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The socio-economic profile of people expressing a willingness to relocate to rural areas in Greece, as part of the counterurbanisation trend. The research discusses various factors driving this migration, including economic conditions, urban living dissatisfaction, and environmental considerations. The document also highlights the relevance of this trend from a planning perspective.
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December 2013
Η παρούσα μελέτη εξετάζει την τάση αντι-αστκοποίησης στην Αθήνα ως απόροια της οικονομικής κρίσης. Σε θεωρητικό επίπεδο η μελέτη συνδέεται με την βιβλιογραφία που μελετά το φαινόμενο της αντι-αστικοποίησης που οι περισσότερες δυτικές κοινωνίες αντιμετωπίζουν ως αποτέλεσμα της αύξησης των προτιμήσεων για αγροτικό (ή εναλλακτικό) τρόπο ζωής από κατοίκους των αστικών κέντρων. Η ελληνική περίπτωση συμβάλλει σε αυτό το ερευνητικό πεδίο εξετάζοντας την ύπαρξη μίας τάσης αντι- αστικοποίησης σχετιζόμενη με την οικονομική κρίση και τις συνέπειές της. Συνεπώς η μελέτη αναδεικνύει εναλλακτικά κίνητρα πέρα από αυτά που συχνά αναφέρονται στην βιβλιογραφία, όπως η ‘αποικιοκρατία’ των αγροτικών περιοχών από μεσοαστούς. Εμπειρικά, η μελέτη βασίζεται σε δεδομένα που συλλέχθηκαν μέσω ενός ερωτηματολογίου το οποίο ενσωματώνει και ένα πείραμα επιλογής και εξετάζει την διάθεση για εσωτερική μετανάστευση καθώς και τα κίνητρα, τα εμπόδια και τις προτιμήσεις των ατόμων αναφορικά με τον τόπο προορισμού. Τα αποτελέσματα επιβεβαιβεώνουν την ύπαρξη μίας τάσης αντι- αστικοποίησης, κυρίως μεταξύ νεώτερων πληθυσμών, η οποία προκαλείται από την οικονομική κρίση. 151 από τους 300 ερωτώμενους θέλουν να μεταναστεύσουν εντός της Ελλάδας, με το 86% να επιθυμεί αγροτικές περιοχές (ύπαιθρο, χωριό, κωμόπολη), το 66% να παραδέχεται ότι αυτή η επιθυμία είναι εντονότερη τα τελευταία 5 χρόνια, και το 80% απο αυτούς λόγω της οικονομικής κρίσης. Επιπλέον, τα αποτελέσματα του πειράματος επιλογής τονίζουν τον ρόλο της γής, της ύπαρξης πολιτιστικών δραστηριοτήτων, της ύπαρξης μεταναστών καθώς και της απόστασης από πόλεις στην επιλογή του προορισμού μετανάστευσης.
This research project explores the potential of a counterurbanisation trend during the current period of crisis in Athens, Greece. Greece is currently in its sixth year of recession, experiencing the most severe economic crisis in living memory. In 2012, the country’s GDP contracted for the fifth consecutive year bringing the cumulative decline for the five-year period 2008-2012 to 20.1% (Bank of Greece, 2013). In an attempt to avoid sovereign default, the Greek government signed in 2010 a bailout agreement with the EU, ECB and the IMF. In return for the rescue package, the Greek government agreed a three-year Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (IMF, 2010), involving a series of austerity measures and neoliberal policy reforms. Excessive recession combined with the austerity measures under the terms of the Memorandum resulted in unprecedented unemployment and job insecurity, severe income reductions, poverty and social unrest (see also Christodoulakis, 2012; Alogoskoufis, 2012; EC, 2013). The figures are revealing of the situation Greece is undergoing: unemployment has risen from 6.6% in May 2008 to 27.6% in January 2013 (42% for men and 48% for women aged 20-29) with 630,000 long-term unemployed in 2012 (186% increase since the first quarter of 2010); social services have been severely reduced while poverty, homelessness and crime are continuously increasing (Matsaganis and Leventi, 2013; Pagoulatos, 2012). At the same time indirect taxes have considerably increased (VAT was raised from 19% to 23%); new direct taxes have been introduced and wages in the public sector and pensions have been severely cut. At the end of 2012 average earnings were estimated to have fallen by 22.9% in real terms compared to 2009 (Bank of Greece, 2013). Matsaganis and Leventi (2013) also find deterioration in all inequality indices due to austerity policies and the wider recession for 2012. For the same period, 10.4% of the population can be classified as experiencing extreme poverty.
As the effects of the recession are more severely felt in the urban centres (see also Gkartzios, 2013), rural areas and, wider, the Greek provinces
areas are likely to experience a significant increase in their population in the years to come. Efficient management of this migration flow requires some insight as to which areas, and with what characteristics, are likely to be more affected. It is therefore crucial to understand urban residents’ preferences and factors that influence their choice of relocation.
1. Counterurbanisation: a literature review
The term counterurbanisation, coined in the 1970s by the American geographer Brian Berry (1976), broadly refers to a series of social phenomena concerning the relocation of residents from urban to rural (or relatively more rural) residential environments. Counterurbanisation has been at the centre of the research agenda in rural studies, as a result of diverse factors, including increased consumer preferences for rural living in western societies, technological innovations that have improved urban- rural linkages, governmental policies that support rural regeneration as well as economic cyclical and structural factors (see a review of different factors in Kontuly, 1998).
Mitchell (2004), in her review of the academic literature on counterurbanisation, observes that counterurbanisation has been interpreted either as a migration movement or a process of settlement system change, resulting in a deconcentrated settlement pattern. Each of these interpretations draws on different methodological approaches and scales of enquiry. For example, early research focused on what might be termed as statistical counterurbanisation , a preoccupation to describe counterurbanisation shifts, or a rural turnaround, drawing on quantitative analysis of national population data (for example: Champion, 1992; Cochrane and Vining, 1988; Fielding, 1989). However, research has increasingly explored case counterurbanisation as well, focussing on specific local case studies irrespective of wider urban-rural population dynamics (i.e. Halliday and Coombes, 1995; Rivera, 2007). Case counterurbanisation research has highlighted the spatially selective character of counterurbanisation (Boyle et al., 1998) and the uneven local and regional geographies of rural in-migration (Woods, 2005). Work here
has embraced qualitative methodologies, particularly after the ‘cultural turn’ in rural studies (Cloke, 1997). Nevertheless, researchers have also highlighted the need for more quantitative approaches to examine counterurbanisation in its national, regional and local contexts (see also Smith, 2007; Milbourne, 2007). As in this present research report, researchers have reported also on potential counterurbanisation trends (people’s desire to move to rural areas), even where the migration has not been realised (for example: Niedomysl and Amcoff, 2011).
The research has shown that these movements differ in terms of motivations, the types of people they involve and the impacts they have on the communities of origin and destination (Mitchell, 2004). For example counter-urban motivations usually reflect dualistic distinctions between economic/employment rationality and quality of life/lifestyle considerations. Counterurbanisation in some cases tends to be associated with a very positive perception of rural living, emphasising the environmental, anti-urban and communitarian features of rural areas, and the existence of a ‘rural idyll’ has been well used to rationalise the migration decision (Halfacree, 1994; Walmsley et al., 1998; van Dam et al., 2002). Beyond such (pull-led) motivations, research has also demonstrated the importance of economic conditions (push-led) in counterurbanisation. Hugo and Bell (1998) for example discuss a welfare- led migration, where counter-urbanites take the opportunity of lower living costs in rural areas while receiving public benefits. Mitchell (2004) adopted a similar dichotomy by suggesting a typology which distinguishes, inter alia , between economic and quality of life motives associated with the migration decision. For example, Mitchell proposed: the term ex-urbanisation to describe the movement of middle class commuters to accessible peri-urban rural areas, motivated by environmental amenities associated with rural living; the term displaced-urbanisation to describe relocations motivated by the need for employment, lower costs of living and/or affordable housing and taking place in any geographic location that provides for these needs; and
Acknowledging how the production of any category is inevitably a selective process, we need to ask questions as to the appropriateness of taking ‘counterurbanisation’ as a concept from village England to Spain, Norway, Greece, Romania. One may question just how well counterurbanisation ‘travels’ (p. 485).
In Europe, a dominant narrative of counterurbanisation draws on England, whereby, this prolonged internal migration trend (Champion and Shepherd, 2006) is associated with the colonisation of the countryside from middle-class residents, motivated by particularly positive views surrounding rural living and rural lifestyle (Woods, 2005). The trend is also linked with the exclusion of lower income groups from rural settlements, due the limited supply of rural houses in the English context (Gallent et al., 2003). However, research from other European countries has shown very contrasting experiences and responses, including counterurbanisation as an opportunity for developing rural communities, linked with excessive housing construction and facilitated by the planning system, involving diverse social groups (not just the middle classes) and irrelevant to idyllic representations of rurality (Gkartzios and Scott, 2010; Grimsund, 2011; Stockdale et al., 2000; Paniagua, 2002). All these experiences highlight the need to widen the lens of counterurbanisation theory and include cases that embrace diverse economic, cultural and personal factors (Halfacree, 2008).
Our research aims to contribute to these debates by exploring the potential of a counterurbanisation trend in Greece. This research adopts a framework of studying counterurbanisation similar to the one proposed by Mitchell (2004), whereby counterurbanisation is construed as a physical movement from large (often metropolitan or urban) to smaller (often rural or non-metropolitan) places. Mitchell’s relative definition usefully avoids the duality of looking at migration movements between exclusively ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ places, agreeing that these characteristics are complex and also socially constructed (see also Halfacree, 1993; Woods, 2011).
Moreover, our research responds to Smith’s (2007) and Milbourne’s (2007) call for more quantitative research in rural studies focusing on counterurbanisation. In particular, the present research draws on a household survey incorporating a choice experiment. Choice experiments have been used before to inform counterurbanisation choices, with the focus, however, being on how the elements of the rural housing market influence individuals’ locational choices (see Bullock et al., 2011; and references therein). Studies have thus primarily examined the trade-offs people are willing to make between the attractions of the rural environment and practical considerations such as distance to workplace, schools, shops and other amenities. Socio-economic considerations such as the extent of immigrant presence, cultural opportunities or the existence of a family network have not received attention in the literature. This study thus aims to contribute to this literature too by providing additional considerations behind re-locational choices. However, before the methodology is discussed, the following section explores the research on counterurbanisation in Greece in its, unique perhaps, socio-economic context.
In discussing the main elements of Greece’s rural economy and society Damianakos (1997) points out the country’s ‘fluidity of cleavages between urban and rural zones’ (p. 193), instead of a separation of these, as exemplified in England and other industrial European regions (Murdoch and Lowe, 2003). The idea of a mosaic of blurred or coexisting urban and rural spaces and identities, essentially constituting an urban-rural continuum, are most developed in Damianakos (2001a, 2001b, cited in Zacopoulou, 2008) and in other Greek pioneering research projects (for example: Damianakos et al., 1997). In this continuum, urban and rural spaces, networks, socio-economic activities and identities were never truly separated, due to the county’s late urbanisation and industrialisation processes. Damianakos (2002) for example reports on the magnitude of social and geographical mobility of Greek farmers, who migrated to urban
with on-going articles and debates regarding its origins and possible treatment in academic, policy and various media circles. As discussed in the introduction, the deterioration of the country’s financial condition has been treated with two EU/ECB/IMF orchestrated bail-outs, accompanied by a package of austerity measures, involving public sector cutbacks, reductions in wages and resulting in unprecedented unemployment levels. In this context of an economic crisis, a study commissioned by the Greek government (Ministry of Rural Development and Food, 2012) involving residents in Athens and Thessaloniki demonstrated that: 68.2 per cent of respondents have thought of moving to the provinces (or eparchy as described in the report); half of those willing to relocate (47.6 per cent) would like to work in the agricultural sector; 19.3 per cent of the respondents have already organised their relocation; 57.1 per cent is between 25 and 39 years old.
The report appears to suggest the potential of a counterurbanisation trend, which is characterised by younger populations and, for many households, the desire to work in agricultural activities. Indeed, a ‘back- to-the-land’ trend is heavily reported in the Greek (i.e. LIFO, 2012a) and international media (i.e. New York Times, 2012), presented perhaps, as an unproblematic solution to an urban-focused crisis. These representations of counterurbanisation are significant because, as Halfacree (2008) argues, the ‘more culturally imaginative dimensions of counterurbanisation also come through in the way the phenomenon is represented in popular tellings of the counterurbanisation story’ (p. 489- 490). In the Greek context these representations of the rural (or of the province) might construct a resilient countryside that offers some solutions to crisis-hit urban households. Kasimis and Zografakis (2013), however, have argued that the economic crisis and the return to agriculture are not exclusively related phenomena. The authors draw attention to a wide series of on-going counter-urban mobilities that exhibit both necessity and choice, linked with ‘back-to-the-roots’ phenomena, but also with a new emergent spatial distribution of labour because of the
economic crisis. Gkartzios (2013) also discussed a so-called ‘crisis- counterurbanisation’ in Greece, triggered by the economic crisis. Through qualitative interviews with a small number of counter-urban residents in the Greek provinces, the research demonstrated not only contrasting experiences of the perceived impact of the economic crisis between the city of Athens and the Greek provinces, but also the relationship between these counter-urban mobilities, housing availability and family networks.
Greece would be a paradoxical case of both housing availability and strong family ties in a northern European context, but it would share similar characteristics with other southern European countries (Alesina and Giuliano, 2007). The argument of a more family-oriented society in the European south is not new. King (2000), for example, highlights southern Europe’s ‘special case of capitalism’, characterised by late industrialisation, large agricultural and tourism sectors, speculative urban development and family-based informal economy. Researchers have extensively discussed the role of the family in the development of the welfare state in Greece and southern Europe (Katrougalos, 1996; Papadopoulos and Roumpakis, 2013). Dalla Zuanna (2001) talks about familism in Italy and the Mediterranean region, to describe societies where most people consider their own utility and family utility as being one and the same thing, resulting in distinctive social and economic phenomena when compared with the European north (see also Alesina and Giuliano, 2007; Reher,1998). Allen et al. (2004) demonstrate how important, in southern Europe, the distinctive meaning of family is in relation to housing provision, particularly for young people when they get married and access owned (i.e. family) property. Indeed, levels of home-ownership in Southern Europe are exceptionally high (Mulder, 2007; Castles and Ferrera, 1996). In Greece, according to the Greek census of 2001, the levels of home-ownership nationally were 80.5 per cent, while in the rural context the percentage of home-ownership was up 97 per cent. In this context, Gkartzios (2013) suggested that on the one hand the availability of extended family networks and housing suggest a form of support and inclusion for the people who relocate to the Greek provinces in times of crisis and have access to such networks and resources. On the other
The survey was administered to a stratified random sample of urban residents in the city of Athens. The geographic distribution of the sample was proportionate to the distribution of the actual population in the different regions of Athens based on Greek National Statistics. The survey was pretested through face-to-face interviews over a week in early March
The questionnaire consisted of three parts. Part A explored the willingness of the respondents to relocate to rural localities as well as their motivations and obstacles associated with the choice. Part B included a choice experiment exercise where individuals were asked to state his/her preferred alternative among different profiles. Finally, Part C questioned the socio-economic background of the respondents.
Choice experiments are a stated preference valuation technique where individual preferences are elicited with the use of questionnaires (Louviere et al., 2000). Preferences are then used to estimate values for the characteristics of a good under consideration. Originated in the fields of transport and marketing, where they were mainly used to study the trade-
offs between the characteristics of transport projects and private goods, respectively, choice experiments have recently been applied in other fields more notably, in the estimation of the monetary values of environmental goods and services (Hanley et al., 1998). Theoretically, choice experiments are grounded in Lancaster’s characteristics theory of value (Lancaster, 1966). Lancaster proposed that consumers do not derive satisfaction from goods themselves but from the attributes they provide. Accordingly, in a choice experiment application respondents are asked to choose between different profiles of the good under consideration, each described in terms of certain attributes and the levels that these attributes take. By varying the attributes levels using an experimental design the researcher can create different goods. Choices are then used to explore the trade-offs respondents are willing to make between the attributes of the good and to infer respondents’ valuation assuming a utility maximizing principle behind individual choice.
An experimental design is used to create choice cards for choice experiments (Hensher et al., 2005). The experimental design is concerned with how to combine attribute levels into profiles of alternatives, and profiles into choice cards. Since full factorial designs, containing all the possible combinations of the attributes levels are inefficiently large to present to respondents, design techniques are used to construct fractional factorial designs that only use a subset of choice tasks from the full factorial design with desired properties. The significant progress in modelling choice behaviour during the last decade resulted in new strategies for constructing experimental designs and new software programs for advanced design development (Ngene 3.0). Recently, there has been a move to more efficient designs. Efficient designs minimize the standard errors obtained from the data collected using the experimental design to allow for more reliable parameter estimates for the model under consideration.
Based on previous exploratory research (Gkartzios, 2013) and choice experiments applications examining characteristics influencing urban to rural migration trends (Bullock et al., 2011), we opted for five different
The type of housing could take three levels: ‘flat’ which corresponds to the typical settlement type in Athens, ‘house with land’ and ‘house without land’, both corresponding to housing types found more commonly in the provinces. This attribute aimed to examine the potential of a ‘back-to- land’ motivation, which has been heavily featured in international media (for example: New York Time, 2012) and also explored in Anglophone literature (Halfacree, 2006), although not usually in quantitative research. For example to what extent opportunities for land (and presumably for subsistence farming or hobby farming) inform the decision to relocate? In the Greek context Kasimis and Papadopoulos (2013) have argued that these ‘back-to-the-land’ mobilities are realised easier by younger and more educated households. However, the authors point to difficulties faced by these households who might be driven by idyllic and nostalgic constructions of rurality, but are faced with unexpected difficulties of running farming businesses and living in the countryside.
The family attribute draws on the literature around family discussed earlier and the research question posed by Gkartzios (2013) on the role of family networks underpinning these counter-urban mobilities (at least in deciding the destination of these relocations). This attribute could take two levels: presence or absence of family networks in the relocation area.
The attribute on the presence of international migrants draws on the extraordinary growth of international migrants in Greece the last 20 years (see also Kasimis, 2013). This attribute distinguished between first and second generation migrants. This attribute offers, in a quantitative fashion, an exploration of the extent of xenophobia among Athenian residents, an issue that has received considerable attention in Greece and worldwide, given the high electoral support for the far-right party in the recent elections (see Doxiadis and Matsaganis, 2012).
The attribute on cultural opportunities at destination is informed by emerging theories surrounding the role of creativity and culture in economic growth, mobilities and development trajectories. Notably, Charles Landry’s and Richard Florida’s concepts on ‘the creative city’ and
‘the creative class’, have been well promoted within urban regeneration narratives focussing on the clustering of creative businesses in cultural quarters in order to: create new markets and trends; create culturally diverse places to attract a mobile class of culture consumers; and, redevelop post-industrial sites (Florida, 2002; Landry, 2000). While these ideas are heavily debated and discussed in urban studies, there is far less research which explores creative economies in the rural field (Scott and Gkartzios, 2013). In our choice experiment this attribute takes two levels, regarding the level of cultural events and goods at the destination (i.e. high or low).
The last attribute, distance from cities (defined here as settlements with more than 100,000 population), aimed to shed light on the locational characteristics of the settlement that respondents are wishing to relocate. Distance could take the levels ‘0-20 km’, ‘20-60 km’ or ‘more than 60 km’. The first level roughly reflects a suburban area within easy access from a city. The second level corresponds to provincial settlements (either urban or rural) which are reached within an hour from a city. The third level involved more than an hour drive to reach a city and therefore would correspond to a remote, presumably rural, locality.
An efficient design was developed in Ngene 2.1 to create 12 choice sets, which were blocked in two versions. Respondents thus looked at six choice cards each, and were asked to state which profile they preferred among the two residential options and a status-quo alternative that involved the continuation of their current urban living. A cheap talk script asked respondents to truthfully state their preferences keeping in mind that results can provide useful policy recommendations and will inform policy making (Cummings and Taylor, 1998). Table 3 presents an example of a choice card.
