Factors affecting the community’s shape, layout, and density
The configuration of a community is the result of many interacting factors, both living and non-living factors, culture, and by events that happened during its history. For instance, the climate patterns of where people live, the geography of the location of a community’s residence affect the layout and density of a population. Besides geographical factors, social, political, demographic, and historical factors play a significant role in shaping a community. While some researchers attach more significance to natural factors, (Garcia, 2016), argue that cultural factors play a vital role in determining the shape and structure of a community. Culture is defined as the sum total of all-learned knowledge and behavior passed from one generation to the next in a particular society. Culture affects the kinship system, architectural styles, literature, customs, rituals and beliefs, culinary styles, clothing styles, art, music, and political structure. For instance, beliefs that men should be strong and not show weakness by accessing medical care will affect the shape and layout of a community by the number of women being more than men.
Geographical factors, including terrain, often determine the density of a community. The terrain is a potent factor that affects population density. Usually, mountain areas do not encourage human settlements because high altitude areas are extremely cold. While on the steep slopes of mountains, limited availability of land restricts economic activities such as agriculture, development of transport, and industries. While plain areas encourage high population, thus high density, climate is as significant as the terrain in influencing population density. Extremes of climate discourage human settlements while moderate climate encourages human settlements. Presence of transport services and industries favours population growth, thus, high population density in areas where such services are available. Also, urbanization affects population density. All urban centres have high numbers of residents compared to rural areas.
Development trends in Ellicott City
The historic Ellicott City, a city in Maryland that is surrounded by granite and is located at a valley next to Patapsco River. Its location once made this city a prosperous milling town. However, its natural geological conditions and developments coupled with stormwater that was not adequately managed have made the city’s natural site to deteriorate.
Ellicott City is one of the cities in Maryland that has undeveloped land, whose five per cent of land is under development, and one per cent is undeveloped (Lim, 2017). There has been a decrease in the size of undeveloped land because individuals purchase those lands and make them productive. This is by building houses through the planned unit development. For instance, currently, there is a capacity of 141,000 more housing units, which is an escalation from 107,000 units in 2010. This has been achieved through established zoning, and land preservation aims being met. Currently, there is undeveloped land in Old Annapolis Road, which is 1.15 acres, mesial farm lane is also undeveloped and is about 2.44 acres vast, while church lane road is approximately two acres. The old Fredric road has undeveloped land measuring 4.74 acres while Montgomery road has undeveloped land which is 8.70 acres large. Built homes classically receive one offer, and homes sell at approximately two per cent below the listed price and go pending for around 49 years. Hot homes, however, sale for almost the listed price, and go pending for seventeen days, which is competitive. Generally, house demand is seventy per cent competitive. Despite the expansion of real estate, however, Ellicott City’s boundaries have not stretched outwards. It, however, appears that there is an oversupply of housing due to the number of days houses on sale stay pending for up to 49 days.
References
Garcia, J. A. (2016). Latino politics in America: Community, culture, and interests. Rowman & Littlefield.
Lim, T. C. (2017). Land, Water, Infrastructure And People: Considerations Of Planning For Distributed Stormwater Management Systems.