Beyond the Urban/Rural Dichotomy: Towards a New Conceptualization of Settlement for Demographers

Anthony G. Champion, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Graeme J. Hugo, University of Adelaide

Space is important in demography. It has long been recognised that where people live can be a relevant factor in helping to explain demographic behaviour. However, unlike many of the other independent variables we employ, our efforts to categorise location remain surprisingly crude. Most commonly, the simple urban/rural dichotomy is used to differentiate types of location for demographic analysis. Yet the measures of urban and rural employed by most nations were generally developed 40 or more years ago, and even then these were widely acknowledged to be blunt instruments. Since then, they have received only minor modification despite the fact that settlement systems have increased greatly in complexity since the 1960s. Moreover, developments in technology and methodology make it possible to analyse data in increasingly rapid and sophisticated ways. The time has come for a rethink of how settlements should be delineated in population data collection and analysis.