Rural gentrification
Rural gentrification refers to the process in which affluent urban residents move into rural areas, leading to significant economic and social changes within these communities. This phenomenon has gained traction since the late 20th century, driven by factors such as retirees seeking peaceful living environments and the rise of telecommuting facilitated by the Internet. As urban settlers purchase rural land, often at significantly inflated prices, they convert traditional agricultural spaces into leisure-oriented developments, such as vacation homes and resorts.
While rural gentrification can revitalize declining rural populations and potentially safeguard some environmental resources, it also poses a range of ecological challenges. The transformation of landscapes disrupts local ecosystems, threatens native species, and alters natural habitats critical for biodiversity. The influx of new residents can lead to increased pollution, litter, and noise, alongside heightened demand for water and energy, which can strain existing resources.
Critics argue that the practices associated with rural gentrification, such as non-native landscaping and the use of harmful chemicals, can exacerbate these environmental issues. Conversely, some proponents suggest that residential development may mitigate more destructive land uses, such as mining or intensive agriculture. Overall, rural gentrification presents a complex interplay of benefits and drawbacks, highlighting the need for careful consideration of its impacts on both human communities and the environment.
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Subject Terms
Rural gentrification
DEFINITION: Development and settlement by nonagriculturists of land typically associated with farming, wilderness areas, or other nonurban uses
The transformation of rural lands by urban settlers causes economic and social changes that affect populations living in those areas. Rural gentrification also affects environmental conditions, often damaging or obliterating plant and animal habitats; polluting soil, water, and air; and disrupting vital natural pollination cycles. In some cases, however, rural gentrification can serve to protect environmental resources.
Since the late twentieth century, rural gentrification has occurred when affluent people who have lived in urban areas seek residences in the country. These urban migrants represent various groups, including retirees, investors, and commuters. In the United States, agricultural economic crises in the 1980’s resulted in foreclosed farmland being sold at low prices, and some city residents renovated farmhouses as second homes. During the early twenty-first century, the Internet enabled increasing numbers of people to telecommute to their jobs from homes in rural areas. Many baby boomers purchased rural land, anticipating relocating after retirement. By the 2020s, demographic profiles revealed that some rural US counties had experienced increased populations after decades of losing residents to cities.
Rural gentrification can quickly dominate a location. Commercial residential developers of rural land who hope to attract urban migrants often select wildlife and plant habitats, such as beach dunes or timber, that are especially desirable to property buyers. Many rural lands suddenly shift from production of resources for practical uses to appropriation of places for leisure. Rural land targeted for urban newcomers sometimes sold for as much as $100,000 per acre, compared to an average of $4,084 per acre for all farmland as of 2023. Developers and newcomers to rural areas often do not recognize the agricultural production possibilities and the natural resources offered by the lands they acquire.
Many conservationists are critical of rural gentrification. They stress that such developments are frequently detrimental, threatening native species and altering ecological resources and ecosystems. Rural golf courses and ski resorts displace vulnerable animal and plant populations when bulldozers clear lands, stripping them of topsoil, grasses, trees, and microorganisms crucial for maintaining ecological balance. Developers often build groups of condominiums or houses in fields as part of planned communities. Acreage that previously sustained crops is landscaped with ornamental grasses, trees, and other decorative plants, many of which are not indigenous. Removal of native flora affects existing biodiversity, and the introduction of alien species can harm the environment.
Commercial development fractures ecosystems by dividing fields and woods into separate properties, impeding wildlife movement with fences or other artificial boundaries and access to essential resources. Rural gentrification can interfere with native animal and plant species’ natural cycles of reproduction, hibernation, and other fundamental activities, such as pollination by bees and butterflies, and can have negative impacts on the health of diverse organisms, including lichen, insects, amphibians, and reptiles.
Rural gentrification increases the amounts of litter, noise, and light in the areas in which it takes place. Increased vehicle traffic produces more fuel emissions and often crosses wildlife paths, resulting in collisions causing human and animal deaths. Paved surfaces impede the soil’s of rainwater. Critics note that the expanded demand for energy and water caused by rural gentrification often overwhelms existing supplies. In addition, the landscaping techniques used by urban newcomers to rural areas sometimes include fertilizers and pesticides that are not environmentally compatible with the local ecosystem. Excess fertilizer can cause some plants to become brittle, chemical residues from landscaped lawns occasionally contaminate water resources, and herbicides can poison birds and wildlife.
Some aspects of rural gentrification can be considered environmentally beneficial, however. For example, the plants and trees used for landscaping capture carbon. The U.S. Forest Service has noted that, in many cases, rural gentrification does not damage the as much as some other uses of the same land would; development of the land for residential use can protect rural areas from the problems that arise from clear-cutting, mining, or soil exhaustion caused by repeated plantings of the same crops.
Bibliography
Bryson, Jeremy, and William Wyckoff. “Rural Gentrification and Nature in the Old and New Wests.” Journal of Cultural Geography 27, no. 1 (February, 2010): 53-75.
Johnson, Elizabeth A., and Michael W. Klemens, eds. Nature in Fragments: The Legacy of Sprawl. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
"Land Values 2023 Summary." United States Department of Agriculture, August 2023, downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/pn89d6567/9w033j15z/2v23xb225/land0823.pdf. Accessed 22 July 2024.
Whitson, Dave. “Nature as Playground: Recreation and Gentrification in the Mountain West.” In Writing Off the Rural West: Globalization, Governments, and the Transformation of Rural Communities, edited by Roger Epp and Dave Whitson. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press and Parkland Institute, 2001.