Book Description

Originally published in 1978. The question of how best to use our various resources has become one of crucial importance as we face today's many economic problems. In this second edition, the authors are concerned with decisions on rural issues in a climate of financial cut-backs, which emphasise the need for identifying the most efficient public choices. With a refreshing directness they consider immediate problems of rural resources, such as the growth of the public sector, fluctuating commodity prices, dislocation in the land market, pollution, recreation pressure, and modernisation of an outdated settlement structure. In Part one, chapters deal in turn with the economics of public decisions, the application of quantitative models in the development context, the planning system as it applies to rural areas, and the problems of conserving the rural environment. Part two deals with the individual topics: land use and conversion to other uses, recreational use of the countryside, conservation economics, rural population, the labour market and farm policies, rural transport, and rural settlement. The authors conclude with an examination of the Cow Green Reservoir as a case-study of a rural public issue which had to be resolved. This revised and considerably expanded edition focusses specifically on the economic aspects of the subject and provides further illustrations, diagrams and examples.