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Should we look at rural areas in Europe? I spent 3 weeks this summer in a small town in Spain. I could smell manure if the wind came from the right direction. A

Should we look at rural areas in Europe? I spent 3 weeks this summer in a small town in Spain. I could smell manure if the wind came from the right direction. And yet, I didn't need to get into a car, because the town center of this rural town, population 5 thousand, lives next to each other. The farmers go to the fields further away by car if they need to, but the kids walk 5 minutes to the high school. The total land area is also irrelevant: Spain has a pretty low total population density, but that's because most of it is empty. The people live close to each other anyway. You can have a house 20 minutes by car anyway, and thus live 20 minutes away from the hospital instead of 3 minutes if you really like yards that much, but barely anyone does, because the car life is expensive and a hassle

silvestrov 2y ago
Example of small town from "flyover state" in Denmark: i.e. area with very few jobs, very low house prices, everybody moving away, houses on the market forever. We call this for "the rotten banana" as the area is shaped as a banana and the economy is rotten. Still very walkable and nice for kids. Price for these houses is ca. $100_000 (some little over, some little less). http://maps.google.com/maps?q=&layer=c&cbll=55.7224384,8.533369&cbp= http://maps.google.com/maps?q=&layer=c&cbll=55.7224384,8.533...
marcusverus 2y ago
Is this a matter of preference or necessity? Median household net income in Spain is ~17K[0] and is probably much lower in rural areas. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Median_household_net_income_(Eurostat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...
- buildfocus 2y ago
  Barcelona is also a very walkable city (across the entire area of 2 million people, not just the very center) and is definitely the upper end of Spanish income. A big part of this is long term cultural: medieval towns (and even much older) were all clustered very tightly into blocks with city walls against attacks, those slowly evolved into the vast majority of the towns & villages in Spain today, and have left a culture where flats and dense city centers are the expected norm and the primary model, even for towns surrounded by empty space. You can easily find small towns of apartment blocks and tight wall to wall houses in windy city centers, of just 1000 people, surrounded by fields for miles. The Spanish would argue that surburanism is generally less enjoyable (walkability, community, socialability) and less secure (houses are easier to rob than non-ground floor flats) while dense apartment/etc living is better value (less land cost, shared maintainence in apartment blocks) and provides better airflow/heat management & opportunity for balcony views (attic flats etc).
johnnyanmac 2y ago
my rural area had twice the population but probably 10x the size. There was nowhere to "walk" to. We are talking about a 2-3 mile drive to the only "supermarket" in the town center, which was probably smaller than many modern corner stores. everything of interest was 2-3 miles away: the schools, the church, the liquor store, and that's really all there is (they did build a 99 cent store there, so that's neat). It's not like the land was wasted with parking lots. It's just as generic a desert setting as you can expect. Hot, tumbleweeds everywhere, Sand as far as the eye can see in any direction, etc. It's all single home housing so it could be denser, but that's pretty much the only benefit of living there; I grew up with a half acre yard (full of sand and an awkward tree in the middle, but actual land) and it gave my grandparents some piece of mind when we went out to play.

silvestrov 2y ago

Example of small town from "flyover state" in Denmark: i.e. area with very few jobs, very low house prices, everybody moving away, houses on the market forever. We call this for "the rotten banana" as the area is shaped as a banana and the economy is rotten. Still very walkable and nice for kids. Price for these houses is ca. $100_000 (some little over, some little less). http://maps.google.com/maps?q=&layer=c&cbll=55.7224384,8.533369&cbp= http://maps.google.com/maps?q=&layer=c&cbll=55.7224384,8.533...

marcusverus 2y ago

Is this a matter of preference or necessity? Median household net income in Spain is ~17K[0] and is probably much lower in rural areas. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Median_household_net_income_(Eurostat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

buildfocus 2y ago
Barcelona is also a very walkable city (across the entire area of 2 million people, not just the very center) and is definitely the upper end of Spanish income. A big part of this is long term cultural: medieval towns (and even much older) were all clustered very tightly into blocks with city walls against attacks, those slowly evolved into the vast majority of the towns & villages in Spain today, and have left a culture where flats and dense city centers are the expected norm and the primary model, even for towns surrounded by empty space. You can easily find small towns of apartment blocks and tight wall to wall houses in windy city centers, of just 1000 people, surrounded by fields for miles. The Spanish would argue that surburanism is generally less enjoyable (walkability, community, socialability) and less secure (houses are easier to rob than non-ground floor flats) while dense apartment/etc living is better value (less land cost, shared maintainence in apartment blocks) and provides better airflow/heat management & opportunity for balcony views (attic flats etc).

johnnyanmac 2y ago

my rural area had twice the population but probably 10x the size. There was nowhere to "walk" to. We are talking about a 2-3 mile drive to the only "supermarket" in the town center, which was probably smaller than many modern corner stores. everything of interest was 2-3 miles away: the schools, the church, the liquor store, and that's really all there is (they did build a 99 cent store there, so that's neat). It's not like the land was wasted with parking lots. It's just as generic a desert setting as you can expect. Hot, tumbleweeds everywhere, Sand as far as the eye can see in any direction, etc. It's all single home housing so it could be denser, but that's pretty much the only benefit of living there; I grew up with a half acre yard (full of sand and an awkward tree in the middle, but actual land) and it gave my grandparents some piece of mind when we went out to play.