Chapter 12: Services 381

With their newly won freedom from the relentless burden ofrural serfdom, the urban dwellers set about expanding trade.Surplus from the countryside was brought into the city for saleor exchange, and markets were expanded through trade withother free cities. The trade among different urban settlementswas enhanced by new roads and more use of rivers. By the four-teenth century, Europe was covered by a dense network ofsmall market towns serving the needs of particular lords.

The largest medieval European urban settlements served aspower centers for the lords and church leaders, as well as majormarket centers. The most important public services occupiedpalaces, churches, and other prominent buildings arrangedaround a central market square. The tallest and most elaboratestructures were usually churches, many of which still dom-inate the landscape of smaller European towns. In medievaltimes, European urban settlements were usually surrounded bywalls even though by then cannonballs could destroy them (Figure 12-8). Dense and compact within the walls, medievalurban settlements lacked space for construction, so ordinaryshops and houses nestled into the side of the walls and thelarge buildings. Most of these modest medieval shops andhomes, as well as the walls, have been demolished in moderntimes, with only the massive churches and palaces surviving.Modern tourists can appreciate the architectural beauty ofthese medieval churches and palaces, but they do not receivean accurate image of a densely built medieval town.

Most of the world’s largest cities were in Asia, not Europe,however, from the collapse of the Roman Empire until the dif-fusion of the Industrial Revolution across Europe during the

nineteenth century. The five most populous cities in 900 arethought to have included Baghdad (in present-day Iraq), Con-stantinople (now called Istanbul, in Turkey), Kyoto (in Japan),and Changan and Hangchow (in China). Beijing (China) com-peted with Constantinople as the world’s most populous city forseveral hundred years, until London claimed the distinction dur-ing the early 1800s. Agra (India), Cairo (Egypt), Canton (China),Isfahan (Iran), and Osaka (Japan) also ranked among the world’smost populous cities prior to the Industrial Revolution.

KEY ISSUE 2

Where AreContemporary Services Located?

■ Services in Rural Settlements■ Services in Urban Settlements

Services are clustered in settlements. Rural settlements arecenters for agriculture and provide a small number of serv-ices; urban settlements are centers for consumer and busi-ness services. One-half of the people in the world currentlylive in a rural settlement, and the other half in an urbansettlement. ■

Services in RuralSettlementsA clustered rural settlement is a placewhere a number of families live in closeproximity to each other, with fieldssurrounding the collection of housesand farm buildings. A dispersed ruralsettlement, typical of the North Ameri-can rural landscape, is characterized byfarmers living on individual farms iso-lated from neighbors rather than along-side other farmers in settlements.

Clustered RuralSettlementsA clustered rural settlement typicallyincludes homes, barns, tool sheds, andother farm structures, plus consumerservices, such as religious structures,schools, and shops. A handful of pub-lic and business services may also bepresent in the clustered rural settle-ment. In common language such a set-tlement is called a hamlet or village.

FIGURE 12-8 Medieval city: Carcassonne, France. Medieval European cities, such as Carcassonne, in southwesternFrance, were often surrounded by walls for protection. The walls have been demolished in most places, but they stillstand around the medieval center of Carcassonne.

382 The Cultural Landscape

Each person living in a clustered rural settlement is allocatedstrips of land in the surrounding fields. The fields must be acces-sible to the farmers and are thus generally limited to a radius of 1or 2 kilometers (1⁄2 to 1 mile) from the buildings. The strips of

land are allocated in different ways. In some places, individualfarmers own or rent the land. In other places, the land is ownedcollectively by the settlement or by a lord, and farmers do notcontrol the choice of crops or use of the output.

Farmers typically own, or have responsibility for, a collec-tion of scattered parcels in several fields. This pattern of con-trolling several fragmented parcels of land has encouragedliving in a clustered rural settlement to minimize travel time tothe various fields. Traditionally, when the population of a set-tlement grew too large for the capacity of the surroundingfields, new settlements were established nearby. This was possi-ble because not all land was under cultivation (Figure 12-9).

Homes, public buildings, and fields in a clustered rural set-tlement are arranged according to local cultural and physicalcharacteristics. Clustered rural settlements are often arranged inone of two types of patterns—circular or linear (Figure 12-10).

CIRCULAR RURAL SETTLEMENTS. These comprise acentral open space surrounded by structures. Examples include:• Kraal villages in southern Africa, which have enclosures for

livestock in the center, surrounded by a ring of houses(Figure 12-11).

• Gewandorf settlements, once found in rural Germany,which consisted of a core of houses, barns, and churches,encircled by different types of agricultural activities. Smallgarden plots were located in the first ring surrounding thevillage, with cultivated land, pastures, and woodlands insuccessive rings. Von Thünen observed this circular ruralpattern in his landmark agricultural studies of the earlynineteenth century (Figure 10-24).

LLLittL eeOfflOfO eyeyyy

OfflOffleyeyyacPlacPlaceee

GreGreGreatOfffleyleyleyyley

OOfflO eyHooooooHHH

OfflOffleyeyeHoleolesH

OfflOffOffO eyeyOfOfGraanangegG

OOOffleyCrossC

OfflOfflO eyottom

LittleOffley

OffleyPlace

GreatOffley

OffleyHoo

OffleyHoles

OffleyGrange

OffleyCross

OffleyBottom

A505

0

1/4 KM0

1/4 MILondon

GreatOffley

FIGURE 12-9 Clustered rural settlements. The English rural landscapereflects the historical pattern of growth through establishment of satellitesettlements. On the map, note the numerous places with “Offley” in their name:Great Offley (the largest and the original settlement), Little Offley, Offley Grange(barn), Offley Cross, Offley Bottom, Offley Place, Offley Hoo (house), and OffleyHole. These are satellite rural settlements in the parish of Offley, in Hertfordshire.The name “Offley” means the wooded clearing of Offa, who was a ruler of Mercia(see Figure 5-3) during the eighth century and is said to have died at the site ofthe settlement.

GardensArablefield Meadows Heath Woods Farmhouse

ChurchPond

FIGURE 12-10 Rural settlement patterns. (Left) Circular rural settlement once common in Germany.(Center) Linear rural settlement, called “long-lot,” once common in France, which gives everyone access tothe river. (Right) Long-lot rural settlement established by French settlers in Québec, especially along the St. Lawrence River.

Chapter 12: Services 383

LINEAR RURAL SETTLEMENTS. These comprisebuildings clustered along a road, river, or dike to facilitatecommunications. The fields extend behind the buildings inlong, narrow strips. Long-lot farms can be seen today along theSt. Lawrence River in Québec (Figure 12-12).

In the French long-lot system, houses were erected along ariver, which was the principal water source and means of com-munication. Narrow lots from 5 to 100 kilometers deep (3 to60 miles) were established perpendicular to the river, so thateach original settler had river access. This created a linear set-tlement along the river. These long, narrow lots eventuallywere subdivided. French law required that each son inherit anequal portion of an estate, so the heirs established separatefarms in each division. Roads were constructed inland parallel

to the river for access to inland farms. In this way, a new linearsettlement emerged along each road, parallel to the originalriverfront settlement.

Clustered Settlements in Colonial AmericaNew England colonists built clustered settlements centered onan open area called a common (Figure 12-13). Settlers groupedtheir homes and public buildings, such as the church andschool, around the common. In addition to their houses, eachsettler had a home lot of 1 to 5 acres (1/2 to 2 hectares), whichcontained a barn, garden, and enclosures for feeding livestock.Clustered settlements were favored by New England colonistsfor several reasons:

• They typically traveled to the NewWorld in a group. The English gov-ernment granted an area of land, inNew England perhaps 4 to 10 squaremiles (10 to 25 square kilometers).Members of the group then traveledto America to settle the land, andusually built the settlement near thecenter of the land grant.

• The colonists wanted to live closetogether to reinforce common cul-tural and religious values. Most camefrom the same English village andbelonged to the same church. Many ofthem left England in the 1600s to gainreligious freedom. The settlement’sleader was often an official of thePuritan Church, and the churchplayed a central role in daily activities.

• They clustered their settlements fordefense against Indian attacks.

Each villager owned several discon-tinuous parcels on the periphery of thesettlement, to provide the variety of landtypes needed for different crops. Beyondthe fields the town held pastures andwoodland for the common use of all resi-dents. Outsiders could obtain land in the

settlement only by permission of the town’s residents. Land wasnot sold, but rather was awarded to an individual after thetown’s residents felt confident that the recipient would workhard. Settlements accommodated a growing population byestablishing new settlements nearby. As in the older settle-ments, the newer ones contained central commons surroundedby houses and public buildings, home lots, and outer fields.

The contemporary New England landscape contains rem-nants of the old clustered rural settlement pattern. Many NewEngland towns still have a central common surrounded by thechurch, school, and various houses. However, quaint New Eng-land towns are little more than picturesque shells of clusteredrural settlements, because today’s residents work in shops andoffices rather than on farms.

FIGURE 12-11 Kraal circular-shaped village, named Oshakatik, created bythe Ovambo people in northern Namibia.

FIGURE 12-12 Québec long-lot rural settlement. Along the St. Lawrence River, farm fields weretraditionally arranged in narrow strips.

FIGURE 12-13 Newfane, Vermont, a New England clustered settlement.Public buildings are grouped around a common, including Windham CountyCourthouse (foreground), Congregational Church (right), and Newfane VillageUnion Hall (background, opposite courthouse).

384 The Cultural Landscape

Dispersed Rural SettlementsOutside of New England, dispersed rural settlements were morecommon in the American colonies. Meanwhile, in New Englandand in Great Britain clustered rural settlements were convertedto a dispersed pattern. Owning several discontinuous fieldsaround a clustered rural settlement had several disadvantages:Farmers lost time moving between fields, villagers had to buildmore roads to connect the small lots, and farmers were restrictedin what they could plant. With the introduction of farm machin-ery, farms operated more efficiently at a larger scale.

DISPERSED RURAL SETTLEMENTS IN THE UNITEDSTATES. The Middle Atlantic colonies were settled by moreheterogeneous groups than those in New England. Colonistscame from Germany, Holland, Ireland, Scotland, and Sweden,as well as from England. Most arrived in Middle Atlanticcolonies individually rather than as a member of a cohesivereligious or cultural group. Some bought tracts of land fromspeculators. Others acquired land directly from individualswho had been given large land grants by the Englishgovernment, including William Penn (Pennsylvania), LordBaltimore (Maryland), and Sir George Carteret (the Carolinas).

Dispersed settlement patterns dominated in the American Mid-west in part because the early settlers came primarily from theMiddle Atlantic colonies. The pioneers crossed the AppalachianMountains and established dispersed farms on the frontier. Landwas plentiful and cheap, and people bought as much as they couldmanage. In New England a dispersed distribution began to replaceclustered settlements in the eighteenth century. Eventually peoplebought, sold, and exchanged land to create large, continuousholdings instead of several isolated pieces.

The clustered rural settlement pattern worked when the pop-ulation was low, but settlements had no spare land to meet theneeds of a population that was growing through natural

increase and net in-migration. A shortage of land eventuallyforced immigrants and children to strike out alone and claimfarmland on the frontier. In addition, the cultural bonds thathad created clustered rural settlements were weakened. Descen-dants of the original settlers were less interested in the religiousand cultural values that had unified the original immigrants.

DISPERSED RURAL SETTLEMENTS IN GREAT BRITAIN.To improve agricultural production, a number of Europeancountries converted their rural landscapes from clusteredsettlements to dispersed patterns. Dispersed settlements wereconsidered more efficient for agriculture than clusteredsettlements. A prominent example was the enclosure movementin Great Britain, between 1750 and 1850. The Britishgovernment transformed the rural landscape by consolidatingindividually owned strips of land surrounding a village into asingle large farm, owned by an individual. When necessary, thegovernment forced people to give up their former holdings.

The enclosure movement brought greater agricultural effi-ciency, but it destroyed the self-contained world of village life. Vil-lage populations declined drastically as displaced farmers movedto urban settlements. Because the enclosure movement coincidedwith the Industrial Revolution, villagers who were displaced fromfarming moved to urban settlements and became workers in fac-tories and services. Some villages became the centers of the new,larger farms, but villages that were not centrally located to a newfarm’s extensive land holdings were abandoned and replaced withentirely new farmsteads at more strategic locations. As a result,the isolated, dispersed farmstead, unknown in medieval England,is now a common feature of that country’s rural landscape.

As recently as 1800, only 3 percent of Earth’s populationlived in cities, and only one city in the world—Beijing—hadmore than 1 million inhabitants. Two centuries later, one-halfof the world’s people live in cities, and more than 400 of themhave at least 1 million inhabitants. This rapid growth has madeit difficult to define the boundaries of cities (see Chapter 13).

Services in UrbanSettlementsThe population of urban settlements exceeded that of rural settle-ments for the first time in human history in 2008 (Figure 12-14).The percentage of people living in urban settlements hadincreased from 3 percent in 1800 to 6 percent in 1850, 14 percentin 1900, 30 percent in 1950, and 47 percent in 2000.

Differences Between Urban and Rural SettlementsA century ago, social scientists observed striking differencesbetween urban and rural residents. Louis Wirth argued duringthe 1930s that an urban dweller follows a different way of lifethan does a rural dweller. Thus Wirth defined a city as a perma-nent settlement that has three characteristics—large size, highpopulation density, and socially heterogeneous people. Thesecharacteristics produced differences in the social behavior ofurban and rural residents.

Chapter 12: Services 385

ARCTIC OCEAN

PACIFIC

OCEAN

ATLANTICOCEAN

INDIAN OCEAN

PACIFIC

OCEAN

ARCTIC OCEAN

ARABIANSEA BAY OF

BENGAL

CORAL SEA

0

1,000 3,000 KILOMETERS0

1,000 3,000 MILES

2,000

2,000

MODIFIED GOODE'S HOMOLOSINE EQUAL-AREA PROJECTION

Tropic of Capricorn

Tropic of Cancer Tropic of Cancer

Equator

Arctic Circle

50°

40°

30°

20°

10°

0°

10°

30°

40°

50°

60°

70°

80°

60°

50°

40°

30°

20°

10°

20°

30°

40°

50° 50°

40°

30°

20°

10°

0°

30°

40°

50°

50° 60° 70° 80° 90° 140° 150°

10°

20°

30°

40°

50°

10°

20°

30°

40°

50°

20°

30°

20°

30°

40°

180°150°140°130°120°110°

120° 150° 160° 170°

20°

160°

160°

80 and above

60–79

40–59

Below 40

PERCENT URBAN

FIGURE 12-14 Percent living in urban settlements. MDCs have a higher percentage of people living inurban settlements.

LARGE SIZE. If you live in a rural settlement, you knowmost of the other inhabitants and may even be related to manyof them. The people with whom you relax are probably thesame ones you see in local shops and at church.

In contrast, if you live in an urban settlement, you can knowonly a small percentage of the other residents. You meet mostof them in specific roles—your supervisor, your lawyer, yoursupermarket cashier, your electrician. Most of theserelationships are contractual: You are paid wages according to acontract, and you pay others for goods and services. Conse-quently, the large size of an urban settlement produces differentsocial relationships than those formed in rural settlements.

HIGH DENSITY. High density also produces social conse-quences for urban residents, according to Wirth. The only waythat a large number of people can be supported in a small area isthrough specialization. Each person in an urban settlement playsa special role or performs a specific task to allow the complexurban system to function smoothly. At the same time, highdensity also encourages people to compete for survival in limitedspace. Social groups compete to occupy the same territory, andthe stronger group dominates. This behavior distinguishes anurban settlement from a rural one.

SOCIAL HETEROGENEITY. The larger the settlement, thegreater the variety of people. A person has greater freedom inan urban settlement than in a rural settlement to pursue anunusual profession, sexual orientation, or cultural interest. In arural settlement, unusual actions might be noticed andscorned, but urban residents are more tolerant of diverse socialbehavior. Regardless of values and preferences, in a large urban

settlement individuals can find people with similar interests.But despite the freedom and independence of an urbansettlement, people may also feel lonely and isolated. Residentsof a crowded urban settlement often feel that they aresurrounded by people who are indifferent and reserved.

Wirth’s three-part distinction between urban and rural set-tlements may still apply in LDCs. But in MDCs social distinc-tions between urban and rural residents have blurred.According to Wirth’s definition, nearly everyone in an MDCnow is urban. All but 1 percent of workers in developed soci-eties hold “urban” types of jobs. Nearly universal ownership ofautomobiles, telephones, televisions, and other modern com-munications and transportation has also reduced the differ-ences between urban and rural lifestyles in MDCs. Almostregardless of where you live in an MDC you have access tourban jobs, services, culture, and recreation.

Increasing Percentage of People in CitiesThe process by which the population of urban settlementsgrows, known as urbanization, has two dimensions—anincrease in the number of people living in cities and an increasein the percentage of people living in cities. The distinctionbetween the two factors is important because they occur fordifferent reasons and have different global distributions.

A large percentage of people living in urban settlementsreflects a country’s level of development. In MDCs, about three-fourths of the people live in urban areas, compared to abouttwo-fifths in LDCs. The major exception to the global pattern isLatin America, where the urban percentage is comparable to the

386 The Cultural Landscape

FIGURE 12-15 Urban settlements with populationsof at least 3 million. Though the percentage of peopleliving in urban settlements is greater in MDCs, most ofthe largest urban settlements are now located in LDCs.Rapid growth of urban settlements in LDCs reflectsincreasing overall population plus migration from ruralareas.

40°90°100°110°120°130°140°

50°

40°

30°

20°

10°

0°

10°

20°

160°

30°

40°

50°

60°

70°

80°

70°

20°

30°

40°

50°

60°

10°

20°

30°

40°

50°50°

40°

30°

20°

10° 10°

20°

30°

40°

50°

Equator

Tropic of Capricorn

Tropic of Cancer

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

PACIFIC

OCEAN

ARCTIC OCEAN

New York

Los Angeles

Mexico City

Rio de Janeiro

São Paulo

Buenos Aires

Chicago

Bogotá

Lima

Santiago

Philadelphia

Belo Horizonte

Miami

Toronto

Monterrey

Guadalajara

Montréal

Phoenix

Brasília

Salvador

Fortaleza

Medellín

Recife

Porto Alegre

Dallas-Fort Worth

Atlanta

Boston

Houston

Washington, D.C.

Detroit

San Francisco-Oakland

More than 10 million

5–10 million

3–5 million

Population

level of MDCs. The higher percentage of urban residents inMDCs is a consequence of changes in economic structure dur-ing the past two centuries—first the Industrial Revolution in thenineteenth century and then the growth of services in the twen-tieth. The world map of urban percentages looks very much likethe world map of percentage of GDP derived from services(Figure 12-1).

The percentage of urban dwellers is high in MDCs becauseover the past 200 years rural residents have migrated from thecountryside to work in the factories and services that are con-centrated in cities. The need for fewer farm workers has pushedpeople out of rural areas, and rising employment opportunitiesin manufacturing and services have lured them into urbanareas. Because everyone resides either in an urban settlement ora rural settlement, an increase in the percentage living in urbanareas has produced a corresponding decrease in the percentageliving in rural areas.

Because the percentage living in urban areas simply cannotincrease much more in MDCs, the process of urbanization thatbegan around 1800 has largely ended. Nearly everyone interestedin migrating from rural to urban areas has already done so, leav-ing those who choose to live in rural areas. We can now speak ofMDCs as being fully urbanized, because the percentage of urbanresidents is so high. In recent years in LDCs, the percentage livingin cities has risen rapidly because of the migration of rural resi-dents to the cities in search of jobs in manufacturing or services.As in MDCs, people in LDCs are pushed off the farms by declin-ing opportunities. However, urban jobs are by no means assuredin LDCs experiencing rapid overall population growth.

Increasing Number of People in CitiesMDCs have a higher percentage of urban residents, but LDCshave more of the very large urban settlements (Figure 12-15).

Chapter 12: Services 387

110° 120° 130° 140° 150° 160° 180°

40°

30°

20°

40°

30°

20°

120° 140° 150° 160° 170°

0°

10°

20°

40°

50°

30°

140° 150°90°80°70°60°50°0°10°

60°

50°

40°

30°

20°

10°

30°

40°

50°

10°

20°

30°

40°

50°

Tropic of Capricorn

Tropic of Cancer

Arctic Circle

Equator

PACIFIC

OCEAN

ARCTIC OCEAN

ARABIANSEA

CORAL SEA

INDIAN OCEAN

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

0

0

1,000 2,000

1,000 2,000

3,000 MILES

3,000 KILOMETERS

MODIFIED GOODE'S HOMOLOSINE EQUAL-AREA PROJECTION

Delhi

Kolkata

Karachi

Mumbai

Moscow

Cairo

Manila

Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto

Tokyo-Yokohama

Shanghai

Istanbul

Dhaka

Beijing

Lahore

ChennaiBengaluru Bangkok

Hong Kong

Tianjin

Kinshasa

Hyderabad

Madrid

Paris

Ahmadabad

BaghdadChongqing Wuhan

Guangzhou

Ho Chi Minh City

Seoul

Lagos

Jakarta

London

Tehran

Shenzhen

AnkaraAthens

Berlin

RomeBarcelona

Algiers

Riyadh

Rangoon

Chittagong

ChengduXi'an

Nanjing

Harbin

Shenyang

Changchun

Singapore

Pune

Surat

Abidjan

Sydney

Melbourne

Pusan

P’yongyang

Cape Town

Luanda

Guiyang

Hanoi

Kabul

Dongguan

Khartoum

Saint Petersburg

Alexandria

Johannesburg

Nagoya

Eight of the ten most populous cities are currently in LDCs—Buenos Aires, Delhi, Dhaka, Kolkata (Calcutta),Mexico City, Mumbai (Bombay), São Paulo, and Shanghai.New York and Tokyo are the two large cities in MDCs. ThatLDCs dominate the list of largest urban settlements isremarkable because urbanization was once associated witheconomic development. In 1800, seven of the world’s tenlargest cities were in Asia. In 1900, after diffusion of theIndustrial Revolution from Great Britain to today’s MDCs,all ten of the world’s largest cities were in Europe and NorthAmerica.

In LDCs, migration from the countryside is fueling half of the increase in population in urban settlements, eventhough job opportunities may not be available. The otherhalf results from high natural increase rates; in Africa,the natural increase rate accounts for three-fourths of urbangrowth.

KEY ISSUE 3

Why Are ConsumerServices Distributed in a Regular Pattern?

■ Central Place Theory■ Market-Area Analysis■ Hierarchy of Services and Settlements

Consumer services and business services do not have thesame distributions. Consumer services generally follow aregular pattern based on size of settlements, with larger set-tlements offering more consumer services than smaller ones.