Hello, I wrote an answer a little while ago here that dealt with the process by which Anglo-Saxon burhs developed - or didn't - into towns or cities, and another here which dealt with the colonisation of the post-1066 Anglo-Welsh frontier, and how a new landowner might populate his holdings. I think that the second one in particular might be useful.

The long and short of it is that, by the 11th century, you don't really tend to get new settlements outside of frontier areas, although you do see the resettlement of devastated areas. As the distribution of settlements in Domesday shows, by the eleventh century - and probably before that - the vast majority of useful land had long been inhabited. Even in areas of relatively low population density, like the West Midlands, tend to have the same number of villages, they just tend to be smaller.

This isn't to say that you don't get new settlements, of course! The prime location for new settlements is in border regions, as discussed heavily by Davies with regards to the Welsh Marches in particular. We can see both new towns and villages emerge in particular in the late 9th and early 10th centuries as the Cerdicing dynasty fortify the Danelaw border and then expand and unify England. I discussed in my first linked answer the process by which many proto-towns were established: those burhs which weren't already major settlements but developed an urban function did so largely as a result of conscious planning. Established by royal decree at focal travel nexi, burhs either accreted populations as a result of their specific function - Stafford required butchers, bakers and potters for example - or were mandated as the hubs of a vast array of civil functions which accompanied the expansion of royal authority from the 870s onwards. As well as places of safety, Burhs became centres of moneying - and as a result of metal craft - of trade and commerce, of the Church, and of civil legal offices. This didn't mean that they instantly garnered a significant urban population, but that the framework was laid for urban development.

Villages were established often as a result of a nearby Burh in order to lay greater claim to a territory. As we can see from the case of Stanton in Derbyshire, land was sometimes granted specifically for this purpose. A charter of Æthelflæd grants Stanton, likely in the hope that it would develop into a hinterland for the new Burh at Stafford. The Cheshire plain sees rapid colonisation following the re-establishment of the Roman defences of the city by Æthelflæd's army in 907. The phenomenon is seen throughout the Welsh Marches in the late 11th and 12th centuries as Anglo-Norman castles are established as well. As Davies discusses, this wasn't necessarily a formal procedure that had to be officially instigated: nobles seeking to claim territory would be often accompanied by retinues of soldiers, mercenaries, freemen and more adventurous tenants who sought the opportunity - and greater land rights - that a new frontier settlement would bring. Quite often, these settlements would show up organically in the wake of a castle's founding as its security and status attracted adventurous tenants.

One very noteworthy exception is the city of Carlisle, which grows incredibly quickly in the 12th Century from quite literally nothing, following the establishment of a royal hunting lodge in 1092. A good account can be found in Blanchard's Lothian and Beyond. Shortly after the establishment of the royal lodge, Carlisle was found to be an incredibly rich source of silver and grew rapidly into a massive boomtown that became the lynchpin of the North English economy. For the brief period during The Anarchy that it fell under Scottish control, its silver trade paid for the construction of several Scottish castles and monasteries. The extensive silver mines attracted an array of traders from across England, Scotland, Ireland and the Low Countries, and what had been a small mining camp rapidly becomes a thriving trading centre with a large Flemish quarter and several religious communities. The need to protect this new prosperity meant the construction of a large castle by the mid-12th century, while the town's extensive walls were completed while under Scottish tenure. By the Anglo-Scottish wars of 1173 and 1174, Carlisle had, according to Jordan de Fantosme, some of the grandest and most spectacular fortifications in all of North England and Scotland.