The aim of this study is to identify place to place differences in rural economy and society, developed around ideas of social and economic linkages implied from the analysis of pre-existing data – much of it at ‘micro-scale’. This involves the analysis of a number of social and economic dimensions combined for particular rural places including:
- local economic role (i.e. ‘in situ’ employment structure and growth),
- workplace attachment (i.e. ‘local’ and ‘non local’ links),
- social mix (exclusivity and sustainable communities), and
- physical development i.e. (the accommodation of housing and employment).
The aim of this study is to identify participation of rural ‘agents’ in a series of ‘networks’ and on this basis to develop a small number of potential typologies of localities based on ‘networks’. The work will be conducted at a very fine-grained geographic scale – namely 1ha grids - using existing data, much of which has not been seriously analyzed for rural areas.
There are three broad dimensions to the work, concerned respectively with residents, businesses and outcomes:
a focus on the networks in which residents participate will examine the extent of participation in paid work within the home and the extent of reliance on employment income associated with workplaces within the locality, in local towns, within the travel to work area and more widely.
a focus on the networks in which business participates including such things as the extent and nature of the stock of businesses in the locality, the goods and services offered and the extent of reliance of businesses on labour from within the locality, from within the travel to work area and beyond.
a concern with outcomes, focussing on such matters as the social mix of localities, levels of household income, the extent and nature of new residential development, the extent and character of new non-residential development and accessibility of households to private and public services.