Gardiner V., Matthews H. The changing geography of the United Kingdom
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several kinds of business enterprises. Ethnic school-leavers may be vital to local economies
and in 1987 45 per cent of all births in Tower Hamlets were to New Commonwealth or
Pakistani parents.
The continuing disadvantages of black youths, among whom levels of unemployment
have continued to be high, combined with displays of prejudice, have led to conflicts in
many inner-city areas. Urban riots, which have occurred in cities like London, Bristol,
Nottingham and Liverpool all have racial overtones. Relationships between the police
and black youths have yet to develop properly at acceptable levels of trust. These forms
of urban conflict pale into insignificance when compared to the situations in the towns
and cities of Northern Ireland. Roman Catholic and Protestant communities have retreated
into their own ‘fortress areas’ in Belfast and Londonderry, with uneasy lines of
demarcation. Differences are ethnic as much as they are political or religious, but political
initiatives from the British and Irish governments have led to a positive vote for a
representative assembly in Northern Ireland and the prospect at least of a more stable and
peaceful future.
Managing the city
Between 1974 and 1996, the functions of local government were commonly divided
between county and city authorities and this led to duplication and conflicts of interest.
Since 1996, the wider introduction of unitary authorities has given greater autonomy to
free-standing urban areas. For the larger metropolitan areas, strategic planning and policy
has been difficult, and since the early 1980s the powers of local government have
progressively been undermined by the appointment of special bodies and agencies to
manage critical areas of change. Invariably during this period the agencies, such as Urban
Development Corporations (UDCs), were charged to introduce market criteria and an
enterprise culture that focused on job and wealth creation and pushed welfare into
subsidiary roles. The record was variable. Thomas and Imrie (1997) noted that whereas
in Sheffield and Teesside, the UDCs represented no radical change in policy and worked
closely with local government, the Cardiff Bay Development Association consistently
turned to international consultancies and refrained from recruiting personnel from local
agencies. More telling for local government of the cities was fiscal intervention such as
‘capping’ and the freezing of housing funds. One outcome of the latter was the virtual
removal of local authorities as housebuilders and suppliers. At one key level of city
management, therefore, the changing roles of central and local government and the creation
of powerful local agencies were considerable forces for change. Another dimension was
added by greater interest in place promotion and various forms of city ‘boosterism’: the
importance of attracting events or labels, such as Glasgow’s designation as European
Capital of Culture in 1990 and European City of Architecture in 1999.
Managers in the urban housing market
Market forces and government policy have similarly determined the extent and form of
urban residential development, but there are many managers interposed between the
producers and consumers of housing who have key entrepreneurial roles in the allocation of
scarce resources.
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The powers of such managers or gatekeepers have varied over time. State
interventions, planning controls and the welfare imperatives, for example, have
diminished the supremacy of landowners. Many of the macro changes, such as the
growth of suburbs and the return to the central city, can be attributed to flows of capital
and the willingness of investors to consider particular parts of the city. The state as a
developer of both housing and commercial areas has been a key figure in British cities,
but during the 1980s and 1990s there was a stronger focus on balanced private and
public urban investments.
Planners have significant powers and key interventionist roles in British cities. On a
wider stage there are the visionaries, and Peter Hall (1988) talked of the cities of the
imagination which were products of the minds of influential planners such as Howard with
his new towns and Le Corbusier with his towers. In their less prosaic roles, planners control
land use and development, provide utilities and highways and chart the directions of urban
growth. Although there is clearly scope for innovation and initiative, much planning has to
work within the natural thrusts of urban change, modifying and accommodating rather than
revolutionising. Containment remains a priority and, faced by predictions of an additional 4
million plus households by the year 2016, planners have a strong preference for ‘brown
field’ and high-density solutions. However, the nature of the anticipated housing demand,
much of which will come from single-person households and one-parent families, is not
well understood.
Particularly since the Housing Acts of 1969 and 1974, planners have favoured
rehabilitation and the improvement of better-quality older property rather than demolition.
General Improvement Areas (GIAs) and Housing Action Areas (HAAs) are area policies
designed to achieve positive change in both environment and housing. The HAAs in
particular were targeted at areas of multiple deprivation and remain in place in the late
1990s. They can be declared where the majority of dwellings are substandard and allow
90 per cent grants to householders. In 1984, the peak year for HAAs, half a million
dwellings were renovated, about half of which were in the public sector. Bailey and
Robertson (1997) studied HAAs in Glasgow and Edinburgh and noted that since 1974
there had been 1,700 HAA schemes declared in Scotland affecting 70,000 dwellings.
They noted that HAAs could involve a social approach, with original welfare ideals, but
also and increasingly, a private approach where they were much more closely tied with
improvement as part of a gentrification process. Rehabilitation is likely to become of
greater significance as ageing and deteriorating housing from the early part of the twentieth
century reaches the end of its ‘working life’, though for much of this housing, rehabilitation
may not be a viable option.
Once housing is constructed and becomes part of the housing market, new
managers or gatekeepers become active. Landlords in the private sector control housing
units to rent, and for house-buyers the key managers are those representing building
societies and banks that fund over 90 per cent of housing purchases. Estate agents or
realtors are the entrepreneurs of the housing market who have the ability to form as
well as to follow the market. Local authority housing managers determine who qualifies
for local authority accommodation and of what type, and when and where
accommodation is offered.
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Urban policies
Urban policies have shown major shifts since the early 1980s. These shifts relate primarily
to varying government initiatives but also to the tensions of priorities between regions,
cities and more general issues such as unemployment and the need to promote growth. By
the later 1980s, some of the main commentators were painting pessimistic scenarios on the
effectiveness of urban policies, and Stewart (1987) described inner-city policy as a charade.
Similarly, Robson (1988) argued that the weaknesses of urban policy included lack of
national co-ordination, as shown by the withdrawal of rate support funds with the effect of
FIGURE 10.6 Location of Urban Development Corporations (UDCs) in England and Wales
Source: After Thomas and Imrie (1997).
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counteracting urban aid policies; conflict between central and local government; and a serious
imbalance between economic and social objectives. Undoubtedly, these have been the major
issues as elected local government has been usurped by nominated bodies with executive
powers and as an enterprise culture has submerged any welfare or social considerations
beneath the priorities of economic growth and wealth creation.
Since the early 1980s, the government has based its range of initiatives on the
belief that competitive and market economies could deliver equitable and efficient
solutions to urban problems (Nevin et al. 1997). Major agencies, such as the Urban
Development Corporations (Figure 10.6), were set up with nominated members, often
drawn from business backgrounds, to drive change. There was a plethora of urban
policies, and Robson (1994) reported that Manchester had six Urban Programmes,
two Enterprise Zones, two Task Forces, two Urban Development Corporations, two
Safer City projects and a City Action Team. There was the criticism of lack of co-
ordination, but also of the fact that funds were simultaneously being pulled out of
other parts of city budgets. The DoE housing budget fell from £4.5 to £1.9 billion
between 1981 and 1987; seven inner-city partnerships lost almost £850 million in
revenue support funds; and expenditure on social and community programmes fell
from 34 per cent of Urban Group budget in 1979 to 16.6 per cent in 1988. Robson
(1994) concluded that the impacts of the urban policies of the 1980s were at best
modest. Although there was some relative improvement in unemployment indicators
across the fifty-seven targeted Urban Programme Authorities, conditions in the worse
areas had not improved; the old industrial conurbations still dominated the ranks of
the most deprived places. This situation was exacerbated in the first half of the 1990s
by the effective withdrawal of inner-city policies. Between 1990 and 1996, urban
funding was cut by 40 per cent and successor schemes such as City Challenges did
not amount to a clear inner-city strategy.
The Single Regeneration Budget introduced in 1993 merged twenty programmes from
five different government departments and rendered irrelevant the 1980s policy
programmes (Table 10.1). At a stroke this move brought the promise of co-ordination and
more strategic thinking and also made openings to involve the local authorities more
closely in the whole process of urban policy. The commentators remain sceptical. Robson
(1994) feared that the swing back to local authorities and the Training and Enterprise
Councils (TECs) would go too far and saw little evidence of strategic vision. Nevin et al.
(1997) argued that because of the downgrading of need as a criterion, urban regeneration
strategies that brought benefits to the disadvantaged groups would be hard to achieve.
The social dimension was still a minor part of the equation. An analysis of successful bids
on the first round showed that whereas 34 per cent targeted ethnic minorities and poor
housing, 95 per cent had employment as a main objective. Whereas a business perspective
would recognise the virtues of this set of priorities, there is also a compelling need to add
a community-led dimension and to recognise the centrality of social integration as a goal
and social exclusion as a danger.
Conclusion
Britain remains an urban nation with a diversity of towns and cities that reflects both its
long history of urbanisation and the rapid changes of the twentieth century. Cities contain
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the most obvious problems and pose the greatest challenges but they also serve as the
location for the main institutions of society and economy in the United Kingdom. London
in particular is a world city and has roles which are global and international as well as
national, regional and local. Many other cities possess the same qualities, but to a lesser
degree. It is one of the fascinations of the great city that within short distances it
accommodates the needs of major players on a world stage and those of ordinary families
in their neighbourhoods. Many of the long-recognised problems of cities remain—the
ailing traditional economies, the deteriorating urban fabric, the traffic strangulation and
the great disparities of wealth and poverty. Yet cities and their landscapes contain the
icons and symbols to which people relate. Major investments in new projects, or individual
buildings such as the Millennium Dome or the new British Museum Reading Room, are
always contentious yet add to the identity of a city as place. The task for cities is to
achieve gradual transformations, to raise the quality of life and reduce the sources of
conflict but yet to inject where one can the spectacular and the visionary into their
landscapes.
TABLE 10.1 Budgets subsumed within the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB), 1994/5
Source: Hansard, 21 March 1994, col. 918.
Notes: *Denotes programmes which have been ring-fenced in the SRB. †Programme supported
by £19 million from the Housing Corporation.
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Champion, A.G. and Green, A. (1991) ‘British economic recovery and the North-South divide’,
Geography 2: 249–54.
Cloke, P., Milbourne, P. and Thomas, C. (1997) ‘Living lives in different ways? Deprivation,
marginalization, and changing life-styles in rural England’, Transactions, Institute of British
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Gibbs, D. (1997) ‘Urban sustainability and economic development in the United Kingdom: exploring
the contradictions’, Cities 14: 203–8.
Gordon, I. (1988) ‘Resurrecting counterurbanisation: housing market influences on migrations from
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Century, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Hall, P. (1997) ‘Regeneration policies for peripheral housing estates: inward and outward looking
approaches’, Urban Studies 34: 873–90.
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Herbert, D.T. (ed.) (1995) Heritage, Tourism and Society, London: Cassell.
Herbert, D.T. and Thomas, C.J. (1997) Cities in Space: City as Place, London: Fulton.
McLennan, D. (1998) ‘Better cities for Britain’, ESRC 37: 5.
Matthews, M.H. (1991) British Inner Cities, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Prestwich, R. and Taylor, P. (1990) Introduction to Regional and Urban Policy in the United Kingdom,
London: Longman.
Robinson, V.R. (1993) ‘Making waves? The contribution of ethnic minorities to local demography’, in
A.G.Champion (ed.) Population Matters: The Local Dimension, 150–69, London: Paul Chapman.
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Robson, B.T. (1994) ‘Urban policy at the crossroads’, Local Economy 9: 216–23.
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Wilson, W.J. (1987) The Truly Disadvantaged, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Further reading
A short paper which gives an up-to-date picture of disparities within the UK is A.Green
(1996) ‘Changing local concentrations of poverty and affluence in Britain’, Geography 8:
15–25. P.Hall (1988) Cities of Tomorrow (Oxford: Blackwell), provides a broad sweep of
the city past, present and future. D.T.Herbert (1996) ‘Western cities and their problems’, in
I.Douglas, R.Huggett and M.Robinson (eds) Companion Encyclopaedia of Geography, 730–
51, (London: Routledge), looks at cities in a wider global context and reveals common
trends and issues. Other chapters in the book refer to the ‘Saviour City’ (Robson) and Third
World Cities (Drakakis-Smith). A more general text in urban geography that provides the
ideas and theories behind urban change and a large number of case studies is D.T. Herbert
and C.J.Thomas (1997) Cities in Space (London: Fulton). For an accessible and well-
illustrated account of urban problems and policies, read M.H.Matthews (1991) British Inner
Cities (Oxford: Oxford University Press). A short paper which summarises the changing
distribution of ethnic minority groups up to the early 1990s is V.Robinson (1994) ‘The
geography of ethnic minorities’, Geography Review 7: 10–15.
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Chapter 11
Rural change and development
Malcolm Moseley
Introduction
The first problem with rural Britain is to define it. Indeed, the first task is to question
its existence altogether! That statement is not an excuse for bemoaning the so-called
fact that our leafy shires are rapidly disappearing under a tidal wave of concrete—a
much exaggerated bit of scaremongering—but merely a recognition that although
nine-tenths of our island is still visually ‘countryside’, in social and economic terms
the distinctiveness of ‘rural Britain’ is fast disappearing. Our island is shrinking, as
much because of advances in telecommunications as because of those in transport
availability, and the argument that most of midland and southern England is now
one vast dispersed metropolis, whatever the view from the window, is now a
compelling one.
But ‘rural areas’ —however defined—do have certain characteristics, notably low
population density and a much sought after green environment, which give national social
and economic trends and problems a peculiar twist when they surface in that milieu. It is
those ‘twists’ to which this chapter will be devoted. Look in other chapters if your interest
is predominantly in that minority but necessarily rural industry called agriculture (Chapter
5), in land use per se (Chapter 20), or in the physical environment of the countryside
(Chapters 17 and 20).
As for a definition, the criteria most commonly used are population density, the
proportion of built-upon land, remoteness from urban centres, and degree of reliance upon
‘land extensive’ economic activities (notably agriculture, horticulture, forestry, quarrying,
fishing, environmental management, green tourism and outdoor recreation). But every
researcher applies such criteria in a different way (how remote is ‘remote’?; what density
is ‘low density’?) and data availability imposes its own complications. In short, there is
no unambiguous domain called ‘rural Britain’.
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One recent piece of research rested upon designating every tiny census tract of Britain
as ‘rural’ or ‘urban’, based on two criteria: population density and land use. In this way,
some 2,300 ‘urban areas’ emerged, over half of them with fewer than 5,000 residents. The
remainder, termed ‘rural’, were seen to have about 10 per cent of the national population;
some data are presented above on their characteristics. But note that this definition of ‘rural
Britain’ is an exacting one and that most small towns and the larger villages are excluded
from these data.
That said, and on the basis of the 1991 Census, the population of Britain’s rural areas
clearly tends to differ in some significant respects from that of our towns and cities (Table 11.1).
But if the statistics shown in Table 11.1 suggest a rather ‘rosy’ view of rural Britain,
the reader should remember two salutary points. First, it is an aggregate view and ignores
considerable local variation. Second, it conceals the real possibility that those without cars,
who are not middle class, who are in an ethnic minority, who are obliged to seek rented
accommodation, or whatever, may well be worse off than their urban counterparts through
living in the seemingly idyllic world of rural Britain in the late twentieth century. We will
return to this theme.
Demographic and social change
Looking at a key indicator—population size—depopulation has not been the norm in postwar
rural Britain, as it was hitherto and as it still is across large swathes of continental Europe.
TABLE 11.1 The ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ population of Britain, 1991
Source: C.Denham and I.White (1998) ‘Differences in urban and rural Britain’, Population Trends 91,
Spring: 23–34.
Note: See text for the definition of ‘urban’ and ‘rural’.
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Indeed the converse is true. In 1951 there were 10.4 million people in the administrative
rural districts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the county districts of Scotland;
this was 20 per cent of the total. By 1971 the corresponding figures were 12.8 million and
23 per cent.
Moving on to the next twenty-year period, 1971 to 1991, and focusing on rural
England only, the population of its 150 ‘most rural’ local authority districts was as in
Table 11.2. The reasons for the ‘rural renaissance’ shown in Table 11.2 are complex,
but two sets of factors are important. The first are ‘permissive’ —they have enabled
but not caused the migration movements that underlie these statistics. Principal
amongst these have been the rise in car ownership, the improvement in transport
infrastructure and the penetration into the rural areas of sophisticated
telecommunications benefiting both businesses and, more recently, private households
alike. In short, our already small island has got progressively smaller. To this list of
key ‘permissive factors’ we should add higher disposable incomes (especially
pensions) as well as ubiquitous television, because they too have made possible an
urban lifestyle without an urban residence.
The second set of factors underlying the post-war growth of the rural population
are of a more causal nature. They relate in part to business owners and managers
weighing up the pros and cons of conurbation locations compared with those of smaller
settlements—and increasingly opting for the latter. Such decisions have served to draw
the people, their labour force, out of the big cities and old industrial areas to join them
(see the discussion of the so-called ‘rural economy’, pp. 219–21). And in part they
relate to private individuals and households similarly preferring a village or small to
medium-sized town location but this time for ‘lifestyle’ reasons of their own—i.e. not
just to ‘follow the jobs’. These ‘lifestyle’ reasons have been varied but relate to both
rural ‘pros’ and urban ‘cons’ —with factors such as lower crime levels, more space in
and around the home, a greener environment and a perceived greater sense of community
proving decisive.
Of course, and this point is fundamental, not everyone has been able to indulge
these residential preferences, and a measure of ‘social class imbalance’ and of ‘age
imbalance’ has come about as a result. As for age imbalance, we should not underestimate
the capacity of occupational pensions—still a rarity in the early post-war years—to
permit a growing number of retired people, no longer needing to be near the main
TABLE 11.2 Population change in England, 1971–91
Note: *Defined here as the most rural 150 districts using a range of criteria.