IGCSE Geography Case Studies

SETTLEMENT

Case Study 1 (El Salvador)-difference of housing

• The capital of El Salvador, San Salvador where you find people living in informal housing just a couple of metres between people in luxury detached houses.
• Santa Elena is part of San Salvador, where the wealthy locate and it is also where the US embassy is located:
• You find large houses out of permanent building material such as brick.
• Large gardens and private car garages.
• Modern Amenities such as an indoor toilet, working electricity and running water.
• Well maintained features of the house.
• Many even contain high technology luxury features such as swimming pools, air conditioning and games rooms.
• Permanent tarmac roads with gates and driveways.
• Many luxury services such as restaurants, hotels and supermarkets.
• On the other hand:
• A few metres down the road in between the Pan-american highway, you find informal housing known as "champas."
• The housing is on marginal land, near a polluted river and squashed between the country's busiest road, characteristics of houses inlcude:
• Housing is temporary and made out of scrap material such as plastic, corrugated steel and wood.
• Houses are very small often with only one room where the family eats, sleeps and lives.
• No inside toilets and no running water. The area is open to the sewers and open fires causing health risks.
• There are no proper roads just made tracks which makes rubbish collecting very difficult.
• Land is marginal and vulnurable to hazards such as flooding and landslides.
• Limited local facilites and services except for small tiendas.
• High crime rates, high unemployement and poverty.

Case Study 2 (GATESHED)-rural shopping centres

• Gateshed is a large scale shopping centre on the A1 main road in Gateshed near Newcastle.
• Advantages of the site:
• Metro centre in Gateshed has about 1.3 million people living withing 30 minutes. It had been opened in 1986 and sold to Capital Shopping Centre for $500 million.
• Site chosen beacause it had been a relatively cheap area of land previously occupied by a marshland. It was a fairly flat area with room for expansion and was built on a designated enterprise zone so planning controls were more relaxed and was exempt from taxes.
• It is adjacent to the western by pass with 2 km of frontage with good transportation links ot the North East modern road network.
• Adjacent to main railway station, with its own railway.
• THE SCHEME:
• There is free parking for 100,000 spaces, special spaces for the disabled drivers, bus and rail stations and rail stations for rail motorist
• Inside the mall there are 400 shops and 40 eating places.
• It creates a very pleasant shopping env. , wide tree-lined malls with good ac,one kilometre of glazed roof to let natural light in, seating places, escalators and lifts for the disabled.
• Leisure had been a major part of the project with a ten screen cinema, a space city for computers, a covered fantasy land for children with children shops . A 150 room luxury hotel has been built on the premises…