Services in Rural Settlements

Rural settlements are either clustered or dispersed:

• A clustered rural settlement is an agricultural-based community in which a number of families live in close proximity to each other, with fields surrounding the collection of houses and farm buildings.

• A dispersed rural settlement is characterized by farmers living on individual farms isolated from neighbors rather than alongside other farmers in settlements.

Clustered Rural Settlements

A clustered rural settlement typically includes homes, barns, tool sheds, and other farm structures, plus consumer services, such as religious structures, schools, and shops. A handful of public and business services may also be present in a clustered rural settlement.

Each person living in a clustered rural settlement is allocated strips of land in the surrounding fields. Homes, public buildings, and fields in a clustered rural settlement are arranged according to local cultural and physical characteristics. Clustered rural settlements are often arranged in one of two types of patterns, circular or linear.

Circular Clustered Rural Settlements

A circular clustered rural settlement consists of a central open space surrounded by structures. In sub-Saharan Africa, the Maasai people, who are pastoral nomads, build circular settlements known as kraal (Figure 12-31). Women have the principal responsibility for constructing them. The kraal villages have enclosures for livestock in the center, surrounded by a ring of houses. Von Thünen observed this circular pattern in Germany in his landmark agricultural studies in the early nineteenth century see below.

Clustered Circular Rural Settlement

Kraal village, Kenya.

Linear Clustered Rural Settlements

Linear rural settlements comprise buildings clustered along a road, river, or dike to facilitate communications. The fields extend behind the buildings in long, narrow strips. Long-lot farms can be seen today along the St. Lawrence River in Québec (Figure 12-32). Québec got the system from the French.

Clustered Linear Rural Settlement

Lac St. Jean, Québec.

Clustered New England Rural Settlements

Clustered rural settlements were characteristic of colonial New England. New England colonists typically traveled from England in a group, and they wanted to live close together to reinforce common cultural and religious values. The contemporary New England landscape contains remnants of the old clustered rural settlement pattern. Many New England towns still have a central common surrounded by the church, school, and various houses (Figure 12-33).

Clustered New England Rural Settlement

Newfane, Vermont, looking south.

Dispersed Rural Settlements

Isolated farms are typical of most of the rural United States. A dispersed pattern developed from the time of initial settlement of the Middle Atlantic colonies because most immigrants to these colonies arrived individually rather than as members of a cohesive group, as in New England. As people moved westward from the Middle Atlantic region, they took with them their preference for isolated individual farms. Land was plentiful and cheap, so people bought as much as they could manage (Figure 12-34).

Dispersed Rural Settlement: United States

Harvesting corn, southwestern Wisconsin.

In Europe, some clustered settlements were converted to dispersed settlements in order to make agriculture more efficient. Clustered rural settlements worked when the population was low, but they had no spare land to meet the needs of a growing population. With the introduction of machinery, farms operated more efficiently at a larger scale. For example, in the United Kingdom, the enclosure movement between 1750 and 1850 resulted in the consolidation of individually owned strips of land surrounding villages into large farms owned by single individuals. When necessary, the government forced people to give up their holdings. As displaced farmers moved to urban settlements, the population of clustered rural settlements declined drastically. Because the enclosure movement coincided with the Industrial Revolution, villagers displaced from farming became workers in urban factories.

Rural Settlement: United Kingdom

Luckington was originally a clustered rural settlement, but during the enclosure movement, the surrounding fields were consolidated into large farms.

Pause & Reflect 12.4.1

In which sector of the economy would you expect most of the residents of Newfane, Vermont, or Luckington, U.K., to be employed? Why?

There a variety of ways that human settlement can form the five most common can be found below.

These village forms are heavily influenced by the individual Rural Settlement Patterns.

The Land ordinance of 1785 divided territory into little boxes

This replaced the Metes-and-bounds survey that used physical features to establish ownership over land.

The long lot system was a French method and can still be found in former French colonial holdings such as Louisiana, and Eastern Canada.