Communities and the Land

Residential patterns reflect a variety of topographic, economic, social, religious, and familial concerns. Some settlments grow up around churches or near the shared farms of family members. Villages often grow around some point of special interest such as a railroad siding or natural feature. Towns may grow around an industry or cluster of economic functions. Cities often grow around a combination of economic and municipal functions; in the rural counties of Tennessee, the larger towns or cities often are located in the center of the county and are the county seat. What is important in defining each community type is not an absolute number of residents but the functional pattern of their relationship to each other and the degree of complexity represented in that pattern. One measure of this complexity is the degree of anonymity afforded by the residential pattern: there is virtually no anonymity possible at the community, settlement, hamlet or village levels. Some anonymity is offered by larger towns; effective anonymity is found only in medium to larger cities.

Community

a small scale, uncentered residential pattern where people live near each other but where their houses are not generally visible to each other.

Settlement

a small-scale, but uncentered, local residential pattern on the land; in a settlement a few people live near each other--their houses are generally in sight of each other--but there is no local social focus such as a church or store; a dozen residences or less.

Hamlet

a small-scale, but centered local residential pattern on the land; hamlets differ from settlements in that a store, church, or school is present in addition to a small number of houses; about a dozen residences.

Village

a local residential pattern involving a dozen or more houses and multiple public social structures such as stores, churches, a school, and perhaps a meeting hall or recreational center; a volunteer fire department building may also be present; villages in the South generally number less than 500 people.

Town

a residential pattern considerably larger than a village involving many residences and multiple public structures such as stores, schools, churches, shops, clinics, local government offices, public water supply, sewerage treatment, trash disposal service, and emergency departments; usually more than 1500 people; towns are the first largest residential pattern capable of hiring employees; not usually larger than 10,000 people. Under normal municipal conditions towns are "incorporated;" Sewanee is a notable exception to the incorporation pattern.

Suburb

an auxiliary but contiguous residential area of a town or city; usually well defined in area and property value of residences; sometimes also known as a sub-division. Population may range from a few dozen to several hundred. Suburbs often exhibit the features of a rural-to-urban transition zone where clustered residences are located close by farms and barns. Franklin Hills is a good example of a rural-to-urban transition zone; developed from a working farm, it continues to be surrounded by farms.

Exurb

a non-contiguous economic or residential dependency of a town or city.

City

a large complex residential, commercial, and civic pattern involving multiple networks of residences, businesses, churches, schools, support services, manufacturing, and governmental agencies; usually more than 10,000 people.

Metro

a modern, large, complex city exercising governmental authority over a large area and population; generally the result of the consolidation of several older municipal authorities as a city grew to incorporate nearby neighborhoods, towns, and smaller cities; typically larger than 100,000 people.

Megacity

extremely large city complex involving millions of people and incorporating multiple city or metro centers; a megacity may extend over hundreds of miles.