupies 5.8% of the land area
but house 55% of the city’s population.

There are a number of names by which squatter settlement are described by various
authors, which highlight the attitudes and approaches towards them, ranging from a
positive to neutral to negative outlook. These are:

i) Informal settlements

ii) Low-income settlements

iii) Semi-permanent settlements

iv) Shanty towns

v) Spontaneous settlements

vi) Unauthorized settlements

vii) Unplanned settlements

viii) Uncontrolled settlements

There are essentially three defining characteristics that help us understand squatter
settlement including physical, social and legal with the reasons behind them being
interrelated.

a) Physical Characteristics

A squatter settlement, due to its inherent "non-legal" status, has services and
infrastructure below the "adequate" or minimum levels. Such services are both network
and social infrastructure like water supply, sanitation, electricity, roads and drainage;
schools, health centres, market places etc. Sanitation is grossly inadequate, electricity
may not be available, and roads are poor or not available. In addition, education and
medical facilities are severely limited. Water and electricity supply to individual
households may be absent and thus informal connections and networks are common
with little dependence on public authorities or formal channels.

b) Social Characteristics

Most households in squatter settlement are poor and low-income earners either
working as wage labour or in various informal sector. Squatters are predominantly
migrants, either rural-urban or urban-urban. But many are also second or third
generation squatters.

c) Legal Characteristics
The key characteristic that delineates a squatter settlement is its lack of ownership of
the land parcel on which they have built their house. These could be vacant
government, public or private land, or marginal land parcels like railway setbacks or
"undesirable" marshy land. Thus when the land is not under "productive" use by the
owner, it is appropriated by a squatters. It has to be noted here that in many parts of
Asia, a land owner may "rent" out his land for a nominal fee to a family or families, with
an informal or quasi-legal arrangement, which is not however valid under law.

Note: The common confusion that regards squatter settlements is its relation to the
term "slum". As indicated earlier, a slum is a run-down and heavily populated area of an
urban area characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure
security. It is a residential area within an urban area that is physically and socially
deteriorated and in which satisfactory family life is impossible. Thus, poor quality
housing is a major index of slum conditions. In a slum, there is physical and social
deterioration of family life, with the major condition of the housing of inadequate light,
air, toilet and bathing facilities. This is in contrast to the squatter settlement which is
more about the legal position or lack of ownership of land parcel on which houses have
been built such as in vacant government or public land. Therefore, while a slum
settlement refers to the condition of a settlement; squatter settlement would refer to
the legal position of the settlement.

Reasons and Formative processes of a Squatter Settlement

The key question to be asked here is why do people squat? There are two reasons for
this: one is internal to the squatter, and the other is external. Internal reasons include,
lack of collateral assets; lack of savings and other financial assets; daily wage/low-
income jobs (which in many cases are semi-permanent or temporary). External reasons
include, high cost of land and other housing services; apathy and anti-pathy on the part
of the government to assist them; high "acceptable" building standards and rules and
regulations; loopsided planning and zoning legislation.
These reasons leave no option for the low-income householder to squat on a vacant
piece of land. The actual squatting is done either by a "slum lord" or simply a initial
small group of core squatters. The slum lord appropriates a piece of vacant land,
subdivides it and "sells" it to various households for the purpose of building a house.
Services like water-supply or electricity may be provided either by this person or by the
organization of the squatters, usually at the community level. The core group squatters
are a small number of families who, almost overnight, occupy a piece of land and build
a rudimentary and temporary shelter. Later, depending on the degree of threat of
eviction, this may be upgraded to a permanent and more families may join this group.

While most shanty towns begin as precarious establishments haphazardly thrown

together without basic social and civil services, over time many have undergone a
significant amount of development. Often the residents themselves are responsible for
the major improvements. There are many ways or process in which a squatter
settlement develops. But the two main processes are: large scale squatter invasion
(mostly found in Latin America) and infiltration by individual households or small groups
(occurs widely in developing countries). This can further be broken down into organic
and induced processes. These four processes can be discussed as follows:

a) Land invasion process

Land invasions by squatters tend to be well-organized and planned operations. Most of

those involved have experience of urban life and are aware of the precautions that must
be taken to acquire and subsequently retain possessions of the land. Participants have
prior associations through employment or residence. Normally some form of approval
is secured from political groups interested in the future support of the residents. This is
the case when eviction and reprisals are most likely. Other precautions involve
selection of the invasion date, with the night prior to a public holiday particularly
favoured. The actual invasion and consolidation process varies according to the
physical conditions o the site and the political climate. Demarcated plots are allocated
by the organizing committee with the intentions of settling the land as quickly as
possible. Initially, the buildings comprise of simple huts, but subsequently, permanent
building materials are used.

b) Infiltration process

The slower process of infiltration is more typical in Asia and African urbanization. This
may include a family cultivating a piece of land for several seasons before erecting a
dwelling. Early settlers may subsequently invite others to join them. Although this
process does not involve the degree of organization evident in land invasions, entry of
families to a plot of land of existing squatter settlement may still be subject to
regulation through having to obtain form permission from a tribal elder or leader of the
settlement.

a) Organic process

The organic process refers to the forces and pressures which are initiated from within
the settlement and squatter. They evolve naturally, without any outside intervention and
using internal resources of the family or settlement for development, such as labour,
locally available materials etc.

b) Induced process

The induced process refers to the "inducement" set up by agencies and organizations
which are external to the settlement. Operating with objectives and goals on a larger,
city-wide scale, they initiate programmes and projects for the overall development of
the settlement. Both organic and induced processes put together act on the growth of a
squatter settlement, through a series of consolidative stages of development. These
stages are conclusive in their outcome, in the sense that they represent a continuum
with one stage or process overlapping and even running parallel to each other. They are
also cumulative in their effects and not exclusive.
Approaches towards a Squatter Settlement

Considering the magnitude and scale of the housing deficit and the lack of concerted
action or inadequate response of government agencies, there is no doubt of the positive
role that squatter housing plays in housing the millions of poor families. The main
question of land ownership and over-utilized infrastructure and services will, however,
always remain unanswered. Successive generations of governments have recognized
this and a number of approaches have been adopted in finding a solution to the
dilemma of squatting. The two popular approaches used by the public authorities have
been settlement upgradation and sites-and-services.

a) Settlement upgradation

Settlement upgradation is an option where a compromise is reached by the land owner

and on a sharing basis, and the squatter is allowed to continue on the land parcel, but
with a significant upgradation of the settlement's infrastructure and services, including,
in some cases, land leases or ownerships. While in the past, city authorities tried to
evacuate and demolish squatter settlements, more recently, they have recognized the
value of their informal migrants, and have attempted to upgrade squatter settlements.
The World Bank argues that granting the residents legal title to their land is the key to
improving housing standards.

b) "sites"-and-"services"

Where such land compromises or sharing is possible, the squatters are relocated to
another location, where varying levels of "sites"-and-"services" are provided, with, again
land lease or ownership. Probably the most effective way of making land available to the
poor is through ‘site-and-service’ schemes; the provision of sites with limited services
around which migrants can construct their houses, but with the proviso that these are at
affordable prices and in acceptable locations. The realization that providing a
"complete" serviced house by government agencies is not possible or simply cannot be
afforded by most low-income families prompt a shift in focus from supplying a fully
serviced house to that of providing only serviced land. Squatter settlements are always
considered illegal and in order to relocate and rehabilitate the squatters, plots of land
(or sites) with infrastructure on it (or services) are provided, and the beneficiaries have
to, in most of the projects, build their own houses on such land. There are a wide variety
of sites-and-services schemes, ranging from the subdividing plot only to a serviced plot
of land with a "core" house built on it.
Action to reduce the cost of building materials is useful in this context - perhaps by
using local wood, rather than imported steel girders. Land sharing is an approach which
has brought about considerable settlement improvement by the initiative of the people
themselves. The squatters organized into a viable organization, initiate negotiations with
the land owner and "share" the land, giving the prime locations of the land (for example,
the side facing a road) to the owner and using the remaining for their housing, but in a
more organized and improved manner. The role of non-governmental and voluntary
organizations has to be emphasized in this respect, in mobilization of the people into an
organization, in training and educating them, in forming a link with the authorities, and
in various other catalystic ways. As a complement to this, the participation of the
community of squatters, in improving the quality of their settlement is also an important
resource that has to be tapped for improvement. Commonly, community credit
programmes are used as a rallying point for bringing the squatters not only because
money itself is important, but also because of the externalities that it can generate.
There are fears, however, that upgrading might lead to higher rents, and self-help
schemes are not useful for most female-headed households; here, strategies which
provide more low-cost rental accommodation are more beneficial.

LESSON EIGHT

LESSON EIGHT

Completion requirements

Squatter settlements in urban areas are inevitable phenomena. As long as urban areas
offer economies of scale and agglomeration economies, large cities will always
continue to grow attracting migrants from rural and smaller urban areas, leading to
more squatting. There is no universal "quick-fix" solution that can solve all the problems
of squatting in all parts of the developing world. Considering the inevitability of
squatting, the need is primarily for a change in attitude towards squatting, squatters
and squatter settlements.
Squatter settlement should not be looked at as merely a symptom of the housing
problem of the urban poor, but rather as a contributor to its solution. There is a growing
awareness that demolition of squatter settlements means destruction of considerable
investment in labour and money by the urban poor. It does not solve any problem, if the
poor do not have alternative to squatting. Instead of demolishing squatter settlements,
they should be regularized and upgraded conditions for the so that the existing housing
stock is preserved and the housing conditions for the residents are improved. One such
approach that has been receiving considerable attention from various government and
public authorities has been the "enabling" approach, where instead of taking a
confrontationist attitude, governments have strived to create an enabling environment,
under which people, using and generating their own resources, could find unique local
solutions for their housing and shelter problems.

The concepts of urban sprawl and rural-urban fringe are very much influenced by
suburbanization. Suburbanisation is the creation of built-up area at the edge of the city
in the suburb (the suburban area). It is a situation where the rural areas on the outskirts
of towns increasingly develop the characteristics of urban areas. It is also known as
Commuter/Dormitory towns. It is the process by which people, factories, offices and
shops move out from the central areas of cities and into the suburbs. It often takes
place radially along transport routes for better accessibility. The area between the major
roads is gradually filled in by settlement and feeder roads.

Urban Sprawl

Urban sprawl refers to the rapid, haphazard, uncoordinated, unchecked or unplanned

outward expansion/growth of urban areas at their fringes, associated with population
growth and sustained economic growth. It is the outward spread of built-up areas of an
urban area into the surrounding areas as a result of expansion. It is simply the
expansion of urban area into the surrounding rural areas. It is the spreading out of a city
and its suburbs into the surrounding rural land at the periphery of an urban area. It often
involves the construction of residential and commercial buildings in rural areas or
otherwise undeveloped land at the outskirts of a city. It is largely the results of a growing
population whose location is uncoordinated and unmanaged.
Urban sprawl involves the conversion of rural land into built-up, developed land over
time. This is in terms of construction of residential and commercial buildings in rural
areas or otherwise undeveloped land at the outskirts of a city. This leads to urban-
agriculture integration in the surrounding areas as both urban functions and rural
functions mix. There is the conversion of agricultural land to urban uses and this mixing
of agriculture and urban uses tend to result in a kind of loss of prime agricultural land.
However, this conversion is increasing today as the process of urbanization increases
and it has been enhanced by improvements in transportation systems that today allow
urban workers to live in the countryside yet work in the city. At the end of the day, the
contemporary land use patterns show a lack of clear boundaries between rural and
urban areas.

It is characterized by low-density land use, where the amount of land consumed per
capita is much higher than in more densely populated city areas. Wide streets, large
lawns, and landscaping are typical in this pattern. Land use pattern is characterized by
single-use zoning. Single-use zoning refers to a situation where commercial, residential,
institutional and industrial areas are separated from one another. Consequently, large
tracts of land are devoted to a single use and are segregated from one another by open
space, infrastructure, or other barriers. As a result, the places where people live, work,
shop, and recreate are far from one another. Unchecked urban sprawl may join cities
into conurbations. Green belt policies are designed to prevent urban sprawl.

Causes of Urban Sprawl

Urban sprawl is occasioned:

i) When the urban centre is congested and the land rent is high. In such a case, there
is rapid urban growth and increase in economic activities; and new sites for
development are no longer easily available.

ii) The rural area has a better environment, e.g. fresh air, quiet life. Thus, the high-
income group moves to the suburb for bigger houses; and industries move outwards to
the suburbs for large site and cheaper land rent.

iii) Improved transport network and increased private car ownership lead to higher
mobility of urban dwellers.

iv) Cheaper land and housing costs in the suburbs as compared to urban centers has
lured many to settle in these areas.

v) Higher property and business taxes in the cities have pushed businesses to the
suburbs where taxes are generally low.

vi) Increase in commercial lending practices that favor suburban development.

Effects of Urban Sprawl

Concerns over urban sprawl and its consequences have been raised and largely focus
on negative consequences for residents and the local environment. Urban sprawl
comes with environmental, social and economic negative consequences including:

i) Urban sprawl encourages new developments that cause significant loss of prime
agricultural land. This has negative impact on food security in both the urban area and
the previously agricultural area.
ii) The most immediate effects of urban sprawl are economic. The conversion of
previously rural land (agricultural land) into urban sprawl creates a demand for local
services and public infrastructure like roads and schools. People and businesses
generally bring with them new property tax revenues, though the long-term economic
sustainability of local public services is not always guaranteed. The cost of building and
maintaining the infrastructure necessary to support sprawling developments may
exceed the tax base that they create, portending financial difficulties for local
governments.

iii) Sprawl creates fiscal problems for cities, as it takes place outside of urban
administrative boundaries. While suburban municipalities receive tax income with more
development, it is the central cities or down-town municipalities that pay for most of the
daytime services to suburban residents.

iv) Urban sprawl has a negative impact on infrastructure and the sustainability of cities.
In most cases, sprawl translates to an increase in the cost of transport, public
infrastructure and of residential and commercial development.

v) When cities are improperly planned, urban sprawl adds to environmental

degradation. Such is the case around several cities in Latin America where sizeable
damage has been caused to environmentally sensitive areas. These include Panama
City (Panama) and its surrounding Canal Zone, Caracas (Venezuela) and its adjacent
coastline, San José de Costa Rica and its mountainous area and São Paulo (Brazil) and
its water basins.

While the term urban sprawl typically is used with negative connotations, some argue
that it illustrates positive consequences to both the surrounding area and the urban
area itself. Therefore, despite widespread anti-sprawl sentiments, urban sprawl has its
own benefits including:

i) With a considerable portion of the population preferring to live in sprawls, pressure

on housing with the urban area decreases and houses have become more affordable in
cities. Reduced housing costs in sprawls are believed to have provided people with
better housing opportunities.

ii) Urban sprawl increases economic growth of both the surrounding area and the
urban area. The economic opportunities in the rural areas increases and this reduce the
previous distance to get the same from the urban centre.

Rural-Urban Fringe

The rural-urban fringe (also known as the outskirts or the urban hinterland or peri-urban
interface) is a zone of transition between an urban area and the surrounding rural area.
It is the area between the heavily built up area of the urban area and the open
countryside. It is the area where the built up urban area meets the open countryside.
Because it is located at the edges of the urban area and rural area, the fringe displays
characteristics of both areas, that is, it is part-urban and part-rural, and thus indefinable
as such. It is an area of transition from agricultural and other rural land uses to urban
use. It is the boundary zone outside the urban area proper where rural and urban land
uses intermix. It is a zone where land use and population density can change rapidly. It
moves outwards in accordance with urban sprawl.

Located well within the urban sphere of influence, the fringe is characterized by a wide
variety of land use including dormitory settlements housing middle-income commuters
who work in the main urban area. In actual sense, most of the urban fringe is becoming
built-up but the densities are still lower than those that prevail in the proper urban
areas. Activities in the urban fringe are both agriculture and urban-oriented although
agriculture is increasing losing its importance as the town expands and as people are
increasing taking up non-farming activities in the city. Agricultural activities in the fringe
are characterized as being intensive and market-oriented often involving the cultivation
of perishable products that have a high demand in the city. Consequently, while the
urban fringe may have farming as the main economic activity, it is increasingly relying on
non-farm sources of income not only to supplement household income but also as the
main source of household income. Over time, the characteristics of the fringe change
from largely rural to largely urban.
There are many reasons why agricultural land on the fringe gives way to urban land use.
Urban land use commands higher economic return (rent) than any agricultural
enterprise. The anticipation of urban expansion will lead to farmers close to the city to
see a chance or opportunity to sell the land at higher prices. Suburbanization takes
place at the urban boundary of rural-urban fringe. As development takes over the
hinterlands of a city, valuable agricultural lands and open space are lost.

The definition of a rural-urban fringe shifts depending on the global location, but
typically in Europe where urban areas are intensively managed to prevent urban sprawl
and protect agricultural land, the urban fringe is characterized by certain land uses
which have either purposely moved away from the urban area, or require much larger
tracts of land. Such land uses purposely moved away from the urban area include:

i) Roads, especially motorways and bypasses

ii) Waste transfer stations, recycling facilities and landfill sites

iii) Park and ride sites,

iv) Airports,

v) Large hospitals,

vi) Power, water and sewerage facilities.

vii) Factories
viii) Large out-of-town shopping facilities e.g. large supermarkets

Despite these 'urban' uses, the fringe remains largely open with the majority of the land
agricultural, woodland or other rural use. As the urban area spreads outwards, the rural-
urban fringe is under pressure to be redeveloped. As the city expands physically, the
urban fringe or zone on the edge of the city becomes more urbanized with a distinct
social and economic character. Beyond the fringe is the peri-urban region, a region that
is not clearly defined and tends to fluctuate depending on the city size. The peri-urban
region is the area whose structure and activities are modified by the presence or
extension of one or more agglomeration. There is therefore competition for land at the
rural-urban fringe and conflict between economic and environmental land-uses.

Managing the Rural-Urban Fringe and Urban Sprawl

Throughout the world, there is the impression that agriculture around cities is losing to
the forces of urbanization and that this demands states or public interventions to save
the surrounding viable agricultural lands. Although there is competition for land for
economic developments at the rural-urban fringe, there is increasing pressure to
restrict urban sprawl and protect the environment on the edge of cities from economic
pressures. There have been a number of attempts to control urban sprawl and
reduce/restrict developments on the rural-urban fringe. The common intervention
measures of managing the rural-urban fringe and urban sprawl is Greenbelt. During
much of the twentieth century, the control of urban growth has been of major concern
to planning agencies who have sought to control peripheral development through a
variety of rather blunt instruments such as “green belts” and strict development
controls which were designed to “stop” growth.
Greenbelt is a zone of land around an urban area where development is tightly
controlled to restrict urban sprawl. It is a ring of heavily protected open land circling an
urban area to protect it further expansion. The aim is to prevent urban sprawl (to stop
further expansion of towns into the surrounding areas), prevent towns from merging,
and to preserve the special character of towns. In other words, greenbelts aim to
protect the surrounding area (rural area) from developing into urban area, and in some
cases stop two large cities from merging. It imposes strict limitations on future
development. Any new building is only allowed when deemed beneficial for the
community or in the national interest. This concept was first introduced in UK where
greenbelts were established to prevent the continued growth of many of the largest
cities of England and Scotland. Not all cities have green belts.

Instead of using greenbelts, other countries reduce pressure on the rural-urban fringe by
encouraging development of Brownfield sites over Greenfield sites, and stopping any
more out of town shopping centres from being built. Brownfield site refers to an area of
land previously build on where developments have been demolished and new building
can take place. Brownfield sites are preferred since many areas have unoccupied
houses which could be upgraded. Brownfield sites already have utilities such as water
and gas pipes. It emphasizes the development in development in urban as opposed to
rural areas.

However, greenbelts and Brownfield sites have been largely ineffective and recently, the
focus is on much more informed and intelligent strategies for dealing with such growth.
Contemporary urban strategies focus more on sustainability of development under
different economic scenarios and have come to be called strategies for “smart growth.”
We have come to the understanding that growth can never be “stopped” per se and thus
peripheralization of cities is likely to continue for it is unlikely that even the most
draconian strategies to control sprawl will lead to high density, compact and more
constrained cities, at least in the foreseeable future.