Rural settlements
• rural settlements derive their life support or basic economic needs from land-based primary economic activities, whereas, urban settlements, depending on processing of raw materials and manufacturing of finished goods on one hand and a variety of services on other.
• Rural people are less mobile and therefore, social relations among them are intimate. In urban areas, on other hand, way of life is complex.
• Rural settlements are further classified into four categories:
(1) Clustered, agglomerated or nucleated;
(2) Semi-clustered or fragmented;
(3) Hamleted and;
(4) Dispersed or isolated.
• settlements in which houses are closely built up and compact are known as Clustered settlements. shape of clustered settlements varies from rectangular, radial to linear and usually compact or closely built.
• settlement, clustering in a restricted area of dispersed settlement normally looks Semi-clustered. Examples of such settlements can be seen in Gujarat Plain and some parts of Rajasthan.
• Hamleted settlements are places where people live in different parts that are physically separate from each other. In different parts of country, these units are called panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani. Most of these kinds of villages are in middle and lower Ganga plain, in Chhattisgarh, and in lower Himalayan valleys.
• Dispersed or isolated settlement pattern in India appears in form of isolated huts or hamlets of few huts in remote jungles, or on small hills with farms or pasture on slopes. Many areas of Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala have this type of settlements.
Urban Settlements
Evolution of Towns in India
• On basis of their evolution in different periods, Indian towns are classified as: Ancient towns, Medieval towns and Modern towns.
(1) Ancient Towns: Most of them developed as religious and cultural centres. Varanasi, Prayag [Allahabad], Pataliputra [Patna], and Madurai are some examples of ancient towns in country.
(2) Medieval Towns: Most of them developed as headquarters of principalities and kingdoms. These are fort towns that came up on ruins of ancient towns. Important among them are Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Agra & Nagpur.
(3) Modern Towns: British and other Europeans have developed a number of towns in India. They first developed some trading ports such as Surat, Daman, Goa, Pondicherry. Later they built Kolkata, Chennai & Mumbai in British style.
Urbanization in India
• Urban Agglomeration: An urban agglomeration may consist of any one of following three combinations: [i] a town and its adjoining urban outgrowths, [ii] two or more contiguous towns with or without their outgrowths, and [iii] a city and one or more adjoining towns with their outgrowths together forming a contiguous spread.
Functional classification of towns
• On basis of dominant or specialised functions, Indian cities and towns are classified as follows:
(1) Administrative towns and cities: Towns supporting administrative headquarters of higher order are administrative towns, such as Chandigarh, New Delhi, Bhopal, Shillong, Guwahati, Imphal, Srinagar, Gandhinagar, Jaipur, Chennai.
(2) Industrial towns: Industries constitute prime motive force of these cities, such as Mumbai, Salem, Coimbatore, Modinagar, Jamshedpur, Hugli, Bhilai.
(3) Commercial towns: Towns and cities specialising in trade and commerce are kept in this class such as Kolkata, Saharanpur, Satna.
(4) Transport Cities: They may be ports primarily engaged in export and import activities such as Kandla, Kochi, Kozhikode, Vishakhapatnam.
(5) Mining towns: These towns have developed in mineral rich areas such as Raniganj, Jharia, Digboi, Ankleshwar, Singrauli.
(6) Religious and cultural towns: Varanasi, Mathura, Amritsar, Madurai, Puri, Ajmer, Pushkar, Tirupati, Kurukshetra, Haridwar, & Ujjain came to prominence due to their religious/cultural significance.
(7) Garrisson Cantonment towns: towns emerged as garrisson towns such as Ambala, Jalandhar, Mhow, Babina, Udhampur.
(8) Tourist towns: Nainital, Mussoorie, Shimla, Pachmarhi, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udagamandalam [Ooty], and Mount Abu are some of tourist destinations.
(9) Educational towns: Starting as centres of education, some of towns have grown into major campus towns, such as Roorkee, Varanasi, Aligarh, Pilani, Allahabad.
Smart Cities Mission: objective of Smart Cities Mission is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure, a clean & sustainable environment and give a decent quality of life to its citizens. One of features of Smart Cities is to apply smart solutions to infrastructure and services in order to make them better.