Examine The Factors Influencing Land Use In The Rurban Fringe
- 1. a) Outline the recent changes in the character of rural areas in MEDCs How recent is recent? How rural is rural? What does character mean? Do you need to mention what it was like and how it is now? Have you thought about both the positive and the negative changes? Use case studies!
- 2. How recent is recent? Define a time scale – last 40/50 years. How rural is rural? Have all rural areas undergone the same transitions/changes? How does East Lothian compare to the southern Borders?
- 3. What does character mean? Land use – are we only talking about housing? (Industry/agriculture/commerce) Social make-up. Economic make up. Quality of the environment. Think East Lothian and Fife!
- 4. b) Examine the factors influencing land use in the rural/urban fringe. MEDC? LEDC? Past? Current? Future? Don’t forget also that you have to put all of this into an located context – use case studies!
- 5. Introduction Lots of different competing land uses. Demands on any individual plot may be wide and varied. So the resulting land use depends on the inter-play of a wide number of factors.
- 6. Factors influencing land use in MEDCs. Existing land uses Demands on land uses in the rural/urban fringe (landfill, recreation, shopping) Planning controls – what does the Structure Plan state? Cost of the land Proximity to other land uses Access to any given area – roads/junctions Quality of the land for agriculture.
- 7. Factors influencing land use in LEDCs. Immigration of rural poor to urban areas – peripheral shanty towns Requirement of peri-urban zone to provide food for urban areas Provision of wood fuel for city – leads to difficulties for agriculture and possibility of desert formation
- 8. What does the future hold for the rural/urban fringe? Largely dependent upon the nature of any given urban area. In declining urban areas there is far less pressure on rurban zones because land is available within the city. In growing urban areas all vacant city sites are spoken for within the confines of the existing boundary.