Rural - KQ1 (characteristics) Flashcards
What is the population structure of rural areas?
- Aging population
- Young people forced to leave
- Lots of rural poverty but is scattered so overlooked
- In n. Norfolk = 7% between 21-39 and rest over 60
- Sparsely populated
What are housing characteristics of rural areas?
- Not enough affordable housing
- Council houses are being sold cheaply to residents
- People on salaries less than £20,000 cannot afford a £200,000 council house
What are the employment/income characteristics of rural areas?
- Only wealthy families and pensioners can afford housing
- People working in rural areas earn below average wages
- Limited employment in rural areas = mostly mechanisation and tourism
- Wealthy people almost always commute = turns into dormitory villages
- People on average wages cannot afford to live there
What are the services characteristics of rural areas?
- Significant lack of services
- Government cuts = fewer buses so people are stranded
- Most people are expected to have a car = expensive to take public transport
- Young people and old people who cannot drive are stranded
What are the transport/isolation characteristics of rural areas?
- Lack of services
- Most people only have few shops which they do not visit
- Need to travel far to access basic services
- For every ‘active’ village there is a deprived one
- Schools and work are far away so villages are dormitory during the day
- Online shopping is easier = less business for services
What are the community characteristics of rural areas?
- Made mostly of old people who moved there many years ago
- Second homes = less community
- Elderly are more ‘economically active’
- Polarization
- Good community for older people but not sustainable as they will get too old/die
- Need young people for schools and work
What are the three types of rural change?
- Rural growth
- Extreme rural decline
- Rural change
Describe rural growth
- Villages grow when population increases
- Growth depends on layout of settlement
- New settlements built due to pressure for housing = used to be linear but is new so nucleated
- Land available on periphery growth may be by accretion = adding on of new housing around its edge
- Case study = South Cambs (Cottenham and Cambourne)
Describe extreme rural decline
- Occurs where population decline sets in and may take a variety of forms from the loss of a few families and houses or total abandonment of a whole settlement
REASONS - Overworking of land/ soil erosion/ land degradation
- Economic changes = resources less needed
- Villages drowned to create reservoirs (early C20th)
- Decline of resources eg loss of mining villages (mid-C20th)
- Changes in attitudes and opportunities
Describe rural change
- Changes in work = decline in agriculture as more machines used and more fertilisers used
- Villages may be smaller with fewer services
- Increase in rural leisure and tourism = new jobs
- Improved transport and IT links and more private car ownership
- Second home/holiday home ownership has increased
- Case study = North Norfolk
What is a high order good?
COMPARISON = goods and services people buy ;ess but spend more on
- Bigger range (people will travel further to purchase/compare models of item)
What are low order goods?
CONVENIENCE = goods and services people buy frequently
- Smaller range (people wont travel as far)
What is a range?
The maximum distance people are willing to travel in order to purchase a good or use a service
What defines a rural area?
Population of less than 10,000 people
- Lower population density
What is a site?
The land where a settlement is built (eg in a valley, by a woodland, etc)
What is a situation?
The position of a settlement in relation to the surrounding physical/human landscape
What is morphology?
The shape of the new settlement (dispersed = random // nucleated = clustered)
