Do second home owners kill villages?
In an article on the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) blog, that’s the question asked.
Apparently Great Britain is struggling with changing rural industry, like so many other areas in the United States and around the world. Manufacturing no longer exists, tourism is becoming more important, and young people are moving out of rural areas. The elderly and retired are moving to rural villages in record numbers.
With a proposed bad on the purchase of second homes, the British government has officially responded by saying that banning second home owners from buying in rural areas would not provide more affordable homes to locals, saying it believes “there are more innovative ways” of providing assistance “without interfering with the legitimate right” to own more than one home.
The original report, prepared by Liberal Democrat MP Matthew Taylor, called for a selective “ban” on the purchase of second homes:
“But in some communities, when there are too many second home owners,” Taylor says, “the community itself dies. And while it is not in a huge number of areas, in those places we should say enough is enough.”
So do second home owners add or detract from rural areas? Are the communities and economies in which they choose to invest being destroyed by the very nature of their seasonal visits?
BBC reporter Jon Kay visited the village of Exford on Exmoor to see what the full-time residents thought of second home owners. What struck him was how few of the cottages had lights on or smoke coming out of the chimneys.
Mark, an Exford resident in his 20s, says: “It’s a nightmare. This problem has been growing for the last decade. House prices don’t reflect people’s incomes.”
Another resident is equally critical of the housing market.
She says: “[Second home owners] are taking the housing that we would like to have available for our locals but they just out-price us so our children grow up and can’t stay put.”
A third resident explains the effects. “The newsagents has gone, the garage has gone and if a lot of these properties were filled, perhaps these businesses could have been kept going,” he says.
In one house for sale, 25 prospective buyers looked round the property - not one of them a local resident.”
So what is the role of second home owners in your rural community?
And what effect do second home owners have on your business and the local economy?
Senate Democrats announced a “rural agenda” for the 111th Congress today. The website created to describe the issues they understand to be important to rural America is called Rural Outreach.
“Rural America reflects our nation’s most precious values: hard work, independence, and an unparalleled commitment to community. Senate Democrats provide a voice for the over 50 million hard-working rural Americans and support an agenda that addresses the unique challenges they face. Senate Democrats will fight for policies that revitalize and reinvest in our communities so that, together, we can build a stronger rural America.”
The new website was announced by Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Senator Lincoln has been appointed chair of Rural Outreach for the Senate Democratic Caucus.
“Our rural communities are suffering during these tough economic times, and it is critical that we focus on policies that will give them the economic boost they desperately need and deserve,” said Lincoln. “This agenda will help guide Senate Democrats as we work toward policies that will revitalize and reinvest in the rural economy.”
The areas Senate Democrats say they will focus on during the next two years are:
• Health care — Providing rural Americans with access to affordable, quality health care.
• Education — Offering students in rural America an opportunity to excel in the classroom through education policy that recognizes the unique challenges for rural schools.
• Economic development — Promoting economic development programs and initiatives to give rural communities the tools needed for success in a changing global economy.
• Agriculture — Supporting family farmers, ranchers, and producers as a vital part of the rural economy.
• Energy and natural resources — Promoting rural America as a leader in the development of renewable energy technologies that will help stimulate the rural economy, while preserving our environment for future generations.
• Veterans and National Guard — Ensuring that our nation’s veterans and service members are provided with benefits and services worthy of their sacrifices.
• Rural law enforcement and Homeland Security — Equipping first responders with the training and tools necessary to protect rural communities.
• Infrastructure — Investing in infrastructure in order to create jobs and build a sustainable rural economy.
“Senate Democrats will continue to make the more than 50 million hard-working rural Americans a top priority,” said Lincoln.
“Not rural sights alone,
but rural sounds,
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature.”
William Cowper
One of the most widely read
English poets of his day, 1731-1800
“Ironically, rural America has become viewed by a growing number of Americans as having a higher quality of life not because of what it has, but rather because of what it does not have!”
Don A. Dillman
There will be lots of articles in the coming weeks that try to tell us exactly what was in the stimulus package that just passed and what it all really means, but here’s the coverage from the Associated Press published today. Supposedly the 7 billion in grants for rural broadband are intended for small town telecommunications firms, and not the big dogs, so we’ll see. While we’re waiting, at least we can see which rural areas across the country have broadband or don’t, and how much.
Becky McCray of Small Business Survival suggests ways we can constructively use any slower time we might have when our sales are down.
In Strengthening Rural Communities A Critical Issue In Need of Action Amy Rochkes of the Journal Gazette/Times Courier in Illinois looks at needed areas of improvement for rural communities, from schools to healthcare, and infrastructure including broadband. As Ms. Rochkes correctly points out, it’s pretty difficult for our rural small businesses to adapt in the high-tech information age without broadband internet access. She also highlights how difficult it can be getting our problems solved because of the way they are administered:
According to the Congressional Research Service, 88 rural development programs are operated by 16 different federal agencies. This broad reach makes developing a cohesive rural development strategy difficult. USDA Rural Development manages more than half the rural development programs and is authorized through the Farm Bill.
Between politics and loss of funding, some of the organizations that advocate for rural America announced this week that they are cancelling events or closing their doors for good. REWRITE$: Main Street, Media and the Recovery a conference on rural economic development scheduled for March in Alabama at Jacksonville State University has been cancelled for lack of registrants. The Southern Rural Development Initiative (headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina) and its efforts to promote racial and economic justice in the rural South will shut down February 20th.
