Settlement - Lesson 2

Settlement Hierarchy

Aims

By the end of this lesson you should: • know that there are different sizes of

settlement.• know the names of different types of

settlement.• know the services which are found in

settlements of different sizes.• Know what a sphere of influence is

Rural & Urban Settlements

Settlements & Services

• Settlements also provide services for the people who live in them and in the surrounding area.

• Small settlements provide only a few low order services (e.g. general store which people use every day).

• Large services provide many services including high order services (e.g. dentist which people only use occasionally).

Things we find in settlements

What do all these images have in

common?

They all provide services!

What is a service?

These are things which people can use.

Settlements & Services

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE

• The sphere of influence (SOI) of a service is how far people will make use of that service. People are willing to travel longer distances to use a high order service.

• SOI can also be used for settlements. Some settlements such as Inverness have a very big spheres of influence because they contain a range of middle and high order services.

Complete page 6

• A village has a small sphere of influence. It only attracts people from the nearby countryside. This is because it has just a few services- post office, shop, primary school

• A nearby town has a larger SOI. People from the countryside and the villages will go there to get services that the village doesn't have. This could be things like- secondary school, medical services and supermarket/bank/cinema.

• The nearest city may be some distance away and people in remote country areas and villages may only visit once or twice a year. They will go there only to get the sort of services and goods they can’t get in there nearest town eg specialist hospitals, theatre, sports centre/ college/uni/big shops

Complete page 4 and 12.

Case study: Inverness

Situation

FUNCTION

Accessibility

Map of Inverness

• http://classic.multimap.com/maps/?qs=Inverness&countryCode=GB#map=57.47874,-4.22081|15|4&dp=os&bd=useful_information&loc=GB:57.48344:-4.45992:14|Beauly|Beauly,%20Highland,%20Inverness-shire,%20Scotland,%20IV4%207

Retail ParkRetail Park

MEASURING SPHERE OF INFLUENCE

Trying to accurately find out the edge of the sphere of influence can be quite difficult, as different services have different spheres of influence in terms of their size and shape.

Examples of sphere of influence projects Description of project

Delivery areas – department stores, electrical store, furniture store, local newspaper(to outlets to sell it), postal deliveries

Membership area – sports clubs, social clubs, societies

Education catchment area – local high schools, college

Employment area – local factory

Service area – public services – police ambulance, fire station, library, postal sorting office(post codes), employment office, hospital)

Shoppers catchment – interview up to 200 people – random sample outside shops and services, asking which settlements they live in.

Local newspaper – number of methods – record settlements mentioned in news articles, small advertisements and ‘for sale’ columns can be used. Plot each settlement mentioned, but beware of the rogue results.

Local bus services – obtain a timetable to record the settlements which are directly linked to the town by a bus, the journey times and the number of bus journeys on a standard day.

Describe the gathering techniques which could have been used to identify the sphere of influence of Inverness as shown in the diagram.

Justify you choice of techniques

6 marks

Gathering• Could interview, give

questionnaire to shoppers in a large shopping centre, asking where they have come from (2)

• Interview/write a letter to ask manager of dept store for a record of their delivery area

• Ask manager of Caley Thistle for the addresses of their season holders

• Ask local hospital for addresses of their patients.

Justification• These are higher order

services which will represent the longest distance people will be prepared to travel to Inverness to use its services (2)

• These points can be plotted on a map and the boundary of the sphere of influence can be drawn around them.

• Using several services allows a combined sphere of influence to be drawn which will be more accurate/realistic