Counterurbanisation: the local dimension

Geoforum, Vol. 26. No. 2. pp. 153-173, 1995 Copyright 0 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0X6-7185/95 $9.50+0.00

Pergamon

00167185(95)ooo17-8

Counterurbanisation: Dimension

DAVID SPENCER,*

the Local

Reading, U.K.

Abstract: This paper takes an approach to the study of counterurbanisation which differs from established perspectives in two ways: through a focus upon the redistribution of both population and dwellings among all settlements in a locality; and by considering both the spatial and hierarchical components of change. A case study demonstrates that during the last three inter-censal periods additional people and dwellings have been unevenly distributed across rural space, most being accommodated through the expansion of established nodes of development. Coupled to this, because the smaller places have not grown at the expense of the larger communities, the established settlement hierarchy shows no sign of breaking down. Enquiries cast in structure and agency terms suggest that explanation may lie in how a pattern of development opportunities and constraints has been forged through time by landowners, and this has tended to protect most smaller communities from substantial enlargement. Planning policies have reinforced this situation at the very time that counterurbanisation has occurred.

Introduction:

Enhancing

A focus on ruralsettlements

Studies of

Counterurbanisation

Since the late 197Os, counterurbanisation has captured the imagination of geographers, economists and planners alike. Most researchers consider it to be the deconcentration of people from city regions or ‘urban’ local authorities into variously defined ‘rural’ territories, taking the form of an inverse relationship between the population size of an area and its rate of growth (Fielding, 1982; Champion, 1989). Numerous studies have used these principles to portray ex-urban population shifts in Britain (see, for example, Champion, 1989; Cross, 1990). Nevertheless, this paper argues that researchers should not be content to plough the same furrow, but should develop alternative perspectives to complement mainstream approaches.

*Department Whiteknights,

of Geography, University Reading RG6 2AB, U.K.

of Reading,

It has become conventional to tap into the decentralisation process at a sub-regional level principally because “It is at the intermediate spatial scale that studies of counterurbanisation should be locatedalmost by definition because this is basically the scale of the urban system” (Champion, 1989: 84). This approach has already spawned numerous widelyacclaimed studies which paint a broadbrush picture of the spatial outcome of urban-rural population transfers. However, the uneven development of rural localities is still rather sketchily portrayed and explained and change at the level of physically defined settlements remains very poorly understood. With the notable exception of Flowerdew and Boyle’s (1992) study, even the basic matter of whether demographic change in rural localities is, strictly speaking, counterurbanisation or suburbanisation has received very little attention. Moreover, apart from a generalised account of the pivotal role played by mediumsized and small towns in the dispersal process (Shep153

1.54 herd and Congdon, 1990), the specific matter of whether ex-urbanites are attracted to particular settlement size classes has not been addressed in the British literature. Clearly, attention needs to be switched to the local rural dimension in order to develop a firmer understanding of counterurbanisation. Cloke (1985) has already called for a rural perspective to complement the prevailing tendency to focus upon aggregate urban-centred centrifugal shifts, and to an extent this paper follows his lead. However, it differs in one crucial respect: it adopts a sharp spatial focus upon free-standing settlements within rural territories through local case studies.

Geoforum/Volume

26 Number 2/1995

which are required to accommodate people and househoids will add a much-needed physical dimension to studies of counterurbanisation. Aggregate population growth and decline is not necessarily the only or principal mechanism re-shaping rural areas and their constituent settlements. In some instances, it may be a poor indicator of how urbanised rural communities are becoming. In places where a modest population upturn has occurred, growth may have been overshadowed by the rate at which dwellings are constructed and households colonise an area. Even small settlements recording depopulation may feel these pressures (Weekley, 1988; see also Spencer, 1994).

The Aims of this Paper People, households and dwellings

Studies of counterurbanisation can also be enhanced if it is conceptualised more broadly. One limitation of research to date is that virtually all of it has, understandably, been concerned with the redistribution of people. But this gives only a partial insight into the changing scale and pace at which the countryside is urbanising because it fails to appreciate the significance of aggregate growth in the number of households and dwellings. Indeed, population totals for England and Wales rose by only 405,000 between 1971 and 1981-a 0.83% increase-(OPCS, 1983) and by only 39,000 over the most recent inter-censal period (OPCS, 1993). However, the number of private households has not followed suit, having recorded a 35% increase between 1961 and 1991, a figure well in excess of the 6.7% rise in population over the same period. Moreover, while the total population was virtually static between 1981 and 1991, the number of households with residents grew by just over 2 million, a 12.3% increase. Unfortunately, a robust time-series for dwellings is difficult to construct. Nevertheless, OPCS data’ indicates that the number of dwellings has grown by around 6 million over the last three decades, representing a 42% increase, the direction and magnitude of change paralleling the trends recorded for households. The re-grouping of people into more and smaller households suggests that the prevailing focus on population per se, should be broadened by taking account of this trend, while the number of dwellings

This study has evolved from the misgivings about established approaches to counterurbanisation outlined above. Consequently, it aims to ascertain the extent to which population change and residential development has occurred in free-standing settlements, and sets out to offer a preliminary explanation for why a particular spatial and hierarchical form has emerged. It is divided into two parts. The first examines how far the dispersal of people and dwellings into ‘rural’ space and its constituent settlements has occurred, and also establishes the extent to which additional people and dwellings have filtered down the settlement hierarchy. The second part argues that an acceptable explanation for the diverse local imprint made by counterurbanisation lies in the interactions between structure and agency in specific places and at particular times, particularly the ways in which landowners and planners have helped to make and and re-make their demographic attributes.

The Case Study Area: South Oxfordshire

District

The localised demographic and physical imprint made by counterurbanisation has been examined within South Oxfordshire District for the 1961-1991 period. As Figure 1 illustrates, it is located close to the outer edge of the South-East region, and can be described as ‘pressurised’ or ‘metropolitan’ countryside (Webber and Craig, 1976; Dunn et al., 1981). Indeed, it has urbanised to the extent that Cloke (1977) and Cloke and Edwards (1986) seriously doubt

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26 Number 2/1995

Boundary of

I

OXFORDSHIRE

Outer Metropolitan

Figure 1. South Oxfordshire district: location map.

whether South Oxfordshire retains any genuinely ‘rural’ characteristics. The District is also located at the heart of a group of prosperous sub-regions which collectively comprise the so-called ‘western crescent’: wrapping itself round the London region from Dorset in the south west through northern Hampshire, Berkshire, and Oxfordshire and so on to the Milton Keynes, Northampton, and Peterborough sub-regions. (Champion and Townsend, 1990: 187.)

Like other Districts located in this crescent, South Oxfordshire has experienced considerable growth in both employment and population in recent years. To precisely match physically defined settlements whose boundaries are dynamic with areas for which successive census statistics are available is in itself a major research effort (Craig, 1987; Shepherd and Congdon, 1990). Given the limited resources available for this study, a second best alternative has been adopted which gives a fair representation of growth among free-standing places over three inter-censal periods. It is centred on the civil parish. Preliminary investigations revealed that this particular spatial/ administrative unit was the most enduring surrogate for a free-standing settlement in South Oxfordshire. One drawback with using parishes is that the probability of alterations to their boundaries increases as

the research timescale is lengthened; however, the boundaries of only eight of South Oxfordshire’s 87 parishes were re-drawn over the 1961-91 period. Most of these were suburban in character, being part of underbound Oxford City and Reading rather than functioning as settlements in their own right. Their omission was therefore of little consequence to the aims of this study. A further three parishes were excluded because by the time of the 1991 census their populations were so small that data for them had been added to the totals for adjoining areas. Fortunately, parish populations have remained relatively concentrated: there were only eight instances where parish statistics were a poor representation of the dynamics of free-standing communities because large numbers of inhabitants were grouped in and/or around more than one principal nodal point. All in all, population change in 76 parishes was examined in detail, although two of these had to be omitted when dwelling counts were made because figures for 1961 were not available. Data has been analysed for individual parishes and aggregated in order to record change for settlement size-classes. Parishes were grouped simply by inspecting their rank-size order in 1961 and noting where natural breaks occurred, from which a fourgroup settlement typology emerged (Table 3). The spatial distribution of parishes containing settlements of each type is depicted in Figure 2.

26 Number 2/1995

GeoforumNolume

156

OXFORD

L’L”= 4 Wittenham

‘?!.Swyncombe \

Aston’ i%r UpthorpeI

Parishes containing

(

:

Principal Country Towns

‘;-xJ----f \ _/--

-( (e) i Mapledurham ( \ \ ‘\ \*_______.-

Secondary Centres

:

I

Large Villages

\

,-*’ 0

Small Villages

I

*

READING

Intensivelystudied

(a) Omitted : boundary change, 1971-81

0

I

(b) Omitted : boundary change, 1981-91 (c)

1

I

2

I

3 ,

4 miles

I

Omitted: no parish populationdata in 1991

Note: 1991 parish boundaries

Figure 2. South Oxfordshire:

The Local Imprint Change

of District-wide

South

Oxfordshire

has experienced

growth

during

the last three

decades.

Growth

and

considerable A 46% increase

in the number of people living in private households has been recorded, the bulk of which occurred in the trends 1961-1971 period when ‘counterurban’

settlement

typology.

reached their zenith (see Table 1). The number of dwelling units has grown at just over twice that rate, doubtless reflecting national and regional shifts towards more and smaller households living in selfcontained accommodation (Table 2). The figures for the 76 parishes which make up the case study area follow a similar pattern. Substantial growth occurred over the 1961-1991 period, which is largely a product

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26 Number 2/1995

Table 1. Absolute

Year

157

and percentage population change in South Oxfordshire and the case study parishes, 1961-1991

Total population* South Oxfordshire 76 Parishes

Period

Population change South Oxfordshire (%) 76 Parishes (%)

1961 1971 1981

89,544 118,908 121,705

71,014 98,911 106,845

1961-71 1971-81 1981-91

29,364 (+32.0) 2797t (+2.0) 9195t (+7.0)

27,897 (+39.0) 7934 (+8.0) -25 (0.0)

1991

130,900

106,820

1961-91

41,356

35,806 (+38.9)

(+46.0)

*All population figures are for persons in private households. TAdjustments have not been made to District figures to account for boundary changes. Source: All figures derived from small area census statistics. Table 2. Absolute and percentage change in the number of dwellings in South Oxfordshire

and the case study parishes, 1961-1991 Total dwellings South Year Oxfordshire

74 Parishes

Period

Change in dwellings South Oxfordshire (%) 74 Parishes (%)

1961 1971 1981*

27,918 41,482 47,066

22,308 34,578 40,033

1961-71 1971-81 1981-91

13,564 (+48.0) 5,584 (+13.0)+ 103 (+0.0)t

12,270 (+55.0) 5,455 (+15.0) 4,262 (+ 10.0)

1991

47,169

44,295

1961-91

19,251 (+68.0)

21,987 (+98.0)

*In the absence of a census count of dwellings, 1981 figures are for household spaces. iAdjustments have not been made to District figures to take account of boundary changes. Source: All figures summed from small area census statistics.

of a marked population upturn in the 1960s. Throughout each decade, residential development has occurred more rapidly than population has grown; indeed the dwelling stock grew by 10% in the 1980s when the population of the case study area was virtually static (Tables 1 and 2). These aggregate changes beg the question: where have the additional people and dwellings been accommodated?

expanding settlements are located in the north and north east of the study area. Other places with medium-high growth rates are found close to the Thames below Dorchester. In complete contrast, however. numerous smaller communities stagnated, and 22 others lost inhabitants. Many of the latter are found in the Oxford Green Belt and in those parts of the south-east of the District falling into the Chilterns AONB.

The dispersal ofpeople and dwellings into the country-

Figure 4 illustrates that counterurbanisation has made a widespread physical imprint. The vast majority of parishes (58 in total) saw their dwelling stock enlarge by at least 25%, and around one half grew by at least double that amount. The country towns, secondary urban centres, and large villages all saw a pronounced expansion of their dwelling stock, exceeding the rate at which their populations grew, which parallels the national and regional trends discussed above. A group of seven large villages witnessed the greatest proportionate increases of all, averaging 171% in three decades. Not surprisingly, these places have been totally transformed. Chal-

side: area1 differentiation

Figure 3 demonstrates that population change has varied considerably from place to place. It is not unusual to see parishes with the highest rates of growth juxtaposed with settlements which have depopulated, as is the case in parts of the north and southwest of the District. At one extreme, six places stand out because their population more than doubled, the most spectacular rates of growth being found in Chalgrove (+319%), Chinnor (+234%), and Berinsfield (+231%). All but one of this group of rapidly-

158

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26 Number

2/1995

Over 100%

75.1- 100% 50.1- 75.0% 25.1 - 50.0% 0.1

- 25.0%

Loss

(a) Omitted (b) Omitted

_boundary - boundary

(c) Omitted-no in 1991

change 1971-81 change 1981-91

parish population data

I

Figure 3. South Oxfordshire: percentage population change (persons in private households).

grove, Berinsfield, and Woodcote in particular have collectively seen over 2000 ‘anyplace’ suburban estate-type dwelling units added to historic village cores. The outcome has been a predominantly agricultural landscape occasionally punctuated by “suburbs surrounded by fields rather than other suburbs” (Moseley, 1982: 262).

0

1

I

2

by parish,

I

3

I

4 miles

I

1961-1991

One important difference is apparent when the diffusion of dwellings and population is compared closely. While large tracts of the Green Belt and AONB were relatively immune from population growth, they have, nevertheless, succumbed to pressures for residential construction. Indeed, most parishes close to Henley on the southern dip slope of the

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26 Number

159

2/1995

Numbe PariB 11 8 19 20 14 2

(a) Omitted (b) Omitted

- boundary - boundary

change 1971-81 change 1981-91 0

N/D

Figure 4. South Oxfordshire:

Chilterns

saw their

dwelling

stock

increase

no data available

percentage change in the number 1991.

by be-

tween 25 and 50%, suggesting localised dispersal because supplies of building land in the town are limited. All in all, dwellings have spread across the countryside to a greater extent than people have dispersed to village and hamlet. In South Oxfordshire, population change is, therefore, only a partial indicator of whether and how far places are affected by the counterurbanisation process: indeed, it may

give a misleading

L

1

I

2

/

of dwellings,

impression

3

I

4 miles

I

1961-

as Weekley

(1988) has

also stressed.

Hierarchical deconcentration While the study of areal differentiation gives an insight into the subtleties of dispersal, it only offers a

160

GeoforumNolume Table 3. South Oxfordshire:

Number

Settlement types Principal country towns Secondary centres Larger villages Smaller villages/hamlets Total

hierarchical deconcentration

Class intervals

Mean population

of population

26 Number 2/1995

and dwellings, 1961-1991

Proportion of study area’s population

(1961)

(1961)

(1961)

1961

1971

1981

1991

Proportion of study area’s dwellings 1961 1971 1981 1991

4 10 7 55 76

4000+ 1000-3999 751-999 l-750 N/A

6926 1783 915 341 N/A

38.6 24.8 9.0 27.6 N/A

37.2 29.3 11.7 21.8 100

37.7 29.3 12.2 20.8 100

39.8 27.7 12.0 20.5 100

39.5 25.7 8.0 26.8 100

36.3 28.7 10.5 24.5 100

37.6 28.2 10.8 23.4 100

40.9 26.9 11.1 21.1 100

Source: All data from small area census statistics.

one-sided account of the impact counterurbanisation is making. Discussion therefore turns to how far a shift towards hierarchical deconcentration can be discerned, and, linked to this, the question of whether the settlement system is being transformed. Table 3 indicates how much deconcentration actually occurred each decade. It does so by portraying the extent to which each class of settlement saw a change in its share of the study area’s population and housing development. Turning first to the principal country towns, it is evident that their relative position declined in the 196Os, even though they grew in absolute terms. During the next two decades, however, these trends were reversed: population began to re-group in the District’s largest settlements and a greater proportion of all residential development occurred in these same places. All in all, these principal settlements recorded a marginal net improvement in their relative status over the study period as a whole. The pattern of change within the ten secondary centres has been different. In the 196Os, the amount of growth apportioned to them rose in line with the notion of a switch towards hierarchical deconcentration during this period. However, the next decade saw no change, and their relative importance finally declined in the 1980s: nevertheless, 30 years of change saw a net upturn in their overall importance. Seven large villages experienced the greatest relative gains of all. By 1991, they accommodated considerably more of South Oxfordshire’s residents than at the time of the 1961 census. They also saw their share of the District’s dwellings increase more than any other type of settlement over the same time period. Their growing importance is in complete contrast to the 55 smallest places whose low initial status diminished further.

A closer look at the smaller communities

Even though all but one of South Oxfordshire’s 55 smallest places have been relatively immune from profound changes, they have, nevertheless, become different types of places since 1961. Table 4 portrays typical examples of how the smaller communities have changed as regards their population totals and levels of housing construction. Three groups of places can be discerned. First, there are populating parishes, which have grown by at least 10% between 1961 and 1991. Some, such as Pyrton, grew principally through one major extension to the village. Others, such as Aston Upthorpe, experienced incremental growth. Nevertheless, in all cases rates of population expansion have been outstripped by the speed at which more dwellings have been constructed. Consequently, villages such as Aston Upthorpe and Berrick Salome had half as many dwellings again in 1991 as they did in 1961. A second group of parishes are relatively stable as far as population trends are concerned. Places such as Ipsden and Stoke Row have seen their population wax and wane slightly over 30 years, but a common trend has been for growth to be reversed after an initial phase of enlargement in the 1960s. The third group comprises 18 depopulating parishes, each experiencing a net downturn of at least 5% (for a full discussion of depopulation in South Oxfordshire see Spencer, 1994). Indeed, just under half of this group have had more severe reversals, some losing 15-20% of their inhabitants in three decades (Table 5). At first sight, this may suggest that local changes associated with counterurbanisation have passed them by. But does this view stand up to close scrutiny? The short answer is that it does not. Population loss

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161

Table 4. South Oxfordshire’s smaller parishes: absolute and percentage

change in

the number of people, households and dwellings, 1961-1991 Population

(%)

Households (%)

Dwellings (%)

+22 +57 +24 +81

(+11.6) (+42.2) (+18.1) (+15.4)

+14 (+22.5) +18 (+39.1) + 18 (+48.6) +67 (+36.8)

+26 +24 +20 -t68

(1-41.9) (+52.2) (+54.1) (+37.8)

-6 -4 +20 +15

(-2.0) (-2.7) (+3.5) (+2.2)

+15 +lO +40 +76

+26 +13 +67 +98

(+27.1) (+31.0) (+35.1) (+43.2)

-42 -64 -38 -26

(-12.0) (- 16.3) (-13.5) (- 17.3)

Populating parishes

Pyrton Aston Upthorpe Berrick Salome Bix Static parishes

Ipsden Toot Baldon Stoke Row Whitchurch

(+15.6) (+23.8) (+20.9) (+33.2)

Depopulating parishes

Highmoor South Moreton Drayton St Leonard Waterperry

+ 15 (+ 13.2) +11 (+9.7) +8 (+9.3) +5 (+ll.l)

+28 (+24.6)

+18 (+15.9) +16 (+18.8) +X (+17.8)

Criteria: Populating: % growth more than 10.0 Static: % change f 5.0 Depopulating: % loss more than - 10.0 Source: All data calculated from small area census statistics. Table 5. Depopulating

Parish Stanton St John Culham Great Milton Checkendon Nettlebed Marsh Baldon Great Haseley Swyncombe Highmoor Drayton St Leonard South Moreton Little Wittenham Waterperry Rotherfield Greys Nuneham Courtenay Cuxham Stoke Tamalge Shirburn

parishes, 1961-1991: the changing number of people, households and dwellings Population Absolute % -24 -26 -45 -31 -47 -24 -40 -25 -42 -38 -64 -13 -26 -70 -59 -53 -35 -73

-5.5 -5.7 -5.8 -6.4 -6.8 -7.2 -7.3 -8.4 - 12.0 -13.5 -16.3 - 16.9 -17.3 -18.3 -27.2 -29.0 -39.8 -40.1

Households Absolute % +42 +14 +39 +43 +39 +7 +13 +17 +1s +X +11 +1 +5 -2 -9 -7 -J -11

+34.1 -I-9.7 +15.5 +28.9 +17.3 -t6.9 +7.0 +I8.1 +13.2 +9.3 +9.7 +4.2 +11.1 -1.6 -11.7 -3.8 -16.7 -21.2

Dwellings Absolute % +51 +24 +62 +57 f62 +I6 +40 +22 +28 +16 +I8 +4 +8 +13 +3 +4 -3 0

+41.5 +16.7 +24.6 +38.3 +27.6 +15.8 +21.s +23.4 +24.5 + 18.8 +15.9 + 16.7 + 17.8 + 10.8 +3.9 +7.7 - 12.5 0

Source: All figures calculated from small area census statistics.

disguises another trend which is of particular interest given the ever-widening gap between the rates at which population and dwellings are growing at national level. Thus while 18 parishes depopulated, all but two ofthem gained additional dwellings (Table 5). A number of places, such as Great Milton, Checkendon and Swyncombe (see Figure 2 for location) saw a 2040% rise in the size of their dwelling stock. In

many

cases,

fewer

people

have

been

enumerated

because turnover in private housing markets has led to the replacement of family households by childless couples and single persons. A fall in the number of residents has reduced the attractiveness of countryside living for immobile low income family households reliant on local services whose viability depends on maintaining a certain threshold population. Many

162

Geoforum/Volume

therefore

have had little option other than to move to

avoid hardship.

At the same time, a modest

housebuilding redundant

accompanied agricultural

has stimulated

turn.

structures

an increase

households,

although

generated

by the

these

of

into residential

use

of private

additional

has been insufficient

Clearly,

conversion

in the number

the small

level of

population

In South

Oxfordshire,

areas

have

not

undergoing

have acquired

production,

places of residence 1990; Thrift, belonging able

privileged

(see also Cloke Affluent

conversion

of capital

as part

rural idyll (Thrift,

in South Oxfordshire

District’s

most sought-after

sec-

groups consider-

renovation

and

to create

their

attempt

1989). Indeed,

as

and Thrift,

middle-aged

in house

of their

dence of counterurbanisation the West Midlands.

most depopulating

rank highly among

Many researchers

the

settlements.

structuring, organisation

uneven

dispersal

of people

South Oxfordshire’s settlements.

and

ranging

tion.

However,

from

sustained

new

penetrated

smaller

population

enlargement

growth

residential

communities

for rural living (Thrift, 1989); and the reof housebuilding towards cheap ex-urban

class fractions

with a strong

sites (Robson, 1986). While a combination of these forces may explain aggregate counterurbanisation trends,

the subtleties

transfer

revealed

of the urban-rural

in more finely-tuned

population studies such as

be ‘read off’ from understanding A more

appropriate

built upon Bhaskar’s (1975) which regards the penetration upon the inherited

struc-

approach

theoretical of societal attributes

can be realism, forces as

of places.

to depopula-

development in a manner

A realist perspective: place, structure and agency

has which

Much research

qualities

spatial

only a slight degree of hierarchical

deconcentration has been recorded. To date, there has been no clear-cut ‘clean break’ with the past which could transform the residential structure or demographic fortunes of the smaller places. These findings are consistent with two recently published studies which have departed from the broad-brush treatment of counterurbanisation. Shepherd and Congdon (1990) noted that, at national level, the small-medium sized urban centres have played a pivotal role in the net population deconcentration process. Flowerdew and Boyle (1992: 159) identified

mould

has focused

level social forces

and cultural

difference’

are acted out. The

of places (such as local socio-political

list development

significant

cast in the realist

upon the power of place: it is not simply a stage upon which higher

have depopulated. however,

et al., 1990); the

(Marsden

of particular

tures

changes,

shift

1982); the re-

prediliction orientation

surely, new housebuilding has altered the characteristics of virtually all places, including those which these

(Fielding,

experi-

has failed to do. Slowly but

Despite

re-

across

and constituent

Places have had widely-varying

ences

capitalist

of the urban-rural

industry

of agriculture

with

the highly

dwellings

rural territories

up

emergence

contingent above has stressed

bound

being a product

of manufacturing

this cannot

Synthesis: the emergence of re-directed urbanisation presented

in this very rural part of

have argued that counterurbanisa-

is intimately

tural change.

The analysis

and South

. only the towns in these areas are attracting many migrants. Analysis at this scale clearly shows little evi-

tion

serv-

principally

to the service class have invested

amounts

villages

a demo-

or industries

for the relatively

1989).

Districts:

been

a new and important

they function

tions of the population

at ward level in Leominster

Herefordshire

The Barriers to Deconcentration

role. No longer tied to agriculture ing primary

similar trends

2/1995

to offset a net down-

villages

sucked into a vortex of decline.

graphic downturn

26 Number

practices)

to whether

‘matter’

struc-

and ‘make

a

and how far ‘rounds’ of capita-

impinge

upon them (Johnston,

1985

and 1991). Places are constituted through the way broadly-operating social processes are interpreted and acted upon by people or organisations behaving as social actors. Consequently, investigations into the making and re-making of places should be cast within a structure and agency framework, a middle-ground position between explanations based upon “the voluntaristic actions of individuals, and explanations which accord supremacy to the system of constraints which limit these actions” (Jackson and Smith, 1984: 58). The expectation is that in many instances agents simply respond to the mechanisms generated by

Geoforum/Volume

163

26 Number 2/1995

social, economic, and political structures which are the cornerstones of capitalism, thereby reproducing them. But under certain circumstances, agents may have sufficient power and/or be sufficiently skilled to side step, modify, or remove barriers which hinder their activities (Sarre, 1987). Some of these will be structural, although constraints will also be imposed by the actions of other social actors. In the context of this study, the behaviour of agents forms an important theoretical link between broadly-felt counterurbanisation processes and the changing demographic and residential characteristics of free-standing places as revealed by small area census statistics. Given the aim of accounting for the differential impact made by counterurbanisation across a broad tract of the city’s countryside in the medium-long term, a modest research project such as this can only hope to disentangle the ways in which a small number of agents interact both with each other and with the structural mechanisms which constrain and facilitate their actions (Healey and Barrett, 1990). Several studies have indicated that landowners and planners play a particularly prominent role (see, for example Pacione, 1990). Weekley (1988) and Rowsell (1989) have debated whether the activities of either one can satisfactorily explain the differential spatial and hierpenetration of archical counterurbanisation, although neither author produces an entirely convincing argument. The remainder of this paper focuses upon landowners and planners in order to resolve uncertainties about their relative importance. The emphasis is upon how specific places have been made and re-made which, in turn, acts as a basis for generalising about the interplay between structure, agency, and broader patterns of spatial change.

The role of planning

Planners are frequently conceptualised as the principal public agents in the land development process (see, for example Short et al., 1986), and one explanation for the differential urbanisation of rural settlements hinges upon the manner in which planning policies have directed growth into a small number of designated settlements while fossilising others by restricting housebuilding (Weekley, 1988). The outcome is a demographic upturn in the former instance and depopulation in the latter. At first sight, the way

in which re-directed urbanisation has emerged in South Oxfordshire appears to concur with Weekley’s (1988) position (compare Figures 3-5). Throughout the 1960s when urban-rural population transfers in south-east England were in full flow, most growth was steered into the country towns, medium-sized places, and larger villages (table 3), particularly those in the north-east-south-west corridor between Thame and Didcot where the quality of the landscape was not considered to be high enough to warrant statutory protection. By the mid-1970s more rural communities had become immune from enlargement by virtue of their location within the Oxford Green Belt or the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty: indeed, residential development and population began to re-concentrate in the larger settlements at this time. The spatial coverage of these areas of restraint expanded throughout the following decade (Figure 5), so by the early 1990s there was a presumption against residential growth across almost all of the District apart from land in and adjoining the country towns. Table 4 indicates that the relative importance of these principal settlements had been re-established by 1991. It would therefore be difficult to deny that planning policy has played a part in determining where additional growth should be accommodated in South Oxfordshire. But because other agents are involved in the development process it cannot be assumed that planners are necessarily the principal social actor. Indeed, Rowsell (1989) argues that the key to areal differentiation lies in fundamental barriers to residential growth found in agricultural estate villages dominated by powerful landowning interests (see also Bowler and Lewis, 1987). Such communities have been prone to depopulation at the same time as the transfer of population from town to country has occurred, which raises the question of whether settlements with a different landownership structure may be more conducive to expansion.

Landowners as social actors

As agents of the local state, planners can clearly influence the physical imprint made by broadlyoperating forces in particular places and times. Nevertheless, conceptualising the role played by landowners is more problematic: they cannot be

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26 Number 211995

v

READING

READING

m

Interim and Approved Green Belt

1.‘;;:: :;::J

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

l-l

Area of Great Landscape Value 0

1

5 miles

1

Note: All policy areas transposed onto post-l 991 Drstnct boundaries 1961 boundaries derived from: 1. County of Oxford Development Plan (1954) County map: southern section (Incorporating amendments up to 1963). 2. Berkshire County Councrl Development Plan (1960). 1975 boundaries derived from: 1. Berkshrre County Councrl (1973) North Wessex Downs AONB: Description of Area, County Policies and Statement of Intent. 2. Countrysrde Commrssron (1988) Proposed Chilterns AONB (Designatron) Variatton Order. 3. Oxford City Council (1990) The Oxford Green Belt: A Consultation Paper.

READING

Figure 5. The evolution

of area-based

1993 boundaries derived from: South Oxfordshire Local Plan, 1993

restraint

policies in South Oxfordshire.

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26 Number 2/1995

conflated into a homogeneous group of like-minded agents because they represent an extremely wide variety of landed and property interests (Massey and Catalano, 1978; Goodchild and Munton, 1985). A categorisation of landowners based loosely upon the approaches of Barlow (1986) and Whatmore et al. (1990) is adopted here. A distinction is drawn between fractions of landed agricultural capital (whose main concern is accumulation through production) and non-agricultural fractions of capital (for whom land is an item of private consumption, usually as an adjunct to residential usage). This broad dichotomy has the advantage of accommodating the increasingly intricate ways in which owners in both categories exercise their monopoly rights over rural land and space (Whatmore et al., 1990). Moreover, there is no assumption of a unitary value system or similar pattern of behaviour characterising members of either group. Each group embraces owners motivated by a particular blend of economic, social, political, and cultural values (Goodchild and Munton, 1985). A wide range of landed and other property interests have fashioned and re-fashioned the residential attributes of rural areas over the long term (see, for example, Thompson, 1963; Newby et al., 1978; Massey and Catalano, 1978; Goodchild and Munton, 1985). While some owners have been reluctant to sanction development, others have adopted a more positive approach to housebuilding. Moreover, until the post-war era, landowners had the right to develop their holdings and were entitled to compensation if local authorities deemed otherwise. This situation clearly hampered embryonic attempts by forewardlooking local authorities to extend the principles of zoning and development control from town schemes into rural territories, Oxfordshire County Council being one such example (Minnett, 1980). Any investigation into the role played by planners and landowners in producing localised patterns of urbanisation must, therefore, acknowledge this long history of landowner hegemony at the very outset. It seems highly unlikely that planners will have started with a blank canvas when the first policies were formulated for rural areas. Consequently, it is hypothesised that landowners will hold the key to why some places have been more receptive to counterurbanisation-related change than others because their attitudes and behaviour will, in aggregate,

165 have led to the emergence of a spatial template of development opportunites and constraints in South Oxfordshire. This proposition raises three specific research questions: how such a framework might be conceptualised; what form it has actually taken; and how far it has pre-empted decision making over where additional people and dwellings should be accommodated. In essence: has the legacy of the past stimulated redirected urbanisation as opposed to deconcentration? The remainder of this paper investigates these issues.

Landowners and the open-closed

settlement system

Publications by historical geographers and economic historians provides an answer to the first of these questions: the framework of development opportunities and constraints can be conceptuahsed as a rural settlement system comprising interdependent ‘open’ and ‘closed’ communities (Mitchell, 195 1; Mills, 1972; 1980). In the nineteenth century, ‘closed’ settlements (and sometimes entire parishes) were usually dominated by a small number of owners (or sometimes a monopoly proprietor) representing landed agricultural interests. Many were extremely reluctant to let population increase, fearing that they would become responsible for substantial poor relief payments if they did so. Consequently, such proprietors generally refrained from constructing additional workers’ cottages. ‘Open’ communities were usually occupied by a multiplicity of entreprenneurial freeholders of both agricultural and non-agricultural land. On the whole, ‘open’ parishes tended to be more populous than ‘closed’ parishes, because there was no single authority to control housing development. In reality the situation was often more complex than these ideal types suggest. Mills (1980) acknowledges that some villages are best regarded as relatively ‘open’ even though land was held by one principal (usually absentee) landlord. Such proprietors found it difficult to exercise strict control over village affairs, so a degree of local autonomy evolved. Conversely, smallholders sometimes worked in harness so as to ‘close’ their communities by refraining from constructing dwellings or releasing land for development (Banks, 1982). This practice has become more common in the post-war era through informal anti-growth

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166 coalitions of large and small proprietors occasionally buttressed by the local state.

alike,

This classification of communities along open-closed lines has provoked considerable criticism (see Banks, 1982 and 1988 for full details): consequently, it has been modified in this study so as to obviate some of its ambiguities and weaknesses. To summarise: the degree of open-ness or closure was assessed solely on the basis of the structure of landownership; the settlement system was regarded as a dynamic continuum rather than a simple dichotomy; and, to be consistent with a realist conception of place, it was not assumed that the present could be ‘read off’ from a knowledge of the degree of open-ness or closure in the past.

The Legacy of Landownership

Having established the role of landowners in creating an open-closed settlement system, it is necessary to establish what form it has taken in South Oxfordshire and to ascertain how far planners have been guided by it. Research undertook both extensive and more intensive concrete enquiries as appropriate in an enquiry informed by realist principles (Sayer, 1984). Extensive investigations were carried out to assess how open or closed a settlement was shortly after enclosure, and to build up a general picture of how these qualities had evolved through interactions between structural forces and human agency. A wide range of primary and secondary source material was interpreted: archive documents held by prominent landowners; county and parish histories; tithe maps; enclosure awards and accompanying maps and terriers; directories; biographies; and assorted village studies. Five settlements (located on Figure 2) representing various degrees of open-ness and closure in the past were studied intensively. Here the research methods outlined above were supplemented by interviewing landowners and other agents who had participated in the development process, an approach akin to oral history. Discussions with well-respected local historians proved a rich source of additional material. Parish council minutes and planning applications submitted since the late 1940s/early 1950s also received close attention in order to ascertain how far landowners had exerted pressure for residential enlargement and to assess how planners had responded to them.

26 Number 2/1995

The analysis and discussion which follow represents the outcome of both types of enquiry. Extensive investigations confirmed that in South Oxfordshire (as elsewhere) an open-closed system had been fashioned in the past, although it is beyond the scope of this paper to show what made each place ‘open’ or ‘closed’ or to precisely locate each settlement on the continuum. Because the overriding need is to explain why a general pattern of redirected urbanisation has emerged, discussion will be confined to the three broad ways in which the system as a whole has evolved. However, the fruits of the more intensive enquiries will be drawn upon to exemplify the manner in which ‘open’ or ‘closed’ qualities have been made and re-made through the interplay between structure and agency in particular places and times. Research carried out in this vein will ultimately illustrate how far the legacy of landownership has shaped recent residential development and demographic change.

The reproduction of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ communities

The first general way in which the past has influenced the present concurs with Mills’ (1980) observation that in many instances the position of settlements on the open-closed continuum has changed very little for a century or more. Land may pass from one owner or group of proprietors to another, but the essential structure and characteristics of open-ness or closure has been reproduced. Settlements such as Chinnor, Stoke Row, Watlington, Wallingford, Goring, Goring Heath, Wheatley and Sonning Common were relatively ‘open’ after the enclosures of the nineteenth century, although the extent to which they subsequently grew varied considerably. Much depended upon their location in relation to existing and newly forged lines of communication as Clout (1972) and Lewis and Maund (1976) have also suggested. Indeed, the coming of the Great Western Railway was instrumental in making Goring, Wheatley, Watlington, and Wallingford considerably larger than other places in this category, while the relatively isolated position of Stoke Row certainly contributed to very modest levels of development. Nevertheless, relative location and distance decay principles can only lead to a superficial explanation for the tendency of this group of places to expand. The key to a more satisfactory answer lies in the

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26 Number 2/1995

nature of local landownership, Sonning Common will illustrate.

167

as the example of

At the time of enclosure, Sonning Common was not a parish in its own right, but a dispersed open settlement estimated to comprise no more than 24 dwellings inhabited by some 90 persons. Landownership was divided between the Palmer family (the wellknown Reading industrialists), five lesser agriculturalists, and several small freeholders and cottagers. Development began when the Palmers sold out to a local builder after 188&a time of depression in agriculture-so that by the early twentieth century, Sonning Common had become a settlement of many small villas’with large gardens (Oxfordshire County Council, 1966). The availability of land and a spirit of enterprise ensured that there were few (if any) local socio-political barriers to development. This favourable local cultural climate did not go unnoticed by Oxfordshire County Council, and prompted Sonning Common’s designation as a key settlement for expansion in the first county development plan in 1954. Consequently, piecemeal expansion continued: indeed, Lord Esher (1965) later described Sonning Common as: . . the most important no-place in South Oxfordshire: a vague district of boxy Edwardian cottages, inter-war semi-detacheds, utility terraces of the early 1950s builders’ allsorts of the late 1950s and bungalows of all periods.

These

processes

were not unique

to Sonning

Com-

in a roughly similar manner, and were also regarded as priority settlements for expansion in the 1954 County Plan, while Chinnor was given secondary growth status. County council minutes reveal that neither local residents nor parish councils opposed the principle of additional growth in any of these places. This key settlement policy was reinforced when guidance line maps showing preferred areas for development were subsequently produced for other settlements such as Shiplake and Woodcote, all of which had a fragmented ownership structure. During the next ten years, a clear pattern of planning permissions and refusals was established in these places. The Report of the Henley Area Sub-Committee to Oxfordshire County Council (23 September 1964) noted that applications for development in the priority settlemon.

Goring

and Wheatley

developed

ments were generally received positively, while proposals which were regarded as detrimental to the character and size of non-designated villages were invariably turned down. Whether they were aware of it or not, planners were capitalising on the ‘open’ qualities of this group of places, and in doing so re-affirmed the longestablished agenda for ad hoc residential development. Consequently, all of the settlements whose ‘open’ qualities were reproduced in the early/mid twentieth century experienced substantial levels of population increase and incremental additions to the built environment (see Figures 3 and 4), although the rates of urbanisation were by no means the highest recorded in the District. In contrast, villages such as Ipsden, Nuneham Courtenay, Mapledurham, and Shirburn have remained ‘closed’ because the power of landed agricultural interests has been virtually uninterrupted for several decades. In these agricultural estate settlements, landowners have successfully resisted a series of economic and political challenges to their hegemony which began with the agricultural depression in the 1870s. Consequently, such communites have been controlled in a neo-feudal manner for decades. In demographic terms, they have either stagnated or depopulated, although a slight or modest upturn in the number of households and dwellings has sometimes been recorded (Table 5). Some of these places also stand out today by virtue of the high proportion of households who are private tenants of the estate owner (see Bowler and Lewis, 1987). Since the 1970s the local state has reinforced closure. A combination of area-based restraint policies together with the designation of village conservation areas has protected them from development. The village of Ipsden and the once-extensive Reade Estate of which most of the settlement is part, illustrates one way in which closure has been reproduced (see Spencer, 1993). Since the time of the first agricultural depression, the Reades have successfully adjusted to a series of economic and political pressures which forced many other landed agriculturalists out of business. In the late nineteenth century, their ability to subsidise losses in agriculture with profits from lucrative investments in the Indian sub-

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26 Number 2/1995

To Wallingford

D

Villages and hamlets Land owned by St. John’s College, oxford. in 1848 Not part of bade

I

Sale of bade

Estate

holdings:

To Reading

In nineteenth century In 1920s In late twentieth centuty

Sources:

0

I

km

1

1

(i) Untitled estate plan held at lpsden House (on first edition OS 1 :2500, dated 1877/78); (ii) Plan of the Parish of lpsden in the County of Oxford, 1848; (iii) Information disclosed by present owner.

Figure 6.

Fragmentation of the Reade estate, late nineteenth century to present.

continent together with sales of outlying farmland staved off the fragmentation of the entire estate. In the early twentieth century, they shrewdly sold other environmentally attractive plots of land in the Chilterns which were marginal for farming but had considerable appeal for residential development. These acts of skilled agency enabled the Reades to retain the more productive core area of their estate intact (Figure 6) at a time when structural forces dismembered lesser local proprietors (such as the Fuller family in Aston Tirrold). Their ability to exercise local control continued throughout the post-war period. Indeed, in the 1961-1991 period, only a modest scale of residential development ocurred (on land not owned by the Reades) which stabilised the population (Table 4). While 97 planning applications for additional residential development in Zpsden parish were submitted between 1948 and 1991, none whatsoever involved Reade land, which is indicative of the way this longestablished landowning family has continued to regard itself as a guardian of the status quo.

Interrupted closure

Several settlements dominated by landed agriculturalists have seen their position on the open-closed continuum oscillate through time, examples being Aston Tirrold and Upthorpe, Checkendon, Pyrton, and Highmoor. Change has been complex and place and time specific, but in all cases the trigger mechanisms have been structural, namely the depressed state of agriculture and the onset of a more punitive taxation regime. Singly or in combination, these forces hastened the break up of the larger estates, particularly where the principal proprietor was paternalistic and/or had no investments outside agriculture (Thompson, 1963; Newby er al., 1978). The outcome can be generalised as interrupted closure, a phase of opening up brought about when fragmentation transferred the power to shape places from landed agricultural capital to a multitude of smallholders and other petty property owners. Following this, however, local social actors have striven to re-establish closure by

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26 Number 2/1995

restricting development opportunities. These changes represent the second way in which the legacy of landownership has helped to shape and re-shape the residential structure of South Oxfordshire’s villages. The parish and village of Highmoor, once part of the extensive Stonor Estate owned by Lord Camoys, exemplifies what interrupted closure has entailed (Spencer, 1993). During the agricultural depression, Lord Camoys responded to pressures felt throughout South Oxfordshire by disposing of 2250 acres in 1894. While some estate land was broken up and priced so as to appeal to family farmers, strategically-located land and property was marketed for private residential consumption purposes in response to a growing nationwide trend for some middle-class households to seek a country retreat (see the report of the Liberal Land Committee, 1923). Fragmentation facilitated the development of a local socio-political environment not dis-similar to the enterprise culture associated with ‘open’ communities (Mills, 1980), so small parcels of village land and agricultural workers’ cottages were eagerly bought by the petty bourgeoisie. Thus decision making over the scale, pace, and form of village development gradually passed to the small freeholder and speculator intent on making capital gains through infill development and selling or leasing rehabilitated workers’ cottages. Nevertheless, this phase of opening up contained the seeds of its own dissolution. Gradually, a local cultural consensus emerged among wealthy ex-urbanites founded upon the principle that further plot subdivision for residential developement would be detrimental to the overall quality of the environment. Not surprisingly, therefore, between 1948 and 1991 only 50 planning applications for residential development were submitted, resulting in the construction of only 38 additional dwellings-almost all of which were built in the 1960s by the local authority rather than the private sector. Thus after shifting more to the ‘open’ end of the open-closed continuum, the collective behaviour of assorted land and property interests ensured that Highmoor became relatively ‘closed’ once again. Protection from peripheral expansion came when Highmoor was incorporated into the AGLV in the first development plan for Oxfordshire, and closure was virtually ensured when this area was upgraded to become part of the Chilterns AONB in

169 1964. In addition, part of the parish became a conservation area in the 1970s. Thus in this instance the properties of place were fashioned and re-fashioned through interactions between structure and local agency and negotiations between social actors themselves.

Landowner disinvestment and the opening up of settlements

The third broad way in which the legacy of landowner power and influence has made its mark has been where the hegemony of landed agricultural capital has ended due to decisions to disinvest in a particular locality. At first sight, the processes which brought about change appear similar to those discussed above. However, they differ in that opportunities for uncontested comprehensive development arose which were eagerly seized upon by other landed interests and the local state. Change of this type can be linked to decisions made by the Oxford Colleges to withdraw from their centuries-old role as dominant landlords (Harrison et al., 1977; Dunbabin, 1975, 1980, 1994). The 1885 edition of Kelly’s Directory and the Victoria History of the County of Oxford (Pugh, 1964) reveal that as owners of agricultural land and domestic property the Colleges exerted a powerful grip over large tracts of the north and centre of the study area and its constituent settlements at the time of enclosure. Villages such as Chalgrove and Long Wittenham were controlled in this manner: Chalgrove by Magdalen and Lincoln; and Long Wittenham by St. John’s and later Exeter (Jewess, 1984). Consequently, they are best regarded as two of several examples of communities kept in a ‘closed’ state by the Colleges. Woodcote, in contrast, was more ‘open’. It was surrounded by farmland leased by Christ Church, but a tradition of freehold tenure and an ethos of independence had developed in the village itself since the middle ages. These particular qualities proved instrumental in the way Woodcote developed. According to Dunbabin (1980), most Colleges periodically sold parcels of agricultural land in the early/mid nineteenth century. Sales remained gradual throughout the 193Os, but accelerated in the 1950s in response to the lifting of legal restrictions on how

170 much Colleges could invest in industrial shares, this particular decade being “a time when the capital growth performance of equities was at its most impressive” (Dunbabin, 1980: 206). However, comprehensive disinvestment in a single locality was relatively uncommon. When it did occur, such an act of agency played a passive but none the less pivotal role in the ensuing transformation of the demographic qualities of settlements, as three examples will illustrate. In Long Wittenham, St John’s were only too willing to dispose of land cheaply and quickly when approached by Bullingdon Rural District Council who were anxious to acquire land for ex-servicemen who wanted to farm. At this time agricultural capital was facing difficulties (Liberal Land Committee, 1923) and, according to Dunbabin (1975), the Colleges were disappointed that rents from agriculture were much less than had been anticipated two or three decades earlier. In Long Wittenham, some exCollege land was also subsequently used to build a substantial council housing estate which boosted the population of the parish considerably. A precedent was therefore set for incremental growth over the next five decades. Indeed, between 1961 and 1991, the number of dwellings increased by about 50% from 212 to 315, the resident population in private households rising from 679 to 916 over the same period. In Chalgrove, disinvestment by Magdalen was an act of economic opportunism. Magdalen’s Estates Correspondence Records* indicate that as soon as the College knew of plans to develop a United States Air Force base on its land, it quickly sold its entire estate to its principal tenant farmer in 1942 (who clearly was not aware of these proposals) before any land was requisitioned. Magdalen was able to capitalise on its superior knowledge and power (and doubtless access to key government decision makers) to ensure that it did not suffer financial losses: the tenant farmer was not in such a privileged position. In the 1950s however, this land was acquired by other owner-occupier farmers, who released part of their holdings adjoining the village to residential developers in the 1960s and 1970s once it became clear that the local authority would not oppose residential growth. At this time, the owners of domestic properties (some of which had been purchased from Magdalen) were also

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26 Number 20995

willing to sell parts of their plots for backland development. Thus the opening up of the landownership structure of Chalgrove at a time when the local authority was eager to capitalise on windfall development opportunities paved the way for the comprehensive suburbanisation of this formerly ‘closed’ community. In Woodcote, Christ Church retreated from landownership more slowly, taking nearly a century to dispose of its holdings. The College’s Cutulogue of Manorial Records reveals that the process began in the late 1860s once the Oxford Colleges became legally entitled to keep the proceeds from land sales. Christ Church was particularly anxious to do so in order to raise capital and rid itself of cumbersome beneficial leases (Dunbabin, 1975). This was one of a series of acts of agency which worked to the financial advantage of the College while also increasing the number of small freeholders in Woodcote. In the early twentieth century, Christ Church was advised to rationalise its agricultural operations as speedily as possible and to channel investment into its most profitable estates. Consequently, sitting tenant farmers were offered land very cheaply, and over the next three decades other enterprising individuals also acquired small parcels at rock-bottom prices with an eye to their development potential. Given a strong petty bourgeois spirit consistent with the legacy of relative openness in this particular locality, it was not surprising that these new owners went to extraordinary lengths in the early 1950s to persuade a recalcitrant local state to grant permission to construct dwellings on their holdings. Indeed, a study of parish council minutes has revealed exactly how a capable and knowledgeable local syndicate of land and property owners and other closely-related business interests mounted a 15 year campaign to persuade the County Council to allow substantial residential growth. These acts of skilled agency were clearly instrumental in the raising of the development threshold in Woodcote in 1966, although not to the extent that the syndicate had envisaged (for full details see Spencer, 1993). In essence, the withdrawal of the Oxford Colleges from less profitable agricultural enterpises was crucial in that it facilitated the rural residential development process. Disinvestment was followed by a switch to a more ‘open’ landownership structure which increased

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26 Number 2/1995

the likelihood that places would subsequently experience residential development. However, village enlargement was not brought about by the Colleges themselves. Initiatives were taken either by the local state in order to meet housing needs, or by private purchasers of College land intent on short-term capital gains. The manner in which development actually came about differed from place to place, although the consequences were broadly similar: the transformation of villages into ‘ex-urbs’ through the construction of some of the most extensive suburban-style developments seen in the entire District.

Summary

and Conclusions

The subject matter of this paper reflects the embryonic shift of emphasis in population studies to the local dimension which has occurred over the last 4-5 years. The new research agenda has become place-toplace differences in population profiles, the speed of local demographic change, and the processes which give rise to local variations (Champion, 1993). This case study of the local imprint made by broadly-felt counterurbanisation processes falls into this mould, the aim being to ascertain which settlements have accommodated additional people and dwellings, and to suggest why particular patterns and trends have emerged. Research has proceeded in two ways: by adopting a finely-tuned spatial analysis of change over three decades, and by acknowledging that demographic change can give a misleading impression of how urbanised free-standing settlements are becoming unless the scale and pace of residential development is also appreciated. Analysis of census statistics has indicated that South Oxfordshire has participated in what Buursinck (1986) and Gordon (1988) have termed redirected urbanisation, that is the net shift of population from the larger to smaller urban centres as opposed to dispersal throughout the settlement hierarchy. The District has received additional people and households through a combination of metropolitan spillover and longer distance ex-urban movements (Champion and Townsend, 1990), the localised impact being a highly uneven spread of population across ‘rural’ space. Those parts initially dominated by fully-fledged country towns, secondary urban centres, and ‘ex-urbs’ have generally accommodated

171 the largest numbers of newcomers, a finding consistent with research by Shepherd and Congdon (1990) and Flowerdew and Boyle (1992). In stark contrast, villages and hamlets in the more sparsely-populated parts of South Oxfordshire have been relatively immune from population enlargement. However, virtually all communities-populating and depopulating alike-have been subjected to housebuilding, albeit with tremendous variation in the scale and pace of residential development from place-to-place. Research has illuminated the overwhelming tendency for people and development to re-group into the more populous settlements after a short-lived phase of deconcentration, so re-directed urbanisation has also occurred in hierarchical terms. There is no evidence of any breakdown of the traditional settlement hierarchy through disproportionate growth in the smaller places at the expense of the larger communities. The second part of this paper has suggested that a satisfactory explanation for the local imprint made by counterurbanisation will emerge through a realist interpretation of how settlements+onceptualised as places-are made and re-made. It was hypothesised that, over the long term, landowner behaviour was likely to have fashioned a wide range of local sociocultural milieux, and that these attributes would guide planners to some places rather than others when faced with the task of distributing additional people, households, and dwellings among South Oxfordshire’s communities. This proposition has largely been confirmed. The uneven imprint made by counterurbanisation appears to reflect the sheer power and longevity of various landed interests. They have fashioned and refashioned a spatial template of development opportunities and constraints taking the form of an openclosed settlement system, the structure of landownership in the former type of place generally being more conducive to development (and therefore population enlargement) than in the latter. By and large, this system has been reproduced in three ways: by the manner in which landowners interpreted and responded to mechanisms generated by capitalist socioeconomic and political structures; through negotiations between different types of landowners; and by interactions between landowners and planners (as representatives of the local state). Nevertheless, in-

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172 tensive studies of specific communities have revealed that the open-closed system is fluid. The hierarchical and spatial arrangement of settlements seen today could not have simply been ‘read off’ from understanding the overall structure and nature of landownership soon after enclosure, that is during the golden age of landed agricultural interests. Landowner behaviour therefore seems to have preempted planners’ options at the very time that counterurbanisation was becoming a potent force. Although more research is required to substantiate impressions gained about the interaction between planners and landowners in the post-war era, it appears that planners have, by and large, reinforced long-established patterns of development over the last 30 years. They have done so by avoiding difficult negotiations where landed agricultural interests linger on, and/or where landownership is inexorably bound up with the private consumption interests of a affluent and vociferous minority. Indeed, planning policy has generally buttressed the economic position of these interest groups. Conversely, planners have tended to steer development into one of three types of place: formerly ‘closed’ settlements where the switch from one dominant form of landowner relations to another has presented short-term opportunities for infill development; a small number of longestablished ‘open’ settlements where a local cultural climate has remained conducive to expansion; and (especially) to a number of formerly ‘closed’ communities where comprehensive landowner disinvestment has facilitated uncontested suburbanisation. In the final analysis, this paper has confirmed the importance which Rowsell (1989) has attached to the role of landownership in rural demographic and residential change. But the longitudinal approach adopted here also suggests that the disagreement between Rowsell (1989) and Weekley (1988) over the contribution made by landowners and planners to the uneven penetration of counterurbanisation is misplaced. In essence, the role of both agents represent two sides of the same coin. The behaviour of both is an integral part of one over-arching process: capitalist restructuring of the countryside. Notes 1. Data for dwellings has been derived from four sources: (i) General Register Office (1964): Census 1961-

26 Number 2/1995

England and Wales, Housing Tables Part 1 (Table 1); (ii) OPCS (1974): Census 1971-England and Wales Part HZ, Dwellings (Table 8); (iii) OPCS (1983): Census 1981 National Report, Great Britain, Part Z (Table 19which

in the absence of a count of dwellings gives figures for household spaces); and (iv) OPCS (1991): 1991 Census-Preliminary

Report for Great Britain, Part Z

(Table 4). 2. Chalgrove Estate Correspondence Files (Reference EST 42)) Magdalen College, University of Oxford.

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Bhaskar R. (1975) A Realist Theory of Science. Harvester, Brighton. Bowler I. R. and Lewis G. J. (1987) The decline of private rented housing in rural areas: a case study of estate villages in Northamptonshire, In: The Future of the British Rural Landscape, pp. 115-156, D. Lockhart and B. Ilbery (Eds). Geo Books Ltd, Norwich. Buursinck J. (1986) Economic urbanisation and desurbanisation within the Dutch settlement continuum, In: Urban Systems in Transition, J. G. Borchert, L. S. Bourne and R. Sinclair (Eds). Netherlands Geographical Studies No. 16, Department of Geography, University of Utrecht . Champion A. (Ed.) (1989) Counterurbanisation: the Changing Pace and Nature of Population Deconcentration. Edward Arnold, London. Champion A. (Ed.) (1993) Population Matters: the Local Dimension. Paul Chapman, London. Champion A. and Townsend A. R. (1990) Contemporary Britain: a Geographical Perspective. Edward Arnold,

London. Cloke P. (1977) An index of rurality for England and Wales, Regional Studies, 11, 3146. Cloke P. (1985) Counterurbanisation: a rural perspective, Geography, 70, 13-23.

Cloke P. and Edwards G. (1986) Rurality in England and Wales, 1981: a replication of the 1971 index, Regional Studies, 20, 289-306.

Cloke, P. and Thrift, N. (1990) Class and change in rural Britain, In: Rural Re-structuring: Global Processes and their Responses, pp. 165-181, T. Marsden, P. Lowe and S. Whatmore (Eds). Fulton, London. Clout H. (1972) Rural Geography: an Introductory Survey. Pergamon, Oxford. Craig J. (1987) An urban-rural categorisation for wards and local authorities, Population Trends, 47, 6-11. Cross D. F. W. (1990) Counterurbanisation in England. Gower, Aldershot. Dunbabin J. P. D. (1975) Oxford and Cambridge college finances, 1871-1913, Economic History Review, 28, 631-647.

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