Others form due to physical restrictions, such as coastlines, mountains, hills or valleys.
Later development may add side turnings and districts away from the original main street.
A linear settlement is in contrast with ribbon development, which is the outward spread of an existing town along a main street, and with a nucleated settlement, which is a group of buildings clustered around a central point.
Sułoszowa, Poland, is notable for its 9 km long, single main street and its thin strips of farm land, inhabited by 6000 people.
[4] Such designs have been criticized as expressing a simplistic understanding of the process of urban growth and ignoring the human factor in design, resulting in inefficiency and limited growth potential.