Changing Rural Environments

The rural-urban fringe is a popular site for development

As the population of an urban area increases the urban area gets bigger. This is called urban sprawl. One way it gets bigger is by deveopment of the rural-urban fringe. Developments often include:

• Out-of-town retail outlets.
• Leisure facilities, e.g. golf courses, riding stables.
• New transport links, e.g new motorways connecting cities.
• Housing - more housing is built in exsiting villages.

The rural-urban fringe is popular for development because:

1) There's plenty of land available and it's cheaper than in urban areas. Some developments are huge so can only be built where there's lot of land, e.g. retail outlets need lots of space for car parking.

2) It's easy to reach from the urban areas, e.g. people can quickly drive out to retail outlets or golf courses and there's plenty of room to park.

Development of the rural-urban fringe has impacts.  

1) Traffic noise and pollution increase as there's more traffic.

2)…