Unusual Settlements

 Palm Jumeirah, Dubai

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The Palm Jumeirah are artificial archipelago created using land reclamation by Nakheel, a company owned by the Dubai government in United Arab Emirates.The Palm Jumeirah is in the shape of a palm tree. It consists of a trunk, a crown with 16 fronds, and a surrounding crescent island that forms an 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) long breakwater. 

Houses at Palm Jumeirah

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The island is home to some of the most luxurious hotels in the entire world. Central to the Palm's design, the luggage holds a two-kilometre debase of bustling residential, tourism and retail areas. Over 4000 residents currently call the Palm Jumeirah their home and some properties are already on the resale mart from those who bought villas and apartments as investments. Since the concept is acquirable on a freehold basis, the Palm Jumeirah is home to a large number of Western and European expatriates.





Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria

Boat houses in Lagos

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A general view of houses built in Makoko slums in Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria. Houses in this slum are built on top of the sea using wood and iron sheets. The slum is inhibited mostly by immigrants from the neighbouring countries such as Ghana and Benin.

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The mode of movement is mainly by use of boats and canoes, while fishing is the main economic activity that takes place here, afew kilometres from the City centre in Lagos.

Supurb of Copenhagen, Danmark

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To combine management of the available space with security and comfort, the building plots at Brøndby, on Copenhagen’s southwestern fringe, are arranged in perfect circles, in which each holder has a lot of 4,305 square feet (400 m2). This type of residential district, which is highly practical, is increasingly common on the outskirts of large cities where there are many jobs.  The growth of industry, the attraction exerted by cities, and the expansion of large metroplexes have led to a 13% increase in the world’s city-dwellers — a trend that is continuing.  

City of the Dead, Cairo, Egypt

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The City of the Dead, or Cairo Necropolis, is an Arabic necropolis and cemetery below the Mokattam Hills in southeastern Cairo, Egypt.It is a 4 miles (6 km) long (north-south) dense grid of tomb and mausoleum structures, where some people live and work amongst the dead. Some reside here to be near ancestors, of recent to ancient lineage. Some live here after being forced from central Cairo due to urban renewal demolitions and urbanization pressures, that increased from the Nasser 1950s on.

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The City of the Dead provides shelter for hundreds of thousands of poor residents. Families make their homes in and among tombs and gravesites.


Outskirts of Denver, USA

These winding streets of identical houses do nothing to break up the monotony of the asphalt.  The outskirts of Denver are a good example of the runaway sprawl of suburbs in North America.  This phenomenon was triggered by postwar economic growth, which encouraged private home ownership and stimulated investment in roads.  Since then, the number of people living in such areas has relentlessly grown - by 12% between 1990 and 1998 - at the expense of the growth of city centres, at a rate of 4.7% over the same period.  These networks of low-density suburbs make their residents totally dependent on their cars, one of the chief sources of greenhouse gases.

Coober Pedy, South Australia

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Coober Pedy is a town in northern South Australia, 846 kilometres north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. At the 2006 census its population was 1,916 (1,084 males, 832 females, including 268 indigenous Australians). The town is known as the opal capital of the world because of the quantity of precious opals that are mined there.

Subterranean hall of the St Peter and Paul Catholic Church - one of five underground churches in the outback town of Coober Pedy
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Coober Pedy residents choose to live underground to escape the brutal daytime desert heat of the world above ground. Most locals choose to live in “dugouts,” or underground homes literally dug out of the landscape with picks and shovels. Digging out an underground home in the town costs about the same as building an above-ground one, though since the town is known as the opal capital of the world there have been plenty of reports of diggers paying for the entire cost of their new home with opals they find during the digging process.

Village on stilts, Tongkil, Philippines

Village on stilts in Tongkil, Samales Islands, Philippines. The southern Philippines, and in particular the Sulu Archipelago that includes the Samales Islands, is home to the Badjaos. The Badjaos belong to a Muslim minority who make up 5 percent of the Philippine population and are concentrated mostly in the south of the country. Known as "sea gypsies", they fish and harvest shellfish and pearl oysters, and they live in villages on stilts. A channel carved out of the coral reef allows them to reach the open sea.

Mont Saint-Michel, France

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Mont Saint-Michel is a rocky tidal island and a commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometre (just over half a mile) off the country's north coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches. The population of the island is 41, as of 2006.

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The mount is best known for the medieval Benedictine Abbey and steepled church that occupies most of the 1km-diameter clump of rocks jutting out of the waters of the English Channel.

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