Traditional Houses and Towns: Interaction with the Environment and Urban Characteristics

Traditional houses

: Stone houses: durable, sedentary population.Mud houses: Made of adobe, sometimes wooden frame and roofs made of branches, communities involved in irrigated agricultural activities or extensive livestock farming where stone is scarce.Wooden houses: forest areas, in wetter swamp areas-wooden poles to insulate, weight of the materials decreases as we get the top.Houses of fur: nomadic livestock activities. Some types: Arabic tent, Mongolian yurt, and tepee.Cave Houses: known as troglodyte homes because they are carved in rock, excellent thermal insulation. Found where soil lacks of construction materials. Sometimes used for storage or cellars.Ice homes: Eskimos arctic, made of cubes of ice, called igloos.

Towns and Villages interaction with in environment

:Jungles and forest: Difficult to access, make up with small communities. Grazing regions: nomads in the savannah or semi-desert form small communities. Intensive agriculture areas: very dispersed, if communities are close means soil bad quality. Extensive agricultural areas: is becoming more mechanized, especially on cereal. Requires less human activity, allows to live far away. Fishing areas: located in coast, depend on it. Sometimes can have floating houses.

Characteristics to be considered a city

: Demographic size: depend on the criteria of the country. Function they perform: cities usually carry out tertiary and secondary sector but not more of 25% of active pop. in primary sector. Cities develop, organize, and provide services depending on size and characteristics. Density and permanence: high density is because many people are in a small area.

Urban structure

: functional internal organization of cities.

Urban morphology

: external aspects of a city: layout, streets, buildings.

World cities

Metropolises: large urban centers that integrate other smaller cities with their metropolitan areas. Megacities: more than 10 million inhabitants. Megalopolises: large-scale urban agglomerations formed by metropolitan areas joined by transport system. Global Cities: have global influence as regards certain activities.