Lesson video

Hello, my name is Chloe and I'm a geography field studies tutor.

This lesson is called Social and economic changes in the rural landscape and it forms part of the Economic futures in the UK unit of work.

We're going to be looking at what's happening in the countryside and how that affects all of our lives in different ways.

Let's get started.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to assess the impacts of rural population growth and decline.

There's lots of keywords here, so let's get started on those first.

Counter-urbanization is our first one.

This is the movement of people to rural areas from urban ones.

Natural increase is the growth of the population through its rise in birth rate and/or its decline in death rate.

The greenbelt is a green space around cities for which there are strict planning controls to preserve natural spaces and prevent urban sprawl, the growth of the city.

A commuter is someone who lives a distance from where they work and therefore has to regularly travel between the two locations.

There are three parts in this lesson.

First of all, we're going to be answering the question, how are rural areas changing? Then how does population growth impact rural areas? And then the other side of things, how important is rural population decline? Let's start with the first one, how are rural areas changing? So have a think.

Where would you like to live when you're older? Is it the countryside, a rural area, or is it a town or city, an urban one? Who is moving to rural and urban areas and why might they migrate? The populations of both urban and rural areas are growing in the UK, however, they're growing in very different ways.

Here's a population pyramid for the UK to show those changes.

Urban areas have a much higher percentage of people age 20 to 39 than rural areas.

You can see the blue bars on that graph are much longer than the green ones on the other side.

This indicates that these groups are migrating to towns and cities, and this is a process known as urbanisation.

Urbanisation occurs because people wish to access more and better paid employment opportunities, and it tends to be the case that towns and cities offer those opportunities far more than rural areas.

Let's look at the top of the pyramid now.

Rural populations have a much higher percentage of over 50s than urban ones, so now our green bars are much, much larger than our blue ones.

This indicates that these age groups are migrating from urban to rural areas, and this is a process known as counter-urbanization.

Urban populations have slightly higher percentages of children and young people aged under 20.

So the populations here are pretty similar, but urban have slightly more younger people.

This is an indication of natural increase from urban migrant families.

So we have people moving to urban areas and then starting to have children.

Let's check our understanding so far using that same population pyramid.

Which age group has the highest percentage population in rural areas? Pause the video, examine the graph carefully, and then come back to me.

Right, hopefully you can see that it is the 50 to 59-year-olds.

That green bar is much larger than any of the others in that rural area.

There are lots of reasons why people migrate to rural areas.

Here Lucas and Jacob are having a conversation which is exploring this very idea.

Lucas says, "I can see why some people would like to live in rural areas.

It is much quieter and more peaceful than the city.

There's more green space to relax in and there's a slower pace of life." Now, Jacob says, "It makes sense that older people may choose to migrate there.

If you are retired, it would be so relaxing to live in the countryside.

And generally it's safer than the city too." Both boys have come up some really good points there.

But Izzy is saying something different.

She says, "Hold on, you're making it sound like the countryside is only full of retired people who have migrated there.

My parents moved to a village outside the city when I was a baby.

They wanted a cleaner environment for us to grow up in as well as a house with a large garden, which we would never have had if we'd stayed in an urban area." This is a really important point.

Rural areas are seen by many people as being family-friendly and they appreciate the smaller, close-knit communities that rural places tend to have.

Don't start thinking that rural places are only populated by much older people.

There can be a variety of other reasons why people might migrate there as well, such as Izzy's family's ones.

Rural populations are also losing some people as they migrate to urban areas.

So Jacob asks Izzy, "Do you think you're always going to live in your village?" Izzy says, "Probably not.

When I'm older, I'll probably want to study somewhere else.

I imagine I'll try to get my first job in a town or city.

Maybe I'll repeat the pattern of my grandparents and move back to the countryside when I'm older." Izzy makes a really important point there, is that as people go through different phases of their life or life stages, some people call it, they want migrate to have an environment that suits their needs.

Izzy saying that as she wants to study, perhaps she wants to go to university, or she wants to get her first job, she's probably gonna have to move to an urban area.

But then as she gets older, maybe she'll return to the village then.

So, true or false? Counter-urbanization is the process of retired or elderly people moving from an urban area to a rural one.

Check the wording there quite carefully, pause the video, and then come back and tell me whether that's true or false.

Well, well done if you recognised that is false.

Tell me why that statement is not true.

Yes, exactly.

So counter-urbanization is not defined by any particular age group.

Retired people do migrate to rural areas, but other age groups do too.

Your first task of this lesson.

A rural estate agent is trying to sell this property.

You can see, "For sale, a beautiful three bedroom home." Complete the bullet points in the advert to highlight the benefits of moving to a rural area.

The first one's been done for you.

It says peaceful surroundings is one of the benefits.

Try and come up with another four positive things about living in a rural area that you would want to put into an advert.

Your second task is then this: explain why someone who is retired may think about moving from an urban area to a rural one.

Right, let's look at your ideas for your advert.

So we've got peaceful surroundings already.

What else could you say? Yes, excellent, access to green space is a really good point.

Relaxing, stress-free pace of life.

You might have something with different wording but with the same idea.

A clean and safe local area, family-friendly, and a close-knit local community, all positive aspects of living in a rural area.

Now we're thinking about why someone who is retired may want to move from an urban area to a rural one, counter-urbanization.

So your answer may include something like this.

Someone who is retired may no longer need to live close to the employment opportunities that you can find in an urban area.

After many years of working, they may seek a more peaceful, relaxing life, which the countryside can offer them.

Do make sure that your answer has referred to the idea of retirement being a reason to move.

They no longer need to be in the city for their work and opportunities there.

Let's now move on to the second part of the lesson, which is all about population growth and the impact that can have on rural areas and communities.

So rural population growth can bring economic and social impacts.

We're going to look at South Cambridgeshire as an example that is experiencing rural population growth.

So let's look at the economic impacts first of all.

You can see on the left-hand side of the screen I've got the positive impacts, and on the right-hand side, the negative ones.

So let's look at the positive first of all.

So if you have more people in a rural area, it means that shops and services will benefit from increased footfall.

There's more people using things which create money in that economy.

There's the potential for the development of new businesses by newcomers.

So people who come into the area who perhaps aren't retired and who are actually looking for work and who maybe want to start their own business, maybe that would happen in the rural area, and of course, that's gonna be beneficial for everyone.

On the negative side of things, there may be increased competition for housing if there's more people coming into the area.

This might raise house prices, and it might raise them so high that it actually makes homes unaffordable for local people.

Farmland which was once profitable may be lost if new homes are having to be built on it, and once those homes are built on that land, that land is unlikely ever to be returned into farmland.

Now let's look at the social impacts.

Same pattern again, we're going to look at the positive first and then the negative.

Positively, it means there's an opportunity for that rural community to become more open, more diverse, more inclusive.

That's gonna be beneficial for everybody.

Now let's look at the negative side of things.

More people in a rural area means there's pressure to build on sparsely populated greenbelt land.

This is a really controversial thing for people who live in that area.

They may use that land for leisure and recreation.

They might not want it to be built on.

There's also the potential for poor community cohesion between local people, perhaps who've lived there for their entire lives, and newcomers coming in.

There's also likely to be an increase in traffic.

As people move into a rural area there's going to be more commuters and those people are going to be using their cars perhaps more on the road to get to and from work.

Let's check our understanding there.

Complete the sentences with the missing words.

Pause the video so you can have a read through of the paragraph below and then come back to me with three words that are missing.

Okay, let's look at what you got.

The growth of a rural population can have a variety of economic impacts.

One impact is that there is likely to be increased competition for housing.

This means that house prices are likely to rise, making them less affordable to local people.

Well done.

Now let's look at a real example of this.

So we're going to South Cambridgeshire, and you can see where that's located in the UK, in East Anglia.

This area has seen a rapid increase in population.

Let's compare the figures for 2011 and 2021.

We've got roughly 140,000 people there in 2011, rising to 162,000 10 years later.

This is a 16% increase in those 10 years.

The area traditionally attracts a lot of commuters.

The area is relatively close to both Cambridge and to London, so two places, key places where people might be working.

Importantly as well, there's really good transport links to the centre of London.

It's less than 90 minutes away by train, which for a lot of people is an easy commute.

So population growth in South Cambridgeshire has put a lot of pressure on housing, and this has caused prices to rise.

Let's look at South Cambridgeshire compared with the UK average.

So this is the average house price in 2024.

In the UK it was 290,000 pounds.

How much larger is it going to be in South Cambridgeshire, do you think? Let's have a look.

446,000 pounds.

It's not a little bit more, it's a lot more on average to live in that area.

South Cambridgeshire Local Plan estimates that the area will need 19,000 new homes built by 2031 to meet demand, and that demand is greatest on greenbelt land that sits just south of Cambridge.

Let's check our understanding there.

Why might it be challenging for South Cambridgeshire to meet future housing needs? Could it be there's going to be an increase in the cost of building materials, maybe there's gonna be opposition to developing on greenbelt land, there's gonna be poor road and public transport connectivity, or is there going to be a lack of local investment in housing developments? Pause the video and have a think about what you've just learnt, and come back to me with the right answer.

Okay, what did you get? Well done if you talked about the idea of opposition to developing greenbelt land.

This is gonna be a real challenge in that area.

There's a lot of green space there, but there's a really high demand for housing as well.

Our second task of the lesson, rank the following impacts of rural population growth in order of importance.

This is where a rank of one is most important to five being least important.

You can see there are five different impacts listed there.

Now, it's really important to remember that there's no right answer to this.

This is totally based on your opinion.

So have a think about how you feel and put your numbers one to five in there from most important to least.

Your second task is then to look at whatever impact put in your number one position and to justify why you've chosen that particular impact to have that position.

So why is it that you feel that that impact is the most important one? This is gonna take a little bit of time, so do pause the video, have a really good think about the order you're gonna put those impacts in, and then have a go at justification.

Now, bearing in mind that, of course, there's no right answer, you might have very different numbers in your boxes to me.

I've put my most important as being the pressure to build on greenbelt land and my least important being the increase in road traffic that would come from there being more commuters, but you will have something different, I'm sure.

Now, justifying your choice of impact.

So for my one, it was all about greenbelt land.

Let's see what I've put.

I think the pressure to build on the greenbelt is the most important impact, as once it has been built on, it will be lost forever.

People move to rural areas for more space, for a more peaceful day-to-day life, and to be close to nature.

If we build on the greenbelt, all those things will be lost and people may simply move somewhere else after a while.

So I've really tried there to give my full explanation of why I think that one is the most important.

Have a read through your own answer and check, have I really written enough to justify my choice? We move on now to the third part of the lesson, answering the question, how important is rural population decline? So we've looked at growth.

Now we're looking at the other side of things, where populations are lost from rural areas.

So this can create challenges for people living in those areas, we're gonna look at that first.

And then we're gonna look at Gwynedd in Wales, and that's a place that is experiencing rural population decline.

In some rural areas, younger people are moving out and they are not being replaced by new migrants, and this can leave behind an ageing population.

Remember, an ageing population is one where there are far more people aged over 65 than there are age 16 and under.

This can result in extra pressure on local social and healthcare facilities.

It means there'll be lower levels of local tax generation, because in general the over 65s aren't working.

There's limited investment in new industries.

Why would you place a new industry somewhere if you know you're not gonna have young people to work there? And there's lower incomes and poorer standards of living, so it can be really tough if you live in an area like this.

Rural depopulation or population decline has an impact on service provision.

Where there are fewer people, there's going to be less use for services such as schools, and if that continues, it could be in extreme cases that you will have closure of schools.

Particularly primary schools are victims of this.

People therefore are more likely to move away.

What type of people? People with families, people with young children, the very people you're trying to attract to the area to counterbalance your ageing population.

To keep some services running, such as public transport, local taxpayers may have to actually subsidise them.

In other words, your local taxes will be paying for the bus service rather than just purely the fares themselves.

Do remember that if you're retired, you're over 60, you have free bus travel in this country.

Rural population decline can increase social isolation.

Whole communities might feel that they've been kind of abandoned or forgotten about by their government.

It can be quite an isolating experience to live in some of these rural areas where it feels like there's no industry and there's no interest from government to change that.

Now, true or false? People who live in rural areas have a high standard of living.

Pause the video and have a think about that.

True or false? Well done if you recognised that yeah, it's false, but why is that false? Rural areas can experience high levels of poverty, and in areas of population decline, standards of living can fall when services are lost from an area.

I think it's really important for us to remember that just because somewhere is maybe very naturally beautiful, it doesn't necessarily mean that everybody living there has a high standard of living.

Now let's look at one area that is experiencing rural population decline.

We're going to look at Gwynedd in North Wales.

You can see it on the map here, very close to Mount Snowdon.

So between 2011 and 2021, there was an 8% increase in those people aged over 65, but a 7% decrease in those aged under 16.

So a very clear picture of an ageing population in Gwynedd.

In fact, over 65s make up 24% of the population in the area in 2024.

In 2023, 25%.

so a quarter of Gwynedd council's budget was spent on adult social care.

Adult social care means things like providing practical support to unwell but older people so they can live in their own homes, as well as providing places in care homes as well.

An example of that you can see in the picture here.

Gwynedd faces some other challenges as well.

Employment in the area is largely low paid, seasonal, and part-time.

It can be really difficult for young people to see a future in the area.

In 2024, an estimated 80 under 25s left Gwynedd a week.

Now, the house prices in Gwynedd are much lower than the UK average, 209,000 pounds here.

If you remember, for the UK, it's 290,000 pound being the average.

However, there's still a demand for social housing, particularly for older people who have specialist needs.

For example, there will be a demand for bungalows that are just one story high.

These are much easier for older people to navigate as perhaps their mobility becomes more challenging.

Let's check our understanding.

What percentage of Gwynedd was aged 65 or over in 2024? Can you remember the percentage? Pause the video and have a think.

Right, rid you get it right? 24%.

Well done if you got that.

Let's look at our final task of the lesson.

We've got Laura here expressing her opinion, so let's read that first.

"My older brother and I would rather live in a rural area that is experiencing population decline than one that is seeing rapid growth.

Imagine how peaceful it would be with so few people!" So Laura would rather live in an area that's seeing population decline rather than growth.

Write a counterargument in reply to Laura's viewpoint.

It should highlight the issues that can come from living in an area experiencing population decline.

Try to include as many points as you can that would be relevant specifically to Laura.

So think about Laura as a young person when you're writing your answer.

Pause the video, this is gonna take a little while to have a think about, and then come back to me.

There's lots of things you could have written about.

Here's some ideas.

In areas of rural population decline, there is likely to be a decline in services that you might need to live a comfortable life.

You may have to travel miles to get to school every day, and you'd probably have to pay a lot of money for public transport to get there.

While it may seem peaceful, you might also feel isolated.

There might not be many young people to socialise with and few sports clubs or youth groups.

Your brother would have to move away to study or to get a job.

Read through your answer and double check, have you really made your answer specific to Laura and her needs? Let's look at a summary of what we've learnt today.

Rural areas are experiencing population decline as younger people move to urban areas to find work, and growth as older people and families move to have a more peaceful and perceived higher quality of life.

Rural areas experiencing population growth such as South Cambridgeshire can see increased housing demand and the loss of greenbelt land.

Rural areas experiencing population decline such as Gwynedd are often ageing populations with reduced access to services.

Well done.

There were a lot of impacts to think about there.

I want you to think again about the question that I posed at the start of the lesson.

When you're older, would you think you'd prefer to live in an urban area or a rural one? And after you've heard today's lesson, has your opinion changed, I wonder?.