Commuting – potential rural growth strategy?

Based on a paper soon to be published in Regional Studies (Bosworth & Venhorst), my latest presentation for the Lincolnshire branch of the CPRE was potentially a little controversial.  Our paper considered the potential gains for a rural region which houses a lot of commuters who work in a neighbouring urban region experiencing economic growth.  On the downside, higher incomes and higher demand for housing from commuters push up house prices and potentially exclude local rural workers from the housing market.  Also, a large number of commuters also carry out a lot of their retail and leisure activities outside of their home community.

CPRE2017Rather than “blaming” commuters and demographic trends, I argued that perhaps rural entrepreneurs and rural policy makers need to think more about how they can capture more of commuters’ expenditure, expertise and networks to the benefit of their home community/region.

Commuting (both in- and out-commuting) is positively associated with economic competitiveness at the district level.  Rural entrepreneurs need to better understand the consumer demands of commuters and open their businesses at suitable hours, provide the right leisure options and distinguish themselves from the wider competition to which increased commuting exposes them.

Rural areas could also benefit more if commuters were able to spend more time working from home or in local serviced office space.  Not only could this be the first step towards the creation of a new business locally but if a commuter village could have a professional lawyer, accountant and graphic designer working in a shared office just 1 day a week, imagine how quickly the coffee shop in that building would become the place to go for informal advice?  Currently, I suspect many actors in rural economies are totally unaware of the range of high level skills on their doorsteps.

A commuter-oriented economic development strategy might appear to lack ambition – relying on other economic centres to be the engines of growth. But I suggest it takes a braver, but a wiser policy-maker to look at what his or her region does well, how it links into other regions and where it can best capture value. If that value is best captured by “exporting” skilled workers on a daily basis but then providing the facilities that they demand for recreation, home-improvements, retail etc… surely that can generate a multiplier effect not dissimilar to traditional theories of exporting?

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