🏡 Growing villages
New housing estates are built on farmland next to a village. The village gets bigger and the area of countryside gets smaller.
Changing Rural Environments » Counter-urbanisation and the Negative Multiplier
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: 5.2b Factors leading to rural change in a named developed country
- How suburbanisation changes villages close to cities in the United Kingdom
- What counter-urbanisation is and who moves to the countryside
- The negative multiplier effect, written out as a cycle
- How to link these factors in an exam answer
🔒 Unlock Full Course Content
Sign up to access the complete lesson and track your progress!
Unlock This CourseThree more factors of rural change
The last lesson looked at rural isolation, the decline in farm employment and tourist pressures. This lesson finishes the spec list for a named developed country. We keep using the United Kingdom (UK). The three factors here are suburbanisation, counter-urbanisation and the negative multiplier effect.
Two of them are about people moving, and one is about decline feeding on itself. Here we look only at what each one does to the countryside.
Key terms:
- Suburbanisation: the growth of built-up areas on the edge of a city, which can spread into nearby villages.
- Commuter: a person who lives in one place and travels some distance to work each day.
- Counter-urbanisation: the movement of people from towns and cities to live in the countryside.
- Negative multiplier effect: when the loss of one job or service causes more losses, so that decline gets worse in a cycle.
Factor 4: suburbanisation
As UK cities grow, new housing is built on their edges. Villages close to a city can be swallowed up or grow quickly. Many of the new homes are bought by people who work in the city but want more space. They become commuters.
🚌 More traffic
Commuters drive or take trains to the city each day. Village roads become busy at rush hour, and the village can become a place people only sleep in.
The change is not all bad. New residents spend money locally and can help keep a shop or school open. But farmland is lost, and the village may start to feel like part of the city rather than the countryside.
Factor 5: counter-urbanisation
Counter-urbanisation is people moving out of cities and towns to live in rural areas. It happens in the UK because many people want a quieter life, cleaner air, more space and a feeling of community. Better cars, trains and broadband make it easier to live further from work, and some people now work from home.
Who moves? Often families looking for bigger, cheaper homes and a safe place for children, and people who have retired and want a peaceful place to live.
✅ Benefits
New people bring money, skills and customers. They may use the village shop, pub and school, and help keep them going.
❌ Problems
Demand for houses pushes prices up, so local young people cannot afford to buy. Newcomers who commute may spend little in the village. Some long-term residents feel the village is changing too fast.
Suburbanisation or counter-urbanisation?
Suburbanisation is the city spreading outwards, mostly to places close to it. Counter-urbanisation is people choosing to move away from the city into the countryside, which can be further out. Both bring in newcomers. In an exam, say which one you mean.
Factor 6: the negative multiplier effect
Sometimes a rural area loses jobs or people and cannot recover. The negative multiplier effect is when one loss leads to another, then another, like a snowball rolling downhill. Each loss makes the next one more likely.
Here is the cycle in words, using a UK village as the example:
- A local employer, such as a small factory, closes, so jobs are lost.
- Families have less money, or move away to find work.
- With fewer people, the shop, pub, bus service and school have fewer customers.
- Some of these services close.
- The village becomes a less attractive place to live, so more people leave and fewer move in.
- The population falls again, and the cycle starts over, getting worse each time.
Counter-urbanisation can help break the cycle, because newcomers bring customers and money back.
Worked example
Question: Explain how the loss of a village shop could start a negative multiplier effect.
Answer: When the shop closes, the people who worked there lose their jobs (1). Residents must travel to a town to buy food, so they spend their money elsewhere, and other village businesses lose customers (1). Without shops and services the village becomes less attractive, so people move away and the population falls further (1).
Common mistakes
- Mixing up counter-urbanisation with urbanisation. Urbanisation is people moving into cities. Counter-urbanisation is the opposite direction.
- Writing the negative multiplier as one loss only. It needs at least two or three linked steps, ending in a further loss.
- Leaving out the named country. Say the United Kingdom, or a place within it.
- Saying all rural change is bad. Suburbanisation and counter-urbanisation can bring money and people.
Exam-style question
(a) Explain what is meant by counter-urbanisation. [2 marks]
(b) Explain how the negative multiplier effect can lead to further decline in a rural area in a named developed country. [3 marks]
Model answer
(a) Counter-urbanisation is the movement of people from towns and cities (1) to live in the countryside (1).
(b) In the UK, if a farm or local employer closes, people lose their jobs and move away (1). With fewer people, the village shop and bus service lose customers and may close (1). This makes the village less attractive, so even more people leave, and the decline repeats (1).
Exam tip
For the negative multiplier, write a chain of at least three linked steps and end by saying the decline repeats or gets worse. That shows the cycle.