RURAL URBAN TERMS

This page last updated July 2008 and now ARCHIVED.

Great book for this unit..

There are a range of interesting issues relating to the changing nature of the world: from one that is predominantly rural to one that is increasingly urbanised (even in areas which used to be 'green and pleasant land'. There's a Yorkshire saying to use when looking out across a broad industrialised vista: "it were all fields round here when I was a lad!" - and now I'm reaching 'that certain age" it's actually true. Live in any place for more than a few years and you'll notice green patches disappearing. When I moved into my current house I could see no other houses from certain windows, now each one has new brick and tile blots....

Do you know what the following issues relate to ?

• Urban agglomerations
• Rural urban fringe
• New Towns
• Satellite towns
• Rurban areas

Three great forces have been responsible for the growth of cities in the 20th Century:

• Industrialisation & De-industrialisation (Industrial Revolution)
• Transportation Revolution
• Telecommunications Revolution

Cloke's model (1979) - "index of rurality" - this is useful in this area...

4 zones as one moves away from a large city centre. Each zone becomes steadily less urban and more rural.

A newspaper article ('The Times' - 09/07/05) looked at the phenomenon of people moving from urban areas to rural areas, associated with 'downsizing'... The writer: Tom Hodgkinson, followed the lead of Hugh F-W, and moved to Devon. At the end of the article were a set of useful statistics, some of which I have presented for you below. Some of these would be useful background to use in an essay on this theme.

• In the past 4 years, over 350 000 people more people have moved into rural areas than have left them (this is a reversal of a trend which still blights many of the more rural areas of the country)
• Life expectancy is 1.4 years longer for children who live in rural areas, and contact with farm animals apparently reduces the risk of them developing asthma. They are also less likely to have used class-A drugs. There are some drugs 'hotspots' in rural areas, however, with Spalding and Boston (just up the A17 from where I live) having high levels of drug-related deaths in 2004
• Fertility rate is higher for women aged 15-44 who live in rural areas
• Access to a GP can be difficult in some rural areas, and there are difficulties with recruitment to rural surgeries.
• There has been a dramatic rise in the level of homelessness in rural areas.

Another recent article ('The Guardian', 19/05/07) by David Orr of the National Housing Federation explored where houses should be built, and was a response to an article by Simon Jenkins, who suggested that new housing demand could be met by building in cities, with no need for out of town developments.

David Orr made a few key points arguing that was not possible:

• There are 225 000 more households to be accommodated, but this total increases all the time

• There are 1.6 million households on affordable housing waiting lists

• There is insufficient land in cities

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