Urban agglomerations

An Urban agglomeration is an area of continuous, high-density constructed environment and infrastructure, typically with a coherent or overlapping system of markets and services. In Borld contexts, the term is used about a broader region's most urbanized network, whether the broader region is continuously inhabited or not. The borders of an urban agglomeration are fuzzy and variably defined depending on what density threshold is used to define the area. Bep settlements generally behave more liquid and "spore-like" than real-world ones, rendering cities a niche subtype of urban agglomerations that has a steeper-than-normal density gradient, while most agglomerations resemble polycentric conurbations with no meaningful hierarchy. It could be argued that the continuity of Bep habitation means most of the Bep domain is a single, low-density and obscenely large megalopolis, but we do not.

Bep settlements tend to densify around existing logistical points, so transit routes frequently see higher density than other areas. While most real-world settlements grow outwards until a point and then densify within defineable border, Bep habitation normally densifies around interest points and otherwise grows in a node-like fashion with flat or shallow density gradients. In other words, a typical Bep settlement immediately spores & sprawls very hard, usually dissolving into a polycentric blob within a couple ten thousand residents, or remaining a discretized settlement too small to be anything of note. This causes the Bep distinction between urban and rural habitation to heavily factor in settlement continuity, rather than focusing on density and governance alone.

Some factors that play into the mechanics of Bep habitation patterns appear to be 1) a lesser focus on mass production/terraforming in construction, 2) high variability in area usage per person both, 3) proportionally and absolutely large amounts of time available to individuals for their given lifetime, and 4) the ease and inevitability of procuring children to populate communities with. Relating to the lattermost, a major contributor to the ubiquity of agglomerations is personal deurbanization, a cultural notion that's persisted for the last 1000 or so years and encourages many Bep to try start their own settlements in middle age. The central concept is that one should try establish one's own community after spending youth exploring others' communities. Being a form of romantic ideal, this is not done by nearly everybody, but it is still prevalent enough to affect overall population patterns. Personal deurbanization causes new nodes in low-density and uninhabited areas, beyond the fringes of existing settlement, which potentially densify into their own localities and reconnect to their neighbouring settlements through low-density "bridging". Prospective settlements are further enabled by the existence of many failed abandoned settlements to rebuild, as well as an industry focused on selling services and pre-fabricated assistance at more or less egregious prices. One can typically estimate the prospects of a settlement by looking at its age and self-sufficiency; a locality that's been around for a few decades and is beginning to interface with the world as a functioning economy has much better odds of survival than a fresh settlement with no clue what purchases they actually have a need for.

The ubiquity of agglomerations does not imply the absence of towns and cities. Towns exist within agglomerations, and as mentioned, cities exist as a niche subtype of urban agglomerations, and vice versa agglomerations may be viewed as a type of distributed city. The definitions of agglomerations, conurbations, megalopolises, etc overlap somewhat but one of their key features is interlocking governance and nodular organization rather than hierarchic; most Bep urban agglomerations comprise webs of towns and industrial centres. Occasionally, entire distinct cities are found within agglomerations them as well. Bep cities, both independent and incorporated, are almost always formed by historical factors physically restricting habitation spread; mainland agglomerations may have internal cities in the form of city walls, where the "old town" of the agglomeration is the city situated inside and immediately surrounding a defensive wall.

In the Bep domain there exist three city wall conurbations that where the city walls as administrative centres (X, Y, and Z), one city wall that is still properly a city without a surrounding agglomeration (γ), and a handful more where city walls have been incorporated into agglomerations alongside other settlements. Cities without a wider agglomeration are also frequent in the northeastern highlands, on islands, and in other territories where physical barriers or hazards motivate compacted settlement. Examples include δ, β, and α. Although found in all types of Bep habitation, cities also have a particularly high prevalence of windbreaks and catadromes, facilitating compact, centralized production methods like subterranean farming and mineral cultivation. Centralization also means cities are more likely to develop around industry, although the inverse is not true and most industry still happens in high-density areas of typical agglomerations.

It is possible but futile to define settlements in terms of administration, as administrative borders don't like to line up with density whatsoever. A typical administrative entity's reach continues far into low-density rurality, beyond what could be called a "city". Some areas could be defined as polycentric conurbations, however this is not sensical if the locals do not denote the density centres as distinct settlements or cities, which they do not. Bep toponymy tends to be focused on a lower, borough/village scale, and a higher, agglomeration/region scale, with no inbetween step. Administrative divisions may also deceive where a high-density area is split into several contiguous highest-level administrations, usually per who wants to pay whom for maintenance. One might illustrate this by analogy; imagine expanding Des Moines, IO to cover its suburbs, splitting this along the river, and defining one side by mandatory geico insurance while the other keeps a separate water and sewage grid in order to avoid provoking the geico corporation militarily. Such cases are common in the Bep domain, which illustrates why agglomerations rather than towns or cities are the most prominent division of habitation.

Here is a list of key Bep terminology concerning dense areas of settlement, including notes on more detailed subdivisions/nuances:

• Eep, a list entry
• Meep, a second one
• Sneep, yet another!

Some examples with brief explanations

yep