10th June 2009

A survey at UdL leaded by the Chair in Geography Ignasi Aldomà reveals that more and more people choose to move to small villages

Presentació de l'Atles de la nova ruralitat. UdL

An Atlas of New Rural Life was presented in the Víctor Siurana Room of the Rectorat building

L'atles de la nova ruralitat /An Atlas of New Rural Life, which was presented on the 10th June in the Víctor Siurana Room of the Rectorat building, highlights an increasing appreciation of the rural way of life, a phenomenon that has inverted the process of depopulation that had prevailed for decades. Small villages have registered a demographic and social recovery, primarily due to factors like immigration, the improvement of road networks and the status of county capitals as towns. While there were 784,000 towns with less than 5,000 inhabitants in Catalonia in 2001, this amount rose to 799,000 towns in 2008.

The survey was promoted by the Rural World Foundation and carried out by the University of Lleida. It also reports a change in economic activities: while in the past the majority of inhabitants of villages worked in agriculture, there is a remarkable advance of the service sector. As regards quality of life, surveyed people value the rural environment above that in Barcelona.

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Last modified: 06/26/2009