The social integration of British home owners into French rural communities

Based upon a survey of recent British buyers of French rural property, this paper considers the attitudes of British permanent residents and British second home owners in France both towards host French communities and towards each other. In exploring the notion of integration, we examine the nature and extent of contacts between British and French populations at the local level and identify the principal barriers to assimilation. The division between those British nationals who seek to integrate and those who seek to maintain essentially British social networks is assessed as is the impact of British newcomers upon local French communities. We conclude by identifying major differences between the integration strategies of Britons in France and those employed by urban to rural migrants in Britain.     

Second home countryside. Representations of the rural in Finnish popular discourses

This paper focuses on the representation of post-productive countryside in Finland by exploring how the rural is presented in the context of second home tourism. Being an integral part of rural areas and their history, second homes are an established example of the post-productive consumption of countryside. The international and Finnish literature on rural images provides the theoretical framework for the paper. Research on rural visions has been active in recent years with an emphasis on the Anglocentric interpretations of the rural idyll. This paper contributes to this discussion by providing an empirical review of Finnish popular discourses of second homes. The review is based on an analysis of second-home owners' motives and media representations. The second home countryside is analysed as a farmscape, wildscape and activityscape. The results suggest that the Finnish second home landscape is seen as wilderness (1), life at second homes imitates visions of traditional rural life (2), and the environment is used for traditional consumptive and leisure activities (3).     

Rural Community and Rural Resilience: What is important to farmers in keeping their country towns alive?

Many studies have highlighted the phenomenon of rural decline in parts of the developed world, summarised as a loss in agricultural employment leading to a decline in the number and size of rural settlements. This study of small towns in part of Australia’s inland rural “heartland” employs the concepts of interactional rural community of place and rural resilience to identify how farmers perceive their interactions with their local town. This study suggests that robust levels of ongoing engagement between farmers and town communities are important in maintaining rural populations and services along with both a strong local economy and environment. Face-to-face interviews with 115 farmers in two rural regions of New South Wales, Australia, highlight the importance of the local economy and jobs, the quality of the local environment and a strong sense of belonging, in contributing to a strong sense of local community and potential for resilience.     

Gentrification and neo-rural populations in the Québec countryside: Representations of various actors

Rural gentrification, which is linked in particular to the migration and permanent settlement in the countryside of middle-class or affluent urbanites, is increasingly affecting contemporary rural communities. Despite the significance of this trend, the complex and many-sided phenomenon of rural gentrification has hardly been explored in scholarly research in Québec (Canada), in contrast to the abundant research that exists on this topic in the United Kingdom. Accordingly, the present article will explore different representations by and of the various actors involved vis-à-vis the emergence and polymorphous effects of the gentrification of two regional county municipalities (RCMs) in the province of Québec: Brome-Missisquoi and Arthabaska. Based on the results of qualitative interviews with the four types of actors (newcomers, long-time residents, directors of local and regional community organizations, and municipal officials), it shows the complexity of rural gentrification at various levels: 1) socio-demographically; 2) in terms of housing and economic impacts; 3) on the community and cultural levels; 4) on the physical, environmental and political levels. The findings demonstrate, among other things, the need to go further than simply portraying gentrifiers and, to this end, we have augmented our analysis with representations provided by other actors affected by rural gentrification. The article also stresses the importance of examining the overall effects of the phenomenon, both negative and positive, with a view to improving our understanding of it.     

Perceived density, social interaction and morale in New South Wales rural communities

This paper explores the relationships between population density, social interaction patterns, and morale in rural communities. It tests two apparently competing hypotheses concerning rural population density, social interaction patterns and overall levels of morale: one, that low (and rapidly declining) rural densities lead to feelings of isolation and low morale in response to contractions in local social interaction networks; or two, that communities facing the demographic scenario just provided might provide more social space for individuals to assume leadership roles, thereby developing their self-confidence. This situation could be expected to produce higher levels of morale and satisfaction with community life. Drawing upon quantitative and qualitative survey research conducted within the social catchment areas of three contrasting rural New South Wales (Australia) communities, the paper finds that some of the key hypotheses of ‘manning theory’ are confirmed: declining population densities can open up space for previously less self-confident individuals to assume important public roles. However, while overall levels of community morale are high across all three communities, regardless of population density, there is also obvious dissatisfaction in the community of greatest density decline with the declining local educational and economic opportunities, and the increasingly concentrated burden of community responsibility. This suggests that rate of change in actual measured density, and in perceived density, may be more influential than the level of density in affecting community morale.     

Local perspectives on rural housing affordability and implications for the localism agenda in England

Drawing on consultation meetings with eight community groups across rural England, this paper examines local perspectives on housing affordability, and the consequences of low levels of ‘within area’ housing access for rural economies and communities, contrasting the reflective understanding of residents with normative and established perspectives on the same issues. Because it now seems likely that rural planning policy in England will, in some measure, be reconstructed from the bottom-up, prioritising local control, an analysis of residents' perspectives gives some insight into the shape of future policy intervention. The research reveals a highly nuanced understanding of affordability and the development needs of villages. Sometimes local views – particularly those of commuting or retired households – are dismissed as being motivated by NIMBYism. But this is a partial truth, with rural residents displaying reflective dissatisfaction with official perspectives on rural housing problems.     

Volatility and Growth in Populations of Rural Associations

This article uses unique community‐level data aggregated from censuses of associations to analyze growth and volatility in rural populations of grassroots associations. A qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) shows that the two main paths to growth were (1) centralization in polycephalous (multicentered) municipalities and (2) population growth in secular municipalities. High volatility occurs in (1) societies exposed to metropolitan sprawl and (2) traditional peripheral communities with high organizational density and little sociocultural change. Despite this volatility, associational life expanded in the sprawling areas that underwent extensive sociocultural change as well as in the peripheral areas where centralization took place. By contrast, more static peripheries experienced decline. The findings challenge romanticized images of stable, small‐scale communities and nuance the negative view on metropolitan sprawl.     

Relationships between rural inhabitants and their landscapes in areas of intensive agricultural use: A case study in Quebec (Canada)

An understanding of the relationships between local populations and the landscape is crucial for reintroducing the multifunctional character of landscapes in areas of intensive agricultural use. This study proposes to identify and compare the relationships that local populations, both farmers and non-farmers, maintain with their landscapes in areas of intensive agricultural use based on a detailed case study in Quebec, Canada. It relies on the dialectical conceptual model of individual–landscape interactions and introduces the notion of “community of relationships to the landscape” to compare populations. Following semi-structured interviews, we performed an analysis of the links between the attributes of the valued landscape, the motives for having those values and the practices tied to those values. This led to distinguish between four main types of relationships with the landscape: the hedonistic relationship, the emotional relationship, the utilitarian relationship, and the relationship with the social environment. Then, on the basis of the relative weight of each relationship and the interactions between the multiple relationships that local inhabitants have with the landscape, four communities of relationships to the landscape were identified, most including both farmers and non-farmers. Beyond the apparent uniformity of the landscapes in areas characterized by intensive agriculture, the results highlight the diversity of the local populations and confirm the heuristic significance of the notion of community of relationships to the landscape. Finally, our analysis of the differences with regard to values and visions between the communities suggests that the vitality of these rural areas can only be ensured by recognizing, maintaining and possibly increasing the current diversity of communities.     

Once an outsider,always an outsider? The accessibility of the Dutch rural housing market among locals and non-locals

One of the most pressing questions in the rural gentrification literature is whether rural residents face difficulties in finding a home within their locality due to the influx of more wealthy newcomers. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which intended local movers and intended non-local movers have realised their rural residential preferences in their preferred municipality. We perform multilevel multinomial logistic regression analysis on data from two housing surveys for the Netherlands that are enriched with register data from the longitudinal Social Statistical Database (SSD). Our results show that, despite of their lower income, intended local movers are more likely to find homes within their preferred rural location than are intended non-local movers. Intended non-local movers move more often to a location other than that initially preferred, with urbanites facing a higher likelihood to move to an urban area. The findings suggest that ties to the residential environment are more important in successfully finding housing in one's preferred rural location than are financial resources.     

Local Dependency,Land Use Attitudes,and Economic Development: Comparisons between Seasonal and Permanent Residents1

Abstract For many rural communities in the United States, tourists and retirees make a major contribution to the local economy. The role of recreational home ownership in these communities is not well understood. We examine the attitudes toward land use controls and local economic development among seasonal and permanent residents. We compare growth machine and local dependency theory explanations for support of land use controls and growth activities. Based on focus groups and survey data collected from seasonal and permanent residents of a northern Wisconsin county, we find that full-time (permanent) residents are much more supportive of local economic development activities and less likely to favor land use planning than are seasonal residents. Socioeconomic differences between seasonal and permanent residents do not explain away the variation between the two groups in these attitudes. Among seasonal residents, support for land use controls declines as they spend more time at their lake homes. The results tend to support Cox and Mair's local dependency thesis.     

Rural ageing in the United States: Trends and contexts

This paper examines rural population ageing in the United States with a particular focus on the contrasting contexts in which older rural residents live. We compare the characteristics of the older population by rural versus urban residence, and explore challenges and opportunities associated with the ageing of rural baby boomers. The United States is a vast territory, and rural areas in the US are diverse regionally, in poverty and income, principal forms of employment, proximity to metropolitan areas, population size, density and composition, the history of change in these parameters, and a number of other factors that affect the ageing process. Hence, the diversity across rural areas is an important consideration in what affects the well being of rural elderly individuals, as well as the community-level impacts of rural ageing. Further, the characteristics of the older rural population help shape community and rural development outcomes for diverse rural communities. We use data from various US Census Bureau sources, and cite other studies to provide a demographic overview of ageing in the rural United States, and to analyze how this situation differs in varying socio-demographic and regional contexts. In the concluding section, we focus on policy implications associated with rural ageing.     

Experiencing and writing Indigeneity, rurality and gender: Australian reflections

This paper has two interrelated aims. The first is to contribute to knowledge about rurality, gender and Indigeneity. This is undertaken by the first author, Bebe Ramzan, an Indigenous woman living in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. Bebe shows similarities across rural and remote areas in Australia and details her knowledge and experience of home, rurality, rural communities, land and gender. The second aim of the paper is to examine issues surrounding the involvement of academic white women in Indigenous research. Writing from the position of feminist white women Barbara Pini and Lia Bryant reflect on theories of whiteness as cultural practice and in this paper contest representations of rurality in rural studies as white.     

Rescuing a small village school in the context of rural change in Hungary

The paper discusses local responses to schooling policy in the context of the uneven differentiation and sharp social polarisation of the Hungarian countryside. Counter-urbanisation, on the one hand, has brought affluent urban middle classes to suburban spaces, on the other hand, peripheral areas are becoming impoverished with high unemployment, while there are rural areas where a process of ghettoisation is taking place. Parallel with these processes, rural education has had to face demographic decline and the shrinking ability of municipalities to maintain schools. The case study presented in this article illustrates the cultural and spatial barriers impeding the creation of co-operation in the field of education. Given that the community of the village concerned is remarkably vibrant, with strong intra-community horizontal ties, the concept of social capital is used to explain how bonding and bridging networks as well as “missing links” influence community actions, in this case a school-rescue operation.     

Rural government and community participation: The planning role of community councils

Since April 1996, Wales has possessed one principal tier of local government: 22 unitary authorities. Below this tier of administration, a second level exists: community and town councils. The statutory duties of these authorities are severely limited but they do perform a valuable advisory and consultative role with the principal authorities, particularly in rural areas. The recent reorganization of Welsh local government has prompted commentators to reconsider whether community councils could be afforded more statutory powers in rural governance. This paper discusses the potential for enhancing their role within one service area, namely the planning process. Planning is a function of local government where changes to responsibilities could be enacted. The paper discusses the findings of two research projects: first, a survey of senior planning officers in Wales towards awarding planning powers to community councils; and secondly, a more detailed examination of the perceptions of community councils in rural mid-Wales towards their powers and duties, their planning links with the principal authorities, and their duties within local communities to generate public involvement in rural policy-making. It argues that allocating planning responsibilities to community and town councils lacks the support of both planning professionals and community council representatives themselves. However, in the dual-push for unitary councils to operate both strategically and locally, there is further scope for a reorientation of rural policy-making and for local planning authorities to provide more extensive consultation opportunities to the councils.     

On constructing ageing rural populations: ‘Capturing’ the grey nomad

The world’s population is ageing, with forecasts predicting this ageing is likely to be particularly severe in the rural areas of more developed countries. These forecasts are developed from nationally aggregated census and survey data and assume spatial homogeneity in ageing. They also draw on narrow understandings of older people and construct the potential impact of ageing (such as increased dependence on the health care system) as negative. The construction and reinforcement of such stereotypes have obscured public policy debate about ageing and also the rural. This paper considered how, through using a mixed method approach, narrow understandings of rural ageing could be extended and refined. Using a case study of grey nomads in rural Australia, the strengths and weaknesses of various research approaches were reviewed. The investigation concluded that both quantitative and qualitative data could be used to extend contemporary understandings of rural population ageing and move constructions of this phenomenon beyond an impending rural crisis.     

Voluntarism as a mediator of the experience of growing old in evolving rural spaces and changing rural places

This paper examines voluntarism as a response to the challenges faced by people growing old in rural communities that are themselves being transformed in fundamental ways, both socially and demographically. Informed by evolving theorisations within the rural aging and geographies of voluntarism literatures, we outline the key processes in space and consequent impacts in place that have affected the experience of growing old in rural communities. We identify the changes in service systems that have led to concerns about ‘vulnerable people in vulnerable places’ and explore this idea in regional contexts ranging from the agricultural heartland to the resource hinterland of Canada. We argue that a distinction needs to be made between the impacts of long and short cycles of change flowing across rural space and attention paid to voluntarism as a critical process at the intersection of broad shifts in service and settlement systems and particular changes in rural communities. Specifically, we suggest that the ‘local dynamics of voluntarism’ involving the activities of voluntary organisations, community groups and individual volunteers in particular communities can be understood, at once, as a ‘barometer of change’, a ‘mechanism of adjustment’ and a ‘space of resistance’, and we draw on recent case studies of rural voluntarism to illustrate this three-part distinction. In considering the transformative potential of voluntarism for the experience of aging in place, our findings suggest that public discourse, as reflected in media coverage, tends to romanticise voluntarism at the expense of a more nuanced and critical appreciation of its importance to the future of aging rural communities and their elderly residents. The research raises timely questions about academic-versus-popular conceptions of aging in evolving rural spaces and changing rural places.     

新型农村社区建设与青年参与

在新型农村社区建设中,社区建设吸引青年返乡回流,青年成为新型农村社区建设的突击队和生力军,两者之间形成良性的互动关系。从实践来看,青年参与新型农村社区建设,主要表现为思想带动型、就业促进型、项目带头型和社会管理型4种介入方式。共青团组织依托新型农村社区建设的契机,通过组织格局创新、终端阵地建设和活动品牌融入,实现对农村青年的再组织化,成为新型农村社区建设的一支重要力量。     

Public School Resegregation after Desegregation: Some Preliminary Findings

Abstract

This research continues the effort to understand the sociocultural and social-psychological effects resulting from rapid change in rural communities. Two aspects of social well-being that underlie the concept of community are addressed: a sense of local identity and solidarity and a sense of trust. Change in these perceptions during periods of rapid community growth or decline could indicate a changing sense of community and changing levels of social well-being. Four communities, each of which experienced different patterns of population growth and decline, are examined. Analysis indicated that the dimension of community reflected by trust of most people in the community did not change during periods of growth or decline, but that the dimension reflected by a sense of local identity and solidarity suffered during both population growth and population decline. Local identity and solidarity increased in the community that experienced population stabilization after several years of rapid growth. These findings highlight the importance of viewing community as multidimensional and as a resilient social phenomenon.     

Rural governance and local involvement: assessing state—community relations in the Scottish Highlands

Questions of rural governance have been attracting growing interest in recent years as rural analysts turn their attention to the institutional transformations that are taking place in and around the local state. This paper is concerned with the relationships between new governance agencies and rural communities. It follows recent contributions to the rural studies literature by adopting a ‘governmentality’ perspective which views the current emphasis on community involvement and empowerment as part of a broader neo-liberal strategy of ‘governing through community’. In the paper, I address a particular gap in the governmentality literature by examining how the underlying shift towards community action and local involvement is mediated and implemented by local and regional agencies in the Scottish Highlands, focusing specifically on the relationship between local enterprise companies and local communities. As such, the paper explores the tension between the concern with local participation and the reliance upon a set of managerial ‘technologies’ such as targeting and financial controls which reflect a need to ensure that local agencies are accountable to (central) government. The paper argues that while local state agencies must be analysed within wider circuits of power, local agencies and community groups retain some capacity to influence processes of rural governance. In conclusion, I suggest that the governmentality approach provides some critical insights for re-interpreting and analysing rural governance as a particular field of research.     

Drinking places: Young people and cultures of alcohol consumption in rural environments

This paper focuses on the contemporary British moral panic about young people and the consumption of alcohol in public space. Most of this public debate has focused on binge drinking in urban areas as a social problem. Here, we consider instead the role of alcohol in rural communities, and in particular alcohol consumption in domestic and informal spaces, as well as the formal drinking landscape of pubs and bars. Drawing on empirical work (including a survey, interviews and participant observation) in rural Cumbria, UK we explore the specific socio-spatial nature of local attitudes to alcohol consumption and its regulation. In doing so, we reflect on the nature of rural lifestyles, community spaces and intergenerational relations. The paper concludes by highlighting some of the implications for health promotion professionals of the generally positive attitude towards young people's drinking in the rural area where the research was conducted. It also draws attention to the need for academics to pay closer attention to the ways that moral panics about binge drinking are implicitly producing a monolithic image of alcohol consumption in urban areas that fails to acknowledge the socio-spatially differentiated nature of practices of alcohol consumption and regulation.