Five years ago, confinement put the Spanish population at home. This situation was lived very differently for people who lived in cities or in villages, where houses generally have open spaces. This, together with that first summer in which the only possible tourism was the intercom, caused the inhabitants of the cities to focus on the villages as a place of residence or, at least, the registration increased.
However, this demographic rebirth was “more statistical than practical,” explains Raúl Lardiés, a researcher at the University of Zaragoza specialized in rural development. Lardiés states that there was an increase in the data, but “it has not always corresponded to people who really reside in these municipalities, it was a statistical example to overcome these restrictions. It was thought that it was going to be an opportunity, the demographic rebirth of rural areas and it has been proven that it has not been so much. ”
With the arrival of Covid and confinement “it seemed that our minds were going to change a lot and they were going to make this return to the rural environment, but it has not been so, we have a very short memory.” Lardiés believes that Covid was a way that many people approach the peoples and thus improve the vision of the rural world, although it also blames it to campaigns such as the Leader program, “today the quality of life of many peoples is much higher than 30 or 40 years ago.”
Along the same lines, the report ‘changes in residence in times of COVID-19: a bit of oxygen for rural depopulation’ considers that the pandemic had a “remarkable impact” on internal population movements, but “it did not mean a change in dominant mobility patterns or a reversal of rural depopulation processes. Most of the displacements occurred between cities and within them, as before the pandemic, on the other hand, everything indicates that the changes observed were temporary. ” They highlight the case of the Aragonese Pyrenees, where it is observed that more population was received than he left.
More services and infrastructure
In October 2020, a study by the University of Almería, called ‘COVID-19 opportunity to return to the rural world in Spain?’ He considered that the pandemic could be a “revulsive” to produce a return of the inhabitants of urban areas to rural. However, they reiterated that it is “indispensable to articulate a series of mechanisms to internalize the positive effects that derive from appropriate climatic and atmospheric conditions. This will allow rural municipalities to decide to bet on the maintenance of this type of infrastructure, creating new employment deposits that lead to a dynamization of the population. ”
They also consider that the municipalities cover all kinds of basic needs, “paying special attention to the state of telecommunication infrastructure.” In a context of global pandemic it is essential that there is broadband connection in all rural territories and thus have access in a globalized world. ” They also reiterate the importance of promoting teleworking. “All this can mean the resurgence of many of the Spanish rural municipalities. Despite this opportunity, the population is still very urban and little rural. ”
Lardiés explains that rural areas have two problems: migrations and vegetative growth. The mobility of people joins the lack of birth and increase in mortality. “Demographic revitalization is necessary. The population does not go because we are in an increasingly centralist society, a concentration in Aragon is very clear about this example, every time the few cities gain population in front of a rural and especially the most inaccessible rural that clearly loses population. ”
He adds that it is the “furthest” rural one who has more difficulties, due to accessibility problems and lack of economic opportunities. He focuses on economic agents “are not opting for the rural environment, which would be the key tool for people to work in the villages, it is a basic factor, the economic one, apart from many others such as accessibility, social life, supply of services, equipment, equipment, and sociological factors,” although it also emphasizes that “people must freely want to choose in rural areas.”
Lardiés states that it is not possible to recover all small rural municipalities, “we must bet on maintaining those nuclei of intermediate population size, capital capitals that play a governing role in the territory, that network of intermediate municipalities is very important so that we can still continue to provide many services.”
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