Abstract
Our contemporary rural places are influenced by a myriad of processes and face multiple challenges. Amongst these processes, two demographic trends are influential, namely rural depopulation and repopulation. Looking first at depopulation, in the early part of the twentieth century, the populations of Western nations made a transition from being rural to being predominantly urban and many rural areas continue to experience population decline. Since the mid-Twentieth Century, the depopulation of the countryside has also been a feature of less developed countries and the urbanisation of their societies is also a significant contemporary process. As people have left rural communities, services have been reduced (Joseph, Chapter 11), businesses have closed, and younger people have migrated to cities in search of better educational and employment prospects, thereby diminishing social capital. In these places, the spiral of decline seems inexorable.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Agnew, J. (2000) From the political economy of regions to regional political economy, Progress in Human Geography 24, 101–110.
Baker, B., Hanson, J., Bourdon, R. and Eckert, J. (1993) The potential effects of climate change on ecosystem pressures and cattle production on US rangelands, Climatic Change 25, 97–177.
Barbier, E. (1987) The concept of sustainable economic development, Environmental Conservation 14, 101–110.
Bowler, I. (2000) ‘From systems to networks in the exploration of rural sustainability’. In Kim, K., Bowler, I. and Bryant, C. (eds.)Developing Sustainable Rural Systems. Pusan: Pusan National University Press, pp. 1–10.
Boyle, P. and Halfacree, K. (1998) ‘Migration, rurality and the post-productivist countryside’. In Boyle, P. and Halfacree, K. (eds.)Migration into Rural Area. Chichester: John Wiley Sons, pp. 1–20
Champion, T. (1989) Counterurbanisation: The Changing Pace and Nature of Population Deconcentration. London: Edward Arnold.
Chiotti, Q., Johnston, T., Smit, B. and Ebel, B. (1997) ‘Agricultural response to climate change: a preliminary investigation of farm-level adaptation in Southern Alberta’. In Ilbery, B., Chiotti, Q. and Rickard, T. (eds.) Agricultural Restructuring and Sustainability: A Geographical Perspective. Wallingford: CAB International, pp. 201–218.
Cloke, P. (1985) Whither rural studies?, Journal of Rural Studies 1, 1–9.
Cloke, P., Goodwin, M. and Milbourne, P. (1998) `Inside looking out: outside looking in. Different experiences of cultural competence in rural lifestyles’. In Boyle, P. and Halfacree, K. (eds.) Migration into Rural Area. Chichester: John Wiley Sons, pp. 134–150.
Cocklin, C. (1995) Agriculture, society and environment: discourses on sustainability, International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology 2, 240–256.
Copp, J. (1972) Rural sociology and rural development, Rural Sociology 37, 515–533.
Duncan, O. and Reiss, A. (1976), Social Characteristics of Rural and Urban Communities. New York: Russell and Russell.
Frey, W. (1995) Immigration and internal migration “flight” from US metropolitan areas: toward a new demographic balkanisation, Urban Studies 32, 733–757.
Furuseth, O. (1997) `Sustainability issues in the industrialization of hog production in the United States’. In Ilbery, B., Chiotti, Q. and Rickard, T. (eds.) Agricultural Restructuring and Sustainability: A Geographical Perspective. Wallingford: CAB International, pp. 293–312.
Gibbs, D. and Jonas, A. (2000) Governance and regulation in local environmental policy: the utility of a regime approach, Geoforum 31, 299–313.
Gorton, M., White, J. and Chaston, I. (1998) `Counterurbanisation, fragmentation and the paradox of the rural idyll’. In Boyle, P. and Halfacree, K. (eds.) Migration into Rural Area. Chichester: John Wiley Sons, pp. 215–235.
Halfacree, K. (1993) Locality and social representation: space, discourse and alternative definitions of the rural, Journal ofRural Studies 9, 23–37.
Halfacree, K. (1995) Talking about rurality: social representations of the rural as expressed by residents of six English parishes, Journal of Rural Studies 11, 1–20.
Hoggart, K. (1998) Not a definition of rural, Area 20, 35–40.
Hoggart, K. (1990) Let’s do away with rural, Journal ofRural Studies 6, 245–257.
Hugo, G. and Smailes, P. (1985) Urban-rural migration in Australia: a process view of the turnaround, Journal of Rural Studies 1, 11–30.
International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (1980) World Conservation Strategy. Gland: IUCN.
Jones, O. (1995) Lay discourses of the rural: developments and implications for rural studies, Journal of Rural Studies 11, 35–49.
Kontuly, T. (1998) ‘Contrasting the counter urbanisation experience in European nations’. In Boyle, P. and Halfacree, K. (eds.)Migration into Rural Area. Chichester: John Wiley Sons, pp. 61–78.
Marsden, T. (1996) Rural geography trend report: the social and political bases of rural restructuring, Progress in Human Geography 20, 246–258.
Massey, D. (1994) Space, Place and Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press. Pahl, R. (1966) The rural-urban continuum, Sociologia Ruralis 6, 299–327.
Parry, M. (1990) Climate Change and World Agriculture. London: Earthscan Publications.
Pierce, J. (1992) Progress and the biosphere: the dialectics of sustainable development, Canadian Geographer 36, 306–319.
Scott, K, Park, J., Cocklin, C. and Kearns, R. (1996) Community, Sustainability and Land-based Production. Working Paper 4. Auckland: Department of Geography, University of Auckland.
Swyngedouw, E. (1997) `Neither global nor local: `glocalisation’ and the politics of scale’. In Cox, K. (ed.), Spaces ofGlobalisation: Reasserting the Power of the Local. New York: Guildford Press, pp. 137–166.
Willet, F. and Luloff, A. (1995) Urban residents’ views of rurality and contacts with rural places, Rural Sociology 60, 454–466.
World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cocklin, C., Bowler, L., Bryant, C. (2002). Introduction: Sustainability and Rural Systems. In: Bowler, I.R., Bryant, C.R., Cocklin, C. (eds) The Sustainability of Rural Systems. The GeoJournal Library, vol 66. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3471-4_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3471-4_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5978-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-3471-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive