Human Ecology: Setting, Components & Characteristics

Topic 1: Human in Their Ecological Setting

• Humans play a significant role in urban spaces due to their relationship with the ecological environment.
• Human Ecology studies the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environment.
• Ernst Haeckel coined the term "oekologie" to describe organisms' relationship to their environment.

5 Components of Human Ecology

• Population: the number of people in a given area.
• Culture: the shared beliefs, values, and norms of a group of people.
• Economy: production and consumption patterns within a society.
• Technology: tools and techniques used by humans.
• Environment: natural and built surroundings.

3 Characteristics of Population

• Location: where a population is situated.
• Density: the number of individuals per unit area.
• Growth: the rate at which a population is increasing or decreasing.

3 Causes of Population Size to Change

• Number of Births: increase in the population.
• Number of Deaths: decrease in the population.
• Number of Individuals that move in or out: migration affecting population size.

4 Threats to Biodiversity

• Hunting: the practice of killing or capturing animals, often leading to population decline.
• Agriculture: practice of cultivating land.
• Animal domestication: keeping animals as livestock.
• Urbanization: the movement of populations into cities.
• Urbanization: the movement of populations into cities.
• Deforestation: the destruction of forests.
• Overfarming: depletes soil nutrients, making it less fertile.

Examples of Non-Renewable Natural Resources

• Coal, oil, natural gas, metals, and minerals are examples of finite resources.

Examples of Renewable Natural Resources

• Air, water, soil, sunlight, and living things are resources that can be replenished naturally.

Sustainable Use

• Resources are used at a rate that does not deplete them for future generations.

Conserving Resources

• Recycling and conserving soil and forests are essential practices.
• Sustained-yield-free farming involves no cutting down trees in certain areas.
• Reforestation: replacing lost trees by planting new ones.

5 Ways to Control Pollution

• Emission controls: installing devices or systems that reduce the amount of pollutants released from vehicles, industrial facilities, or other sources.
• Ban aerosol sprays: aerosol sprays contain chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which deplete the ozone layer when released into the atmosphere.
• Control industrial waste: implementing regulations and technologies to treat and dispose of industrial waste safely.
• Sewage treatment plants: wastewater treatment facilities that remove pollutants and contaminants from sewage.
• Special sites for toxic waste: designated areas for the safe storage and disposal of hazardous or toxic materials.

Individual Actions in Restoring the Environment

• Avoid polluting and burning garbage and change the products that are used.
• Drive energy-efficient cars and reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Societal Actions in Restoring the Environment

• Passing laws: implementing regulations that prohibit or restrict activities that harm the environment.
• Fining or jailing polluters: imposing penalties on individuals or organizations that violate environmental laws.
• Holding public meetings and giving incentives.

Sample Policies and Initiatives

• The Paris Agreement on Climate Change is an international treaty that aims to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.
• The Sustainable Development Goals are a set of 17 goals by the UN in 2015.

Topic 2: Ekistics, The Science of Human Settlements

• Human Settlements include the totality of the human community, settlements inhabited by man, clusters of dwellings and created through movement of man in space.
• Ekistics, coined by Konstantinos Apostolos Doxiadis, is the science of human settlements that includes community planning and takes into account when building a settlement.

3 Goals of Ekistics

• To build a city of Optimum Size, accommodate technological evolution and to learn from archeological and historical records

4 Basic Components of Human Settlement

• Homogeneous Parts like the fields, Central Parts like the village, circulatory Parts like the roads and Special Parts like the monasteries.

Classification of Human Settlements Based on location

• Hamlet to Metropolitan Cities, can be Small and sparsely spaces or large and closely.
• This also includes Plains, Mountains, Coastal.

Classification of Human Settlements Based on relationships between settlements within spaces

• Hierarchical and Non-hierarchical.

Classification of Human Settlements

• Based on Function, Time Dimension, Degree of Society's Conscious Involvement, Institutions, Legislation, and Administration.

Classification of Human Settlements Based by Ekistics Units

• Man as the smallest unit.
• Space, Family Home as the third unit.

Ekistics Logarithmic Scale (ELS)

• Consists of 15 ekistics Units, used for measurement and classification of many dimensions in human settlements.
• Used in geography and regional science.

Units under ELS

• Anthropos -1, Room - 2, House - 5, Hamlet - 40, Village - 250, Neighborhood - 1,500, Small Polis – 10, 000, Polis (city) - 75,000, Small Metropolis – 5, 000, 000
• Metropolis - 4 mil, Small Megapolis 25 million, Megapolis - 150 million, Eperopolis - 750 million, Eperoppolis 7.5 billion, and Ecumenomopolis - 50 billion.
• 1 lakhs - 100,000

Classification of Human Settlements Based by Ekistics Elements

• Settlements are defined by Nature, Anthropos, Society, Networks, Shells,.

Classification of Human Settlements Based by Ekistics Functions

• Administrative, industrial, Transportation, Commercial, Mining Towns, Cantonment, Educational, Religious and Tourist

Classification of Human Settlements Based by Evolutionary Phase

• Settlements can be either Macro Scale or Micro Scale.

Classification of Human Settlements Based on Factors and Disciplines

• Settlements can be classified based on Economics, Cultural, Technical Disciplines, Social Sciences and Administration.

History of Settlements in the Philippines

• Binondo, founded 1945 , was created as the Settlement for converted Chinese immigrants (aka sangleys).
• Intramuros was built to protect the seat of the Spanish government.
• Cebu in 1565, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi established a colony, Villa del santissmo nombre de jesus.
• Baguio, established Kennon Road as the first road connecting Kafagway designed by Architect Daniel Burngam.

Government Offices on Housing and Settlements

• HUDCC: Coordinates and manages activities such as the National Shelter Program.
• HLURB: Involves mainly planning, regulations, and adjudication over land use.
• HGC, NHMFC, SHFC is Social Housing Finance Corporation - Lead government on social housing programs and NHA (shelter production for the low-income sector)
• HDMF: Feb 14 2019 new structure of housing agencies
• DHSUD: assumes the functions of both HUDCC and HLURB

Topic 3: Location theory

• Location Theory is concerned with the geographic location of economic activities and explains the basic factors that determine and influence the location of economic activities.
• The theory rests primarily on the assumption that agents act in their self-interest and various factors that affect location are considered (transportation cost).
• First concerned with agricultural land use modeled by Von Thunen and The industrial location was by Alfred Weber
• Modern location theory has been concerned with the real individua

Types of economic activities

• Business location choices, urban spatial structure Innovation and technological change

Location and Urban Spatial Structure

• There are special economic-geographic laws determining the arrangement of towns.
• Urban land use, transportation system, and spatial structures.
• Influence the choice of individual businesses.

Decisions that Shape by Location and Technology

• Location matters for entrepreneurship.
• What input industries need and how prevalent are the economy overall Transportation technology.
• Inter-Relationship

Location Factors for Business

• The ff factors affect success; Land attributes, labor management, capital, materials and powers.
• Also Organization, Behavior, and Change, Market Price, Transportation and Freight Rates and public policy.

Different types of economic activities

• Primary Activities focus on resources.
• Secondary Activities focuses on production.
• Retail for Tertiary Activities.
• Quaternary Activities focuses on knowledge.
• Management for Quinary Activities.

David Ricardo (1772-1823)

• English political economist, the most influential classical economist.
• Principles of Political Economy and Taxation - theories on labor value, RENT, and comparative advantage.
• Differential Rent Theory is based on fertility and Economic Rent - the difference between the produce obtained by the employment of two equal quantities of capital and labor

Johann Heinrich von Thunen (1783-1850)

• Was a German economist and landowner who conceptualized The Isolated State.

Alfred Weber (1866 – 1958)

• A German economist, sociologist, and theoretician who constructed the Theory of the Location of Industries .
• The cost to transport material inputs to the manufacturing plant is key in that theory, and transportation costs in Weber's Weight-Losing Case will be the lowest if all if the processing plant is located at the source of the raw material.

William Alonso

• Extended the von Thunen model to urban land uses giving land use, rent, the intensity of land use, population, and employment as a function of distance to the CBD of the city
• "Bid-Price Curve" means land prices will decline as the distance from the CBD increases
• High price and rent increases as well as wages if near CBD and commuting costs need to be offset by higher remuneration

Simplified Assumptions by von Thunen

• The city is located centrally within an "Isolated State."
• Farmers in the Isolated State transport their own goods to market via oxcart, across the land, directly to the central city and behave rationally to maximize profits
• Von thunen also concluded that the cultivation of a crop is only worthwhile within certain distances

Profitability

• To maximize profits, firms must locate where they can benefit from the greatest revenue and the lowest costs and firms requiring large sites and those attempting to reduce costs of overconcentration will be attracted to the suburbs.

Location

• The foremost determinant in the catalyzing of the decision to purchase based on cost
• The only method to economically achieve the value added by location is to create it on inexpensive land through PUD

Walter Christaller

• Analyzes the size distribution and firm composition of cities and seeks to explain the number, size, and location of human settlements in an urban system Range - the average maximum distance people will travel

Central Place Theory

• Is a settlement that provides one or more services and Simple basic services are said to be low order.
• Central Place Theory consists of Threshold and population
• The larger the settlements, the fewer their number while the Range increases as the population increases

Topic 4: Definition of Planning

• Planning as a Basic Human Activity pervades human behavior at every level of society.
• Planning as a Rational Choice meets a certain standard of consistency and logic
• Planning as a Control of Action which control the future consequences of present actions
• Planning is a Special Kind of Problem Solving

What Planning IS and IS NOT

• Planning SHOULD societa, future, Action-oriented, deliberate and non-routinized.
• Planning is NOT purely individual and cannot be routinized therefore cannot be easily solved

Rationality of Planning

• Rational - is a way of choosing the bes means to attain a given end and Preferences must be transitive (ranked in order from best to worst)

Planning Roles and Context (Contextual Planning Models)

• Types include Comprehensive, Social, Advocacy Planning and Bureaucratic Planning

Planning Roles and Context (Planner's Role)

• Roles include technician-administrator, Advocate and Guerilla and Entrepreneur

The Planning Process

• Planning as a sequential, multi-staged process in which many of the phases are linked to their predecessors by feedback loops components
• Components of Planning Process; Problem diafnosis, Goal articulation, Evaluation and Implementation.

Analytic Tools in Policy Analysis

• System Approach, Modeling, Simulaton, Benefit-cost analysis, Cost Effectiveness analysis and Impact analysis.

Planning Sectors

• Economic Sector- Ensures economy is in sound state.
• Physical Sector-lays down the physical base of social and economic development of the area and provide infrastructure support.
• Institutional Sector - Focuses on strengthening the capability of bureaucracy and elective officials.
• Environmental Sector – Maintaining cleanliness of air, water and land resources.

Topic 5: Historical Overview and Influences

• History of Planning; The Ancient World, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Period, and Industrial Revolution

The Ancient World

• Construction of first cities, and Cities served as fortress and market place.
• The Ancient World (2000 BC) Babylon had temple and tower at the center led to growth of Cities

Egyptian and Greece

• (400 BC) Flooding and controlled irrigation
• (500-400 BC) Hippodamus of Miletus; Greek Architect & father of town planning used Rectangular street system (gridiron pattern)
• Greek colonial town and city states; Miletus and Pirene developments included Acropolis, Agora, and Gridiron Pattern.

Ancient Rome

• (27BC to 324 AD) First city with a population of one million and Construction of eight storey buildings, and First example of zoning (Augustus imposed a 70-foot height limit).
• There was Recognition of town as a system of gridiron streets enclosed by a wall and Construction of huge monuments and public buildings-forum
• Reason for the Fall of the Empire Moral Decay and Sectorial strife
• .Church became the main administrative arm and Radiocentric pattern

Styles of Architecture

• Existence of 2 main architectural styles including Norman and Gothic style (15th-16th Century)
• Renaissance- Church became less dominant, redevelopment of central area in Italian cities, Creation of formal central squares.

Leon Battista Alberti, L'Enfant, And Wren

• Created ideal cities (star-shaped)
• Linked Settlements to transport
• Created design of straight boulevards and piazzas

John Gwynn

• Improved London and Westminster and The Building Act of 1774 improved the standard of materials and workmanship

Modern influences

• Soria y Mata-Spanish Engineer; Linear City and Utility line should be the basis of all city lay-out
• Tony Garnier- separation of spaces by zoning
• Rober Owen- Village of Unity and Silent Monitor System to determine the daily behavior of workers
• Baron Haussman- design network of large avenues and railway stations
• Ebenezer Howard Concept of Social City - a polycentric settlement surrounded by a greenbelt

Daniel Burnham and Mumford

• Leading proponent of the City of Beautiful Movement and a city beautiful advocate was Mumford.
• Advocated for a planned city that considered people and relationships

Charles-Edouard jeanneret

• Had a concept of la Ville Contemporaine.
• A city with skyscrapers and open, park-like green spaces.

Town and Country Planning Act of 1947

• Made land development required permission.
• Method of Planning.

Historical account of planning in the Philippines

• Pre-Spanish Period Had No planning school and were Coastal communities
• Spanish Period Had Still no planning school however designated a design: plaza and complex
• American Era (1898-1935) Still no planning school but American Planer: Daniel Burnham design: Radial Road and parks
• Since the Ramos Regime (1992-1998) local planners and Filipino Architect began to appear and have influence