Why do people continue to live in rural areas despite the disadvantages?
The world is becoming increasingly urban. Two years ago, 54% of the world’s population lived in urban areas, and that number is set to increase by another 12% by the year 2050. Benefits of living in an urban area are extremely clear: Easy access to public and essential amenities, increased connectivity (who doesn’t enjoy free WiFi?) and a perceived increase in the quality of life from all these factors.
To answer this question, we first need to understand what a “rural” society means. Rural societies are difficult to distinguish from other types of societies because of blurring boundaries and definitions, but it is a fact that most rural areas are defined by a small population and a large plot of land, and whose main industry is primary in nature. This includes farming, rearing of animals and mining, among many others.
Rural societies in the past were perceived to be vastly different from urban societies, as listed in the 1984 book The Geography of Natural Resources – traditional rural societies were perceived to have closer-knit communities, increased homogeneity in social traits and classes, and a less-mobile society both spatially and socially. However, rural areas are starting to change even in character, mostly for the worse.
So what do rural societies lose out on?
Being dynamic spatial landscapes, the economy of rural areas are no longer dominated by farmers and landowners as seen in the past. SMEs and new employers are now moving towards the countryside, and this has caused the rural landscape to evolve into a multi-faceted, complex-use resource. Taking farming in the UK for example, although farming takes up nearly 73% of the UK’s total land area, less than 2% are now employed in agriculture. See the stark contrast? Even in the extremely rural regions of the once EU-dominated lands, agriculture does not even account for 15% of the counties’ local economies. Even if diversification of economy occurs (e.g. a farmer starts selling machines to help other farmers), over-supply might occur and this vicious cycle of decline might just continue.
Transport is another huge problem. Many rural areas are dominated by vast expanses of greenery and long trunk roads. With long roads and little human traffic it makes little sense for licensed traffic operators to take up these routes. Who would want to operate a bus service taken by nobody? This also translates to issues about safety. Rural areas in China have repeatedly encountered problems with unlicensed buses, endangering schoolchildren and commuters to and from the cities.
Just two of the problems encountered by rural areas seem huge enough to turn anyone off just by reading this post, no? There’s more. Rural depopulation caused by rural-urban migration of young adults in search of better opportunities indirectly cause key provisions to be reduced or cut. (P. Guinness, and G. Nagle. Advanced Geography: Concepts and Cases. Hodder Education, 1999) It basically means that fewer people will play kancolle because there are fewer people LEFT to play kancolle (good reference, huh). The village of Wrotham, Kent, for example, lost the greatest number of essential services and became virtually the most excluded community in southwestern UK since 2004. What gives?
So why would anyone want to live in such places?
If there’s one thing we Singaporeans like complaining about, it’s transport. Congestion is a major problem in urban areas. Sadly, not all urban areas are as small as our home. Cairo was ranked as the world’s second most congested city after Dubai in 2007, with a daily average commute time of 1 hour and 33 minutes. Heck, I could get to Parkway and back 6 times in that timespan. With transport comes major air and noise pollution, and from there you can see why people move out. Kinda’ makes you feel like moving to Pulau Ubin, no?
Life in a city is harsh, and we already experience that in Singapore. Land-use zoning applied to the property markets disrupt free-market mechanisms that govern them, and bid-rent theory explains how this competition for land leads to the above effect. Say I wished to build a shrine dedicated to Shimakaze in the city center. Now, with the high amounts of human traffic and establishments nearby, rent’s going to be astronomical. With competition from all other interested parties for that particular land parcel, I would simply be outclassed by all other potential developers who are willing to pay higher rent for the space. That’s why CBDs exist, and why most of the buildings are owned by MNCs and other wealthy organisations.
This leads to zoning, as mentioned earlier. The majority of a nation’s economic functions are now focused in the city proper, followed by manufacturing and residential functions, usually spread in a radial fashion from the CBD. It’s too expensive to live in the city! Remember, not all cities are like Singapore. This leads to my next point.
The concept of decentralisation is not a new one – that is, people are now willing to be “decentralised” from their workplaces and are willing to live further from city centres. Reasons for moving far away are diverse, from relaxing due to impending retirement or moving back to one’s hometown.
Not just that, services have begun to move out, too! Areas that act as boundaries between rural and urban areas, termed rural-urban fringes, have multiple establishments that allow developments to take place for the urbanites. Examples include the Bluewater Shopping Centre in Greenhithe, Kent, which is located out of the city but right beside the M25 orbital expressway. Services are now out of the city, which means increased accessibility to everyone in rural areas – if they own a car. Unfortunately, this applies to those who move from the city to rural areas – the original poor population still suffers.
We’ve talked so much about why people leave the urban for the rural. Why do rural people stay?
As said earlier, people in rural areas have no means to get themselves and their produce out – if they have no car. However, that’s not the case for most of the rural population. They have to get their goods to the city for export and sale, no? In recent years governments around the world are expanding road networks to reach out to even the most rural of areas. The Trans-African road network, for example, has been expanding rapidly in recent years. A valuable traffic corridor totalling 2,900 kilometres now connect the 5 East African countries of Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya, allowing agricultural goods to be transported easily cross-border. This makes living a lot easier without having to move into the city.
As the world becomes more globalised and connected, some rural societies prefer to remain distant and untouched by modern civilisation. An example of this would be Mongolia, where apart from areas close to the capital of Ulaanbaatar, interaction with the outside world has been very limited. A majority of the rural population live as herders, and forge close-knit communities with strong emphasis on local customs and little material possessions. People who leave these rural areas in search of opportunities in Ulaanbaatar are instead greeted by impoverished conditions due to overcrowding, making them better off in the countryside instead (such is the urbanisation of poverty).
On the issue of overcrowding, slums and squatters have long been the plague of major cities around the world. Sao Paulo, for example, has developed favelas – areas of squatter settlements that fringe the city. According to the HDI reports in 2002, Sao Paulo’s poorest district, Marsilac, was worse off than even Sierra Leone, the world’s poorest country. I’m sure it hasn’t improved much since then. It’s not just in Sao Paolo, either. India’s Dharavi is a slum district that’s in Mumbai, and is the largest slum in the world, coupled with lackluster living conditions and poverty. (Remember Slumdog Millionaire?) Heck, 32% of the world’s urban population live in slums. Who says that urban environments don’t have severe disadvantages?
And that’s why we should all become farmers and live in the countryside. Without all this congestion, overcrowding and drama, life seems so much better. Only if we can tolerate living without technology, that is.
This isn’t an academic essay, so obviously no citations are present and all that. However, there’re a few resources I learnt a lot from in the process of writing this. Feel free to have a look!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/world/06/dharavi_slum/html/dharavi_slum_intro.stm
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2013-02/26/content_16259299.htm
http://www.geocases.co.uk/sample/urban3.htm
http://global.britannica.com/topic/rural-society
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/world-urbanization-prospects-2014.html
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2011/jun/30/uk-population-mapped
And also my trusty “A” Level notes, the wonderful Atlas by Raymond and Wong, and the Geography textbook by Nagle and Guiness. (I love the book so much I haven’t even touched the free CD that came with it).
THE RABBIT HATCH. 