1 URBANISATION Answer these questions. a. Do you live in a big city, a town or a village? b. What kind of facilities can be found in it? c. What are the main environmental characteristics of the place where you live? arranged: sistemato, disposto boundaries: confini coastline: litorale, costa to lack: mancare leisure time: tempo libero manufacturing: industria manifatturiera to perform: eseguire range: gamma, serie reliant on: dipendente da scattered: disseminato, sparpagliato to spread: espandersi trade: commercio BosWash map TYPES OF SETTLEMENTS A settlement is a place where people live. It can be classified as urban or rural. Urban settlements include towns, cities and megalopoles, usually with high population density. Rural settlements are made up of small villages or scattered farms with low population density and a small number of services. A settlement can be classified according to its main function: manufacturing, hi-tech industry (such as the Silicon Valley in California), administrative centre, port, holiday resort, educational (such as Oxford and Cambridge), farming and agricultural. Most large settlements in more economically developed countries are multifunctional and perform a range of functions such as trade, education, health, and industry, and provide local government offices. When settlements first started to grow, most had only one distinct function, and others developed as the settlement grew. They can be arranged into a hierarchy in relation to their population size and range of services: Megacities. These are the main centres of world economy: London, New York, Tokyo are the most important centres of banking and finance. Conurbations. These are groups of towns that have spread and joined together to form an area with a high population, often with a large city as its centre. An example is BosWash, formed by coastline cities and towns from Boston to Washington, on the East Coast of the United States. City. This is a large settlement reliant on commerce, manufacturing and industries. A City Region is a network of urban communities, sharing resources such as a central business area, labour market and transport network. In other words a city region is an area where most of its population work, trade, shop, live and spend leisure time. Towns. These are smaller urban areas lacking the range of facilities of a city. A town usually has permanent boundaries and a local form of government. Though the classification of an area such as a town or city is related to the population size, different countries have different methods of making this classification. In the US, a city is just a legal term that means an urban area with autonomous power. 218 Module 7 A hamlet on the Swiss Alps The village of Polperro, Cornwall