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Rural geography
Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 101-108 Pergamon Press Ltd. 1985. Printed in Great Britain
Book Reviews Minor Rural Roads in Wales, G.W. Edwards, 160 pp., 1984, Centre for Rural Transport, St. Davids University College, Lampeter, Dyfed, £7.95
The objective of this book is to investigate factors which affect the deterioration of minor rural roads and so make a contribution to road maintenance policy. The main factors considered are type of maintenance, traffic levels, the extent to which the road has been engineered, and the geometrical layout of the road. The author quantifies the problem by relating measures of road deterioration to the above factors for three study areas. The most interesting result is that within present (severely limited) levels of expenditure on the maintenance of minor rural roads the most important factor appears to be how well a road is engineered, not the traffic level as might be expected from superficial consideration of the problem. The important implication for maintenance policy of this finding in the author's view is that maintenance budgets for minor rural roads should be increased very significantly to permit the comprehensive maintenance works required to improve the engineering of these roads. On mature reflection it is not surprising that the structural integrity of a road rather than traffic levels is most important for maintenance expenditure. However, one must take issue with the author from a social cost benefit viewpoint that maintenance policy should aim at significant (costly) improvement to these roads. The author does not give sufficient consideration, in the view of this reviewer, to an alternative policy of reducing the responsibilities of the highway authorities for some of these roads and thereby permitting a rationalisation of the use of limited maintenance budgets. The book has eight chapters: Chapter 1 - - the Introduction; Chapter 2 on the structural integrity of minor rural roads; Chapter 3 considers the maintenance of minor rural roads; Chapter 4 considers road maintenance from a national viewpoint; Chapter 5 considers the importance of physical environment factors for road maintenance; Chapter 6 is devoted to the impact of traffic on minor rural roads; Chapter 7 presents a statistical analysis of the possible relationship between measures of road deterioration and determining factors, and Chapter 8 discusses the policy ramifications of this study and draws conclusions. Chapters 6 and 7 are the most substantial chapters in the book with the latter being the main chapter. Chapter 6 commences with two good points: firstly, that the 4th power law for axle loading damage cannot be applied to poorly engineered roads; and, secondly, that all types of vehicles cause damage, not just heavy goods vehicles, because of the poor geometry of many minor rural roads. The author then provides an excellent simulation of traffic movements in his study areas on the basis of socioeconomic questionnaire surveys, including travel diaries, at homes, farms, etc. However, as in Chapter 1, he uses
the term 'heavy goods vehicles' loosely and one wonders why he went to all the trouble of this simulation when volume counts and registration number surveys would have provided the necessary details on traffic movements much more simply. As indicated, the results of the analyses presented in Chapter 7 are very interesting. However, the analyses are disappointing in regard to a number of. aspects of the working methods: use is made of duster analysis for grouping different types of roads but no information is provided on how the technique works; more information should have been provided about the obtaining and use of the control sample sites; the sign of correlations between measures of road deterioration and determining factors appear illogical - - for example, one would expect the former to be positively correlated with traffic levels; and the ranking by stepwise regression of factors causing deterioration does not generally appear to have the expected relationships with the connected correlation matrix - - if multi-collinearity is a problem the point should be made because it is a valuable comment about the data and any implications drawn from analyses based upon it. The author has made an interesting contribution to the issue of maintaining minor rural roads. D A V I D MALTBY
Department of Civil Engineering University of Salford, U.K.
Rural Geography, M. Pacione, 384 pp., 1984, Harper & Row, London, £7.95
Twelve years have elapsed since Hugh Clout's book Rural Geography was published. It adopted a thematic approach to the subject with examples drawn largely from Britain, Europe and North America and it provided a valuable overview of research completed during the 1950s and 1960s. Since that time, the dominance of studies of the urban environment and of the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy have tended to mask important developments within rural geography which have involved a shift of emphasis away from agriculture and land use to topics such as policy-making, resource management and human welfare. The period has also witnessed a considerable increase in the output of research papers in all aspects of rural geography and in the last few years there has been virtually a snowstorm of books dealing with major countryside research topics. Among these have been texts on National Parks, settlement policies, the rural-urban fringe, government policy and agriculture, housing and accessibility to services. Given this wealth of publications, Pacione suggests that there is a pressing need for a basic textbook for use by teachers and students which provides 101
102
Book Reviews
comprehensive coverage of a wide range of themes. Pacione's goal was a book capable of forming the core reading for a short course on rural geography or one which could act as a springboard to further study in a longer option course. The book is divided into twenty thematic chapters each accompanied by a list of references. As such it covers a much larger number of themes than Clout's book and for the most part the text is based on an overview of recently published books, articles in journals and to a lesser extent specialist monographs and reports. Many of the chapters are comparatively short and comprise about fifteen pages plus two or three pages of references. Inevitably in a book of this nature there are some shortcomings to report. The reviewer was particularly disappointed in the very brief introduction which attempted to comment on recent changes in rural geography, define the study area and provide an insight into the structure of the book. Another disconcerting feature is inconsistency in the spatial coverage. The majority of examples are drawn from the United Kingdom, Western Europe and North America, however, Chapter 2 (Evolution of the Settlement Pattern) includes brief comments on African and USSR examples, none of which are dealt with in any depth, while the chapter on spatial organization of settlement curiously contains a Chinese example of the application of central place theory. On the other hand, the chapter on housing deals almost exclusively with Britain while that on metropolitan villages is substantially devoted to the discussion of one example in Strathclyde Region (Scotland). A further difficulty with review texts is that one rarely sees new examples to illustrate a particular point. This is especially true of the chapter on settlement planning where the well-worn trio of case studies of Devon, Durham and Warwickshire re-appear. Given the very large number of structure plans, reviews and rural settlement topic plans which have been produced by county, district and regional planners in the last two decades it would not have been difficult to have found a different set of examples. Finally, in a book which is based on recent research it is disappointing to record a number of omissions which relate to work at the research frontier. This was particularly the case in the chapter on agriculture which lacked discussion of innovative marketing such as pick-your-own, the decision-making approach and the changing structure of farming families; while the existence of Rural Voice went unmentioned in the discussion of pressure groups in the chapter on power and decisionmaking and the growth of time share accommodation was ignored in the chapter on second homes. In spite of these reservations, Pacione's book deserves to be widely read. ' T h e coverage of topics is broad, the standard of cartography is high, the text is laid out in an attractive format and the list of references at the end of each chapter should satisfy lecturers and undergraduates wanting access to an extensive literature. D O U G L A S G. L O C K H A R T
Department of Geography University of Keele, U.K.
Mobile Services in Rural Areas, M. Moseley and J. Packman, 255 pp., 1983, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, £8.00
The early debate on rural services concentrated on assessing the scale and causes of decline of conventional (and static) village services (SCRCC, 1978). Since then, more attention has been given to finding solutions - neatly summarised by Moseley and Packman as: (i) Improving accessibility out of villages to where the services are; (ii) Moving people to key villages where the services stand more chance of being sustained (Martin and Voorhees, 1980); (iii) Developing smallscale or unconventional outlets in every rural community (Woollett, 1980); or
(iv)
Taking mobile services to where people live.
Moseley and Packman have examined the last of these options in a two-year project commissioned by DoE, and with the help of 6000 WIs have recorded the current pattern of mobile services and identify the felt need for improvements in such facilities as prescription delivery (wanted by 28% of respondents), chiropody (27%) and a mobile post office (6% but popularly requested in the smaller communities). The survey shows that the number of mobile shops has declined considerably over the past 30 years and that many of those that remain are vulnerable to retirements, and to the capital costs of replacing vehicles. Yet some mobile services remain universal - - like the postman, milkman and coalman, and rural communities are better-served by mobile libraries (at least in terms of geography) than was the case 30 years ago. But many mobile services are vulnerable. Doorstep milk deliveries could be undercut by supermarket sales of cutprice milk including imported longlife milk. Postbuses are only relevant as long as the Post Office retain a second delivery and collection service. Moseley and Packman therefore examine ways in which mobile services can operate with greater synergy. They suggest that mobile libraries could offer a wider information service - - and tap into static CAB services in market towns. They stress the role of the postman as a potential 'common carrier' of goods to remote households. They also go further and suggest that the postman could act as the 'outreach' of the social services department in making contact and providing support for isolated pensioners. In Sweden rural postmen are trained and have an annual meeting with social workers. The Swedish postman provides a wider range of postal services - - including cashing pensions. Moseley and Packman reject the idea of mobile post offices, the existing network of static sub-post offices is adequate - - and would have to be cut extensively if mobiles were introduced. They argue that mobile shops should be able to benefit from the advice services that agencies like CoSIRA provide to static village shops, and then float the idea of specific grants to keep shops on the road.
Book Reviews Minor Rural Roads in Wales, G.W. Edwards, 160 pp., 1984, Centre for Rural Transport, St. Davids University College, Lampeter, Dyfed, £7.95
The objective of this book is to investigate factors which affect the deterioration of minor rural roads and so make a contribution to road maintenance policy. The main factors considered are type of maintenance, traffic levels, the extent to which the road has been engineered, and the geometrical layout of the road. The author quantifies the problem by relating measures of road deterioration to the above factors for three study areas. The most interesting result is that within present (severely limited) levels of expenditure on the maintenance of minor rural roads the most important factor appears to be how well a road is engineered, not the traffic level as might be expected from superficial consideration of the problem. The important implication for maintenance policy of this finding in the author's view is that maintenance budgets for minor rural roads should be increased very significantly to permit the comprehensive maintenance works required to improve the engineering of these roads. On mature reflection it is not surprising that the structural integrity of a road rather than traffic levels is most important for maintenance expenditure. However, one must take issue with the author from a social cost benefit viewpoint that maintenance policy should aim at significant (costly) improvement to these roads. The author does not give sufficient consideration, in the view of this reviewer, to an alternative policy of reducing the responsibilities of the highway authorities for some of these roads and thereby permitting a rationalisation of the use of limited maintenance budgets. The book has eight chapters: Chapter 1 - - the Introduction; Chapter 2 on the structural integrity of minor rural roads; Chapter 3 considers the maintenance of minor rural roads; Chapter 4 considers road maintenance from a national viewpoint; Chapter 5 considers the importance of physical environment factors for road maintenance; Chapter 6 is devoted to the impact of traffic on minor rural roads; Chapter 7 presents a statistical analysis of the possible relationship between measures of road deterioration and determining factors, and Chapter 8 discusses the policy ramifications of this study and draws conclusions. Chapters 6 and 7 are the most substantial chapters in the book with the latter being the main chapter. Chapter 6 commences with two good points: firstly, that the 4th power law for axle loading damage cannot be applied to poorly engineered roads; and, secondly, that all types of vehicles cause damage, not just heavy goods vehicles, because of the poor geometry of many minor rural roads. The author then provides an excellent simulation of traffic movements in his study areas on the basis of socioeconomic questionnaire surveys, including travel diaries, at homes, farms, etc. However, as in Chapter 1, he uses
the term 'heavy goods vehicles' loosely and one wonders why he went to all the trouble of this simulation when volume counts and registration number surveys would have provided the necessary details on traffic movements much more simply. As indicated, the results of the analyses presented in Chapter 7 are very interesting. However, the analyses are disappointing in regard to a number of. aspects of the working methods: use is made of duster analysis for grouping different types of roads but no information is provided on how the technique works; more information should have been provided about the obtaining and use of the control sample sites; the sign of correlations between measures of road deterioration and determining factors appear illogical - - for example, one would expect the former to be positively correlated with traffic levels; and the ranking by stepwise regression of factors causing deterioration does not generally appear to have the expected relationships with the connected correlation matrix - - if multi-collinearity is a problem the point should be made because it is a valuable comment about the data and any implications drawn from analyses based upon it. The author has made an interesting contribution to the issue of maintaining minor rural roads. D A V I D MALTBY
Department of Civil Engineering University of Salford, U.K.
Rural Geography, M. Pacione, 384 pp., 1984, Harper & Row, London, £7.95
Twelve years have elapsed since Hugh Clout's book Rural Geography was published. It adopted a thematic approach to the subject with examples drawn largely from Britain, Europe and North America and it provided a valuable overview of research completed during the 1950s and 1960s. Since that time, the dominance of studies of the urban environment and of the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy have tended to mask important developments within rural geography which have involved a shift of emphasis away from agriculture and land use to topics such as policy-making, resource management and human welfare. The period has also witnessed a considerable increase in the output of research papers in all aspects of rural geography and in the last few years there has been virtually a snowstorm of books dealing with major countryside research topics. Among these have been texts on National Parks, settlement policies, the rural-urban fringe, government policy and agriculture, housing and accessibility to services. Given this wealth of publications, Pacione suggests that there is a pressing need for a basic textbook for use by teachers and students which provides 101
102
Book Reviews
comprehensive coverage of a wide range of themes. Pacione's goal was a book capable of forming the core reading for a short course on rural geography or one which could act as a springboard to further study in a longer option course. The book is divided into twenty thematic chapters each accompanied by a list of references. As such it covers a much larger number of themes than Clout's book and for the most part the text is based on an overview of recently published books, articles in journals and to a lesser extent specialist monographs and reports. Many of the chapters are comparatively short and comprise about fifteen pages plus two or three pages of references. Inevitably in a book of this nature there are some shortcomings to report. The reviewer was particularly disappointed in the very brief introduction which attempted to comment on recent changes in rural geography, define the study area and provide an insight into the structure of the book. Another disconcerting feature is inconsistency in the spatial coverage. The majority of examples are drawn from the United Kingdom, Western Europe and North America, however, Chapter 2 (Evolution of the Settlement Pattern) includes brief comments on African and USSR examples, none of which are dealt with in any depth, while the chapter on spatial organization of settlement curiously contains a Chinese example of the application of central place theory. On the other hand, the chapter on housing deals almost exclusively with Britain while that on metropolitan villages is substantially devoted to the discussion of one example in Strathclyde Region (Scotland). A further difficulty with review texts is that one rarely sees new examples to illustrate a particular point. This is especially true of the chapter on settlement planning where the well-worn trio of case studies of Devon, Durham and Warwickshire re-appear. Given the very large number of structure plans, reviews and rural settlement topic plans which have been produced by county, district and regional planners in the last two decades it would not have been difficult to have found a different set of examples. Finally, in a book which is based on recent research it is disappointing to record a number of omissions which relate to work at the research frontier. This was particularly the case in the chapter on agriculture which lacked discussion of innovative marketing such as pick-your-own, the decision-making approach and the changing structure of farming families; while the existence of Rural Voice went unmentioned in the discussion of pressure groups in the chapter on power and decisionmaking and the growth of time share accommodation was ignored in the chapter on second homes. In spite of these reservations, Pacione's book deserves to be widely read. ' T h e coverage of topics is broad, the standard of cartography is high, the text is laid out in an attractive format and the list of references at the end of each chapter should satisfy lecturers and undergraduates wanting access to an extensive literature. D O U G L A S G. L O C K H A R T
Department of Geography University of Keele, U.K.
Mobile Services in Rural Areas, M. Moseley and J. Packman, 255 pp., 1983, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, £8.00
The early debate on rural services concentrated on assessing the scale and causes of decline of conventional (and static) village services (SCRCC, 1978). Since then, more attention has been given to finding solutions - neatly summarised by Moseley and Packman as: (i) Improving accessibility out of villages to where the services are; (ii) Moving people to key villages where the services stand more chance of being sustained (Martin and Voorhees, 1980); (iii) Developing smallscale or unconventional outlets in every rural community (Woollett, 1980); or
(iv)
Taking mobile services to where people live.
Moseley and Packman have examined the last of these options in a two-year project commissioned by DoE, and with the help of 6000 WIs have recorded the current pattern of mobile services and identify the felt need for improvements in such facilities as prescription delivery (wanted by 28% of respondents), chiropody (27%) and a mobile post office (6% but popularly requested in the smaller communities). The survey shows that the number of mobile shops has declined considerably over the past 30 years and that many of those that remain are vulnerable to retirements, and to the capital costs of replacing vehicles. Yet some mobile services remain universal - - like the postman, milkman and coalman, and rural communities are better-served by mobile libraries (at least in terms of geography) than was the case 30 years ago. But many mobile services are vulnerable. Doorstep milk deliveries could be undercut by supermarket sales of cutprice milk including imported longlife milk. Postbuses are only relevant as long as the Post Office retain a second delivery and collection service. Moseley and Packman therefore examine ways in which mobile services can operate with greater synergy. They suggest that mobile libraries could offer a wider information service - - and tap into static CAB services in market towns. They stress the role of the postman as a potential 'common carrier' of goods to remote households. They also go further and suggest that the postman could act as the 'outreach' of the social services department in making contact and providing support for isolated pensioners. In Sweden rural postmen are trained and have an annual meeting with social workers. The Swedish postman provides a wider range of postal services - - including cashing pensions. Moseley and Packman reject the idea of mobile post offices, the existing network of static sub-post offices is adequate - - and would have to be cut extensively if mobiles were introduced. They argue that mobile shops should be able to benefit from the advice services that agencies like CoSIRA provide to static village shops, and then float the idea of specific grants to keep shops on the road.