Urbanisation

The Rural Observatory is an academic group from some of the top universities in Wales; it is funded by the Welsh Government and its role is to investigate what is happening in rural Wales. It has produced a series of reports showing information for all of Wales. You could use them to help you to draw up a comparison between rural and urban Wales. One thing to look out for however is The Valleys of South Wales. They are a former industrial region so are not truly rural but they are also not truly urban in character.

The area inside the red line is the area classified as rural; how do you think household incomes in rural areas compares to urban areas along the M4 corridor or North East Wales.

Use an atlas to help you identify The Lleyn Peninsular, Powys and Anglesey. Compare these areas to places along the south Wales coast such as Cardiff and The Vale of Glamorgan.

What the map shows is there are rural areas such as Monmouthshire with high incomes just as there are urban areas with low incomes. However we can see large areas of rural Wales in the lowest categories and it is this that pushes many young people out of these areas because they cannot afford a decent living standard at these levels of income - especially they cannot afford a place to live and start a family.

Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD)

The Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation looks at housing, income, unemployment and access to services such as healthcare. There are ten categories ranging from most to least deprived and it looks at three categories of area; urban and rural but rural is split up into whether population density is less sparse (around towns in rural areas) or more sparse. What is clear is that the most deprived areas are clearly urban (rural areas in most deprived categories are nearly all in the Valleys); rural dominates categories 5, 6, 7 & 8 in the least derived category before there is a flip at category 9 and for people living in the least deprivation urban areas again come out on top. What this clearly shows us however is that overall rural areas suffer less deprivation than urban areas.

Other things to think about

Before reading further go back to the 'Living in Rural Wales' article and read the opinions on the perceptions map.

Rural Wales has a number of 'Notspots' - places without internet or even phone access. However it is a myth that overall rural areas do not have access to broadband connections; with more people in rural Wales accessing broadband services than people in urban Wales. To find out more read the previous article on the 'Digital Divide'.

The 'Chocolate Box' image of rural Wales attracts many people; the quiet life, lower crime and anti-social behaviour, less noise and pollution. This is what attracts older people especially those with the freedom that comes with having their own transport. What about children travelling over an hour each way to school on the bus or low paid seasonal farm or tourism workers who cannot afford a car.

Rural Wales

If you are retired the urban areas such as Cardiff may not be the best place to live. You do not need to be close to work, the traffic, noise, pollution and anti-social behaviour are all problems. If you sell your house you can afford a nice place in the country with some extra money left over. You can always visit the city in your car to visit the shops or even afford to stay overnight in a hotel if you want to visit services such as the theatre.

Urban Wales

If you are younger however there is a lot more work available, affordable housing and much better access to public transport. In time you will probably be able to afford your own car and even buy your own house. Eventually you may then be able to earn enough money to be able to live a rural area; if you have migrated from one then you will have moved full circle. When many people in rural areas talk about the problems caused by the process of counterurbanisation they forget that often the people migrating to the rural areas are the same people who left thirty or forty years earlier and are now 'just coming home'.