Vorlesung mit Übung Human Settlement Planning

In most developing countries, the structure of human settlements is development where metropolises or primate cities absorb a majority of the development efforts of the national government, thus hindering the development of lower order settlements. The primate city is perceived as the national centre for innovation and economic efficiency offering modern amenities and locational advantages for the different sectors of society and the economy. Many settlements at the regional level remain comparatively underdeveloped and impoverished. Services and facilities are unevenly distributed and linkages between urban centres and the hinterland are either weak or non existent. Metropolitan growth is linked to a circular causation process, where major cities are favoured over less developed ones. Development strategies are aimed at more developed settlements causing increasingly unbalanced regional development, characterized by a vicious cycle: people migrate from rural and less developed urban centres reinforcing primate metropolitan growth. This leads to increasing national investments on the primate city at the cost of less developed regions, which in turn leads to a new influx of people into favoured metropolitan areas. The most visible and drastic consequence of unregulated and rapid metropolitan growth in developing countries is the formation of informal settlements characterized by extreme poverty, lack of adequate social and physical infrastructure, and fewer opportunities for employment and gainful livelihoods. Set in this context, the objective of the course is to highlight the importance of a well planned, integrated and balanced system of urban and rural centres of varying sizes and functions distributed along specific spatial systems. The course will help participants gain deeper insights into concepts, methods and strategies of planning for settlements that have high performance qualities such as: physical characteristics, creation of economic opportunities, convenience, choice, equitable access, etc. The course will be a blend of lectures, seminars and group exercises and is linked to the elective course on housing offered in the second semester. International Spatial Planning Centre Technische Universität Dortmund SoSe 2012 Master SPRING Dipl.-Arch. Caimi Sara Dipl Arch