Planning for the Needs of Young People in Rural Southern England

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments 15(2), 2005 Planning for the Needs of Young People in Rural Southern England1 Michael Leyshon School of Geography, Archeology and Earth Resources University of Exeter Sean DiGiovanna Center for Urban Policy Research Rutgers University Citation: Leyshon, Michael and Sean DiGiovanna. (2005). “Planning for the Needs of Young People in Rural Southern England.” Children, Youth and Environments 15(2): 254-277. Comment on This Article Abstract Current trends in the United Kingdom point to an alarming out-migration of young people from rural areas, despite a more general increase in population in these areas. This pattern is associated with the growing lack of affordable housing in rural areas. Various UK policies seek to address this issue in integrated and participatory ways that include the concerns of the young. However, these policies often fail to address the full complexity of these concerns. Qualitative research with young people and other stakeholders in rural Southern England reveals broader challenges such as the poor employment prospects for rural young people, their absence in local planning processes, and increasing social marginalization within their own villages. Keywords: youth, rural studies, housing, community planning, sustainable communities© 2005 Children, Youth and Environments Planning for the Needs of Young People in Rural Southern England 255 Introduction —There are so many people in the world now that there is not enough elbow room. Doesn’t your rural resident born here have a right a live here? More right than an absentee corporate hog farmer to ruin the place? —Why should being born in a place give you more rights than anybody else? I’ve never understood that. It’s like Francis Scott Keister going around with his bumper sticker, ‘Texas Native’. I mean, so what? —It’s historical and psychological rights… - That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx (2002, 335) A common assumption in community planning discourse is that diversity, social inclusion, participation and empowerment are important components of community health (Nyman 2004). To achieve these aims, recent community planning policy stresses the need for improved integration, accountability and partnerships with policy makers and the public (Bloomfield et al. 2001). Yet, there is increasing evidence that rural communities in both the U.S. and UK are becoming less diverse, particularly with respect to the age profile of residents (cf. Jamieson 2000). Halfacree and Boyle (1998) argue that new residents in the post-productionist countryside are attempting, often successfully, to create an “idyllic” pastoral home—a place envisioned as white, middle-class and closer to nature (Bunce 2003). In this purified and “idyll-ized” space, excluded “others” become “bit part actors in this scene” (Cloke 1997, 375). As Phillips and Skinner (1994), Matthews et al. (2000), Pavis et al. (2000), Leyshon (2003) and Shucksmith (2004) have amply demonstrated, young people take on “bit part roles” as they are frequently marginalized from social services in rural communities. This research focus on structural inequality can perhaps be explained by recent attempts to influence policy developments, such as the Rural Audit (Rural Group of Labour MPs 1999) and the Countryside Agency’s (2000) Not Seen, Not Heard? which draw attention to the problems faced by rural youth, such as lack of transport, housing, facilities and employment opportunities. Recent studies on rural restructuring, lifestyles, poverty and social exclusion (Cloke et al. 1997) have also shown the extent of social differentiation in the countryside and suggest that “our need to understand the form and nature of uneven processes and outcomes in a changing rural arena remains a compelling one” (McGrath 2001, 481). Indeed, researchers of rural youth have made concerted efforts to reveal, claim and expose the lived realities of marginalized young people in the countryside. However, much of this research has focused primarily on young people’s interactions with institutions (such as schools, employment and training agencies) as if they do not exist outside of these contexts and are defined only by their contact with institutions (Jentsch and Shucksmith 2004). The research has stressed, furthermore, that young people’s lack of contact with, or distance from, such structures is what marginalizes them. Notable exceptions to this trend are the work of Matthews et al. (2000) and Leyshon (2003) who...