6.1 Changes in rural settlements Flashcards
Why is depopulation a contemporary issue in rural areas?
- caused by migration from rural areas to urban areas: rural flight
- often occurs following mechanisation of agricultural processes, results in fewer people needed to produce and process crops/animals
- impact of this out migration thus population decline, leads to loss of rural services, e.g healthcare
- may lead to even greater loss of population as more people migrate to obtain access to services
- small, labour-intensive, often subsistence family farms often replace by much larger heavily mechanised/specialised industrial farms
What are the contemporary issues in rural areas?
depopulation
service provision
civil war and gov corruption
health care
school provision
How is service provision an issue in rural areas in LICS and MICS?
- high levels of unemployment/underemployment, employment is often in informal sector in agriculture and may only be for seasonal work
- population growth in rural areas leads to increased demand for food/services and may lead to shortages of agricultural land
- rural-urban migration may leas to rural depopulation as younger people leave to work in urban areas and lead to decline in rural workforce
- low capital investment in rural areas of MICs and LICs may mean output of farms remains low due to lack of fertilisers
Why is civil war/gov corruption an issue in rural areas?
- when people forced to leave their homes in rural areas, food production badly affected
- government corrupt officials may divert gov/international funds into their own accounts to the detriment of rural development programmes
- very evident in lack of provision of services/infrastructure in rural areas:
- often lack of clean water resulting in high incidences of disease, e.g diarrhoea
- electricity networks may be limited
- sealed, tarred roads may not extend to rural areas, making transport communication difficult, so farmers cannot sell their food surpluses easily in urban areas
Why is service provision an issue in rural areas?
- in many rural areas, consolidation of agricultural processing industries has meant that there are fewer agriculture service/processing businesses which has reduced demand for labour
- now rural areas often cannot provide enough employment opportunities for young people
- situation made worse by decrease in services, e.g schools that come with population decline
- social service system of rural areas is stretched further with fewer resources due to attempts to cater for increasing age population
in UK:
- fewer post offices in rural settlements as more transaction one online/cash from ATMs
- contraction of public transport services, e.g buses, closure of village shops due to increased use of supermarkets in nearby towns
- lack of high speed broadband/poor mobile phone reception in many rural areas discourage businesses
Why is healthcare an issue in rural areas?
- high incidences of disease can have debilitating effect on rural workforce
- every year, 3.2 billion people at risk of malaria, leads to about 198 million malaria cases and estimated 584,000 malaria deaths
- people in MICs and LICs most vulnerable
- malaria commonly associated with poverty and is a major hindrance to increased food production
- can trap rural families/communities into poverty , as affects them most as cannot afford treatment/limited access to healthcare
Why is school provision an issue in rural areas?
- access to schools in remote rural areas may be inadequate/lacking completely, especially secondary education
- more than 57 million children around the world do not go to primary school
- without good education, less likely to get a job/look after families in future
- extra year of schooling can lift countrys yearly economic growth by 1% and this is particularly effective in rural populations
What are the effects in Bromham due to population growth?
Social:
- The erosion of the community spirit is due to the influx of people into the area, and so this has resulted in a large, more dispersed village, rather than a close-knit community.
- the decline in public transport is due to many migrants moving into the Bromham area having families with young children and teenagers. This has resulted in high car ownership in the area,
Environmental:
- the spoiled appearance of the old rural village centre, because the construction of ‘new build’ housing in the area is a stark contrast to that of the more traditional housing
-** increased car usage** has resulted in higher levels of traffic congestion, and so increased levels of pollution.
- This is because people are now forced to travel to neighbouring towns to access services such as schools and hospitals.
- many people leave the village each day to work in nearby towns/cities such as London, Bedford, and Cambridge
Economic:
- closure of many local shops, such as butchers.
- decline in these shops is due to the competition of supermarkets,
- Also, it is convenient for the car-owning newcomers to shop on their way home from work, and so there is reduced consumption within Bromham itself.
- Less money is being injected into the Bromham community, as many of the newcomers work elsewhere and have family and friends elsewhere as well.
- This results in them travelling to other places frequently and so spending most of their time/money elsewhere.
- In the future, this is likely to further increase as the younger children begin to grow and wish to travel more elsewhere for things such as shopping and education.
What have been the responses to issues in bromham (and how effective are they)?
Social issues:
- to help ease the demand for local services such as doctors, a new doctor’s surgery is to be built in the neighbouring village of Biddenham to serve the local community. However, the new doctor’s surgery was taken on by a doctor from Bedford relocating to Biddenham meaning that all the doctor’s previous patients have transferred to the new one. This has resulted in the surgery already being full before opening and so will not really help to ease the pressure in Bromham.
- To help deal with the stress on the roads due to increased car ownership a new A6 bypass was built in 2014-2015 to ease the traffic to Bedford on Bromham road. However, since then four new build areas have been built between Bromham and Bedford. This has added even more traffic to this road, meaning it is now struggling to cope, making this response less effective.
- In addition, in 2018 the roundabout near BMS and on the A6 was changed to aid traffic flow. Although, this strategy has worked to a certain extent, at times of peak traffic such as school pick up/drop off there are still queues of a reasonable length.
- To help tackle the issue of a lack of school places for the large influx of children into Bromham, Bromham primary school was increased to three form entry, from a previous two form entry and more classrooms have been built. However, the school is populated by many children from new build estates in neighbouring Biddenham and Great Denham. These people must drive to school and so this results in more congestion and increased danger at school pick up/drop off times. This reduces the effectiveness of this response.
Environmental:
- creation of new services such as new doctors’ surgery, which will help to reduce the need for people to travel elsewhere to neighbouring towns and cities.
- result in a reduction in traffic flow, not really helped the situation as there are too many patients for the surgery meaning some people are still forced to go elsewhere, making it less effective.
Economic:
- to help tackle the lack of money in the village is the creation of many popular restaurants in the village, such as the Swan.
- helps to attract people into the village and so results in them spending money elsewhere in other shops in the village, as well.
- However, these only tend to attract customers in the evenings or at the weekends, meaning there is still a considerable amount of time in the day where there is a lack of customers.
