Ekistics is the science of human settlements including regional, city, community planning and dwelling design. Its major incentive was the emergence of increasingly large and complex conurbations, tending even to a worldwide city. The study involves every kind of human settlement, with particular attention to geography, ecology, human psychology, anthropology, culture, politics, and occasionally aesthetics. As a scientific mode of study, ekistics currently relies on statistics and description, organized in five ekistic elements or principles: nature, anthropos, society, shells, and networks. It is generally a more scientific field than urban planning, and has considerable overlap with some of the less restrained fields of architectural theory. In application, conclusions are drawn aimed at achieving harmony between the inhabitants of a settlement and their physical and socio-cultural environments. Etymology The term ekistics was coined by Constantinos Apostolos Doxiadis in 1942. The word is derived from the Greek adjective more particularly from the neuter plural . The ancient Greek adjective meant . It was derived from (), an ancient Greek noun meaning . This may be regarded as deriving indirectly from another ancient Greek noun, (), meaning , and especially (used by Plato), or . All these words grew from the verb (), , and were ultimately derived from the noun (), . The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary contains a reference to an ecist, oekist or oikist, defining him as: "the founder of an ancient Greek ... colony". The English equivalent of oikistikē is ekistics (a noun). In addition, the adjectives ekistic and ekistical, the adverb ekistically, and the noun ekistician are now also in current use. Scope In terms of outdoor recreation, the term ekistic relationship is used to describe one's relationship with the natural world and how they view the resources within it. The notion of ekistics implies that understanding the interaction between and within human groups—infrastructure, agriculture, shelter, function (job)—in conjunction with their environment directly affects their well-being (individual and collective). The subject begins to elucidate the ways in which collective settlements form and how they inter-relate. By doing so, humans begin to understand how they 'fit' into a species, i.e. Homo sapiens, and how Homo sapiens 'should' be living in order to manifest our potential—at least as far as this species is concerned (as the text stands now). Ekistics in some cases argues that in order for human settlements to expand efficiently and economically we must reorganize the way