- How to invigorate struggling rural economies
Back and forth
Existing and long term rural dwellers notwithstanding, there is a seemingly unassailable inertia for people to move to the ‘big city’. There are a vast range of reasons why this might be, but that is not the focus here. We are witnessing the impact of this exodus, from the impoverishment of quality of life, such as people living in shanty towns, to the increase in natural disasters as the climate shifts in reaction to both accumulative resource depletion and increasingly unsustainable behaviour at a global scale, at least partially caused by this migration. This perceived reduction on quality of life from the rural to urban shift is to some extent premised on the false notion that ‘life in the country’ is all ‘sweetness and delight’.
In contrast to this, there is an emerging aside around understanding why there is an increasing number of people going the other way, from large conurbations to semi-rural environments: Why live in ‘rurality’; because of an idealised notion of ‘lifestyle’, or because it is simply not the ‘city’? What is there that is of itself to live there for? Is it escapism; a romantic return to Rousseau’s ‘noble savage’, memories of a simpler life akin to childhood, as if the ‘city’ life is merely typified by pace, superficiality, materialism, or perhaps just a reaction to an accumulative lack of proximity to nature.
Our interest here is to explore some aspects of the nature of the semi-rural living environment and in what ways the economic diversity could be improved towards making them more sustainable places, and therefore a more viable place to live, other than those who already live there or move just to retire (and skew local resources by typically being older and thus, for example, being a bigger draw on local healthcare). In this way, we address, albeit in a small way, the one way movement outlined above, but also how to begin to re-invigorate the seemingly forgotten rural living environments.
There is a specific location used as a case study, which will be referred to descriptively, but the identity of which is not revealed, partially because it is meant representatively of the myriad of similar situations around the world, and partially because, hypocritically, it is a place I frequent often and I like it the way it is. Although, I acknowledge the narrowness and fragility of the local economy, and thus we have the reason for this article.
[For further reading on sustainable small towns, see also the excellent: Knox, Paul L & Heike Mayer, Small Town Sustainability: Economic, Social and Environmental Innovation, Basel, Birkhauser, 2009]
In the city
In many ways, we are emerging from narrower and more idealistic planning approaches of the twentieth century for the development of our towns and cities, into more integrated modes that consider both the surrounding context and how people actually live, and increasingly take the given situation as a starting point.
This equates to a much better understanding of how cities work, and by extension, what we need to do to improve them. As such, it becomes more to do with political will as to whether, and to what extent, we engage with, and improve, our neighbourhoods and cities. What this also highlights is the need for regeneration professionals and urban designers to focus on semi-rural environments as well, so that we have a more balanced outlook on how and where people live.
There will of course inevitably be a ‘tail’ behind the leading edge of achieving sustainable regeneration, and indeed this could be quite long, in that it will take a few generations to work through, but as long as lessons learnt can be taken on board, there is good reason to hope we may go in the right direction, although there is by no means any guarantee of this, and inevitably it will vary hugely from area to area around the world, particularly with increasing pressure of commercialisation and the mostly negative implications that go with that.
This should not however lead to the notion that all that has gone before was of no worth; what is crucial is that we take the relevant and best of what has come before, and integrate it with current and emerging practices, when they are deemed, consensually, to be of worth. It was the ‘clean sweep’ approach of successive planning epochs through the twentieth century that gave such a polarised series of places that form many of the areas currently struggling.
City to countryside
It is now the consensus that we have passed the point where over half of the world’s population live in an urban environment. However, this still leaves around three billion people in a predominantly rural situation. Also, to what extent does the suburban (non-urban, non-rural) situation come to bear? There are many gradations from dense urban to fully rural, but in reality it is rarely as cleanly defined as the transects diagrams. [The notion of ‘suburbs’ is clearly related here but outside of the scope of this article, albeit to say that the semi-rural situation under discussion here is quite distinct from a suburban, or ‘semi-urban’, situation, although they are both non-urban.]
The reality is not really reflected in the transect diagram: rural areas, and indeed others too to a lesser extent, are quite mixed, with some villages being quite compact, but sat in a wholly rural context. If we are to consider an area holistically, it is not only about acknowledging this mix, but also, for example, how each of these function and how they interact together, as well as considering the non-physical, from transport and access to education, employment, leisure and culture: the socio-economic. All together, we have the main three strands of what might be termed holistic sustainability: economic, environmental and social.
By increasing the focus on the neglected lives of those beyond the edges of our large urban areas, we can begin to explore the rural situation, which may form a different kind of conurbation: a collection of small market towns and villages acting in concert, but connected by rurality rather than urban sprawl. This would allow us to see more clearly how these small ‘pockets’ of urban areas connect with their rural areas, and what the nature of the inter-connection between each pocket is, and how each functions, as well as revealing whether the role of each complements the others, rather than compete, to form a cohesive whole across the valley. This in turn could lead to ways to better connect large town and city dwellers with the rural hinterland that supports their city - water, food, waste, transport. Essentially moving towards this notion of a more holistic sustainability.
Employment diversity
The area under consideration is a collection of around seventeen villages set in a valley, with the three larger ones lying on the main valley road through, and the rest located deeper into the mountains off the main road. The three main villages tend to have most of the shops, restaurants and civic functions, such as town hall, doctors, banks and post office. Being in one valley, they all very much feel as one place, with a sense of camaraderie.
The area is predominantly mountainous and wooded on the lower slopes, but close to the coast, and has cheese and cider as two of the main local products, there being a lot of goat farming in the area, and good climate for apples. The area attracts a good degree of tourism for the mountains, providing a good range of activities from walking and mountain climbing to caving and canoeing.
As might be expected, the area is busy through the Summer, with hotels being mostly full. However, whilst it is by no means a solely tourist area that closes down in the winter, there are far fewer tourists out of season and many hotels, bars and restaurants struggle through this period.
Which brings us to the nub of the problem: there is an oversupply of mediocre bedspaces, not commensurate with the high quality of the landscape the area enjoys. This situation was exacerbated by the stoking of the building industry with well intentioned rural development grants from the European Union, leading to the (substantially true) stereotype whereby women work in hospitality, and men work in construction.
This situation has been self-fuelling with a cycle of: cheap bedspaces – oversupply – lack of job options – too much construction – cheap bedspaces. Although one half of this equation has recently changed significantly with a large and rapid drop in the level of construction as part of a broader situation countrywide.
This situation was at least partially created by the aforementioned European Union grants in the latter quarter of the twentieth century for rural households to convert buildings into hospitality accommodation. (The reasons for this are discussed below in Demographic context.) Crucially, they were grants rather than loans, so unsurprisingly, popular. This led to an explosion of bedspaces, which, as discussed above, may be mostly full in peak high season, but most of the time are not, and led to the situation where even a decent hotel room can be had for under fifty Euros per night. This has lead people to become reliant on un-sustainable business models, and not focusing on other possible methods of making a living. Any future economic development would need to give detailed consideration to the level and range of types of accommodation.
Bedtime
The bedspaces would need to distil down over time, but would be fine initially while new strands of employment are seeded and until they gain traction. The worst of the bedspaces should be the ones to disappear, so the quality rises and becomes more commensurate with the nature of the place and builds the perception of the area in general. This in turn will drive the need for better support services and facilities such as restaurants bars, shops, tour companies, leisure services, etc. There are excellent views from many places in the area, but much accommodation relies on merely being in the area of beautiful landscape without directly taking advantage of it per se.
An increase in the diversity of employment options would address the issue as well as the exodus of the local young, and help attract others to the area. Whilst the nature of the locality (landscape) may be a direct attraction for many visitors and businesses, it can also be a secondary reason for others: a media business, for example, that only needs a decent broadband connection, who may wish to have a beautiful place to locate to without that being directly beneficial to the business itself. Although, quality of life and location for employees is a major factor when companies consider re-location, or better still, businesses that develop from local talent.
[Note: The base case that it is the mountainous nature of the area that is of inherent value is acknowledged by the local government, and is protected.]
Demographic context
In the second half of the twentieth century, the industry that this area was well known for went into substantial decline. This led to an exodus to other parts of Europe of a large part of the workforce, many of whom have now returned in retirement.
The current situation is further exacerbated in that there was in effect not just a lost generation, but a line drawn stopping future generations in the area for certain families: The people that went to work in countries such as France, Belgium and Germany around the 1970’s for a significant part of their working lives, and have returned in retirement, tend to have children who have stayed in their parent’s working country, and in most cases are unlikely to move to back. Many of the returnees lament this situation, questioning why their children do not want to return, but seemingly not realising, or at least acknowledging, that their children were born and raised elsewhere, so consider that to be home. This represents a situation worse than the common exodus of the young due to lack of, or perception of lack of, employment opportunities, but a partial stem in the future population from people native to the area. This also increases a sense of isolation in the retired generation who find difficulty in comprehending that their adult children do not want to 'return', when in reality they have never really had a connection with the area, other than through their parents as an idealised vicarious notion.
The tenuous connection represented by the property owned by the parental generation that will pass to their children - tenuous because it is probably unwanted in the most part - could possibly represent an opportunity. If the area can be invigorated economically, and these properties can be brought forward through planning policy and political will to be viable properties, occasional holiday visits could be an opportunity to encourage some people to settle in the area. There is much to offer, but the leap from nice place for a holiday is a long way from good place to live. If this could be broadened further to attract others whose families are not originally from the area who wish to settle in there, this would add a better pool of experience which itself would help diversify employment and enrich life in the valley.
Rural art foundation
The role of creatives in regeneration is already well documented, so the benefits and issues around that can be left aside here, although it should not be over estimated, but rather properly considered with evidence based analysis of the whats and hows. What is offered here is an example of a small art foundation that hopes be part of diversifying the local economy by attracting a different type of person so widening the scope of the attraction of the area and raising its profile, but in a way not directly related to the landscape, which is its primary draw.
The art foundation would initially provide an artist’s residence with a short, say, four month residency, at the end of which there would be an exhibition, which would run for the duration of the following tenure, once the second – exhibition – building was completed. Before that, the exhibition could be held in the studio, between tenures, or at a local space in one of the small towns nearby, which itself would help to develop its presence and create stronger links.
By providing both a studio and residence, as well as a situation that is relatively isolated and devoid of distractions, apart from stunning scenery and great cuisine, artists could focus on developing the work. This would be offered to artists, with little restriction on media, who have a clear idea or body of work to explore, so probably would not be recent students who would need tutoring.
As it became more established, it could reach out to the local community in more direct ways, even with some things as simple as access to broadband internet connection, which would help prevent such an enterprise existing in isolation from the local economy, as well as exposing people to a broader range of experiences and possible opportunities. Also, visitors to exhibitions would be using local hotels and restaurants.
Network
Artists in residence will come from their own networks, well developed in some cases, albeit perhaps informal, and therefore would provide access to them, as well as bringing attention to the area from those networks. These networks act as support and knowledge sharing for artists, and do not need to be wholly physical. This could be further developed into an open studios network, with an annual 'festival', providing public interaction and artist exposure.
Therefore, there would be a need for a ‘hub’ to act as centre and coordinate activities, which this foundation could fulfil. Initially it would have a base of a few existing artists and creatives, and build up the network and attract funding, which would raise the profile and achieve a ‘critical mass’, which in turn would bring more people to the area.
It would be important to integrate into the area in a number of ways, the nature of which need to be established, and build capacity for new jobs to emerge, further capacity and opportunity for which would hopefully emerge as the enterprise gathered momentum.
It is anticipated that artists would be drawn from both national and international arenas. This would not only draw attention from an international perspective, but allow a reciprocal focus on developing a higher profile abroad. These would act symbiotically to attract both attention and funding.
Summer school
Once the foundation was well established and financially sustainable, with regular exhibitions appealing to a ‘loyal’ following and other gallery contacts, it would be able to consider a broader range of programme.
One of the four annual tenures could be now taken for a Summer school, the media of which could vary each year: art, theatre, design, film. The contacts developed through the art foundation could be used to bring in required tutors, who would live in the studio house if not local, while the gallery building becomes the group studio, (with around twelve students living downstairs). Students who would perhaps not get such an opportunity otherwise would form the bulk of the group, perhaps from establishing contacts with a colleges and NGOs around the world – assuming that is possible in an un-patronising manner. This would provide groups of different cultural backgrounds, and it would be this that would be taken as the leitmotif, and its counterpoints, to be explored and used to evolve fresh work. For this to have a foil, some local students would be included in the group. This would set up the possibility of exchange programmes, where a small group of local students visit the places of the national and international students.
In the end
The art foundation is not intended as a full solution to making the local economy healthy, but as a change in the dynamic and a salient marker that other things are possible, signalling the way forward for others to acknowledge and release their own entrepreneurial tendencies.
