The intervention of Administration, key to prevent rural commerce from disappearing, according to a work carried out in Los Serranos

The analysis shows that the loss of commercial activity in the rural areas is a phenomenon mainly conditioned by factors such as having easy labour access or the family socioeconomic situation, and not for depopulation. In addition to its economic value, rural commerce has a relevant social function. That is why its dismantling is having a strong negative impact with the loss of an essential space for interaction.

“The support given by the Administration to rural commerce could minimise the loss of rural consumers, a fact with grave socioeconomic consequences and which negatively affects the quality of life in these areas”, highlights Jaime Escribano, professor of the Department of Geography of the UV and one of the authors of the article ‘El comercio en los espacios rurales valencianos: caracterización, funciones, problemáticas y estrategias de actuación’ (Commerce in the Valencian rural areas: characterisation, functions, difficulties and action strategies), published in the magazine Cuadernos Geográficos.

The investigation highlights that nowadays a great part of rural consumers carry out their main purchases in large commercial surfaces in the peri-urban areas, outside their own rural areas. This fact leads to an increase in the temporary and economic costs (to use a private car to arrive at the closest commercial establishments), which notably and negatively affects the most vulnerable people in social and economic terms, such as women, migrants, the elderly and unemployed people.

The work has been based on interviews structured in seven Valencian towns of the region of Los Serranos: Alcublas, Andilla, Chulilla, Higueruelas, Losa del Obispo, Sot de Chera and Villar del Arzobispo, which represent some 7,000 inhabitants. “This territory exemplifies the heterogeneity of dynamics in the Valencian rural areas, with a decrease in population and economy as well as a social dismantling in some cases; and a demographic growth and a reorganisation in the commercial activity in others”, explains Jaime Escribano.

The available facts, in the opinion of the three researchers, lead to the conclusion that we could provide financial help to rural shops due to the importance that they have in the attraction of population and the prevention of rural-urban migration. “There are other reasons, such as social vitality, roots or territorial equity and spatial justice to defend the survival of rural commerce”, explains Jaime Escribano.

The geographer highlights the need to examine the viability of the suggested strategies in technical and scientific literature aimed at avoiding or minimising the closing of local rural commerce, due to the fast evolution with which changes in the rural world are being produced. Furthermore, the three author researchers of the article explain that it is a complex set of problems due to the diversity of existing variables and the variety of reasons that cause them. “In any case, solutions must be of different nature, temporariness, and, if possible, they have to be applied simultaneously”, says Jaime Escribano.

Methodology

Nowadays there are few studies which approach the territorial analysis of commerce in the Valencian rural areas due to the lack of accessible and updated data. The work that has been presented has been carried out with 23 interviews with people with different implications in the commercial dynamics of the seven quoted towns in the region of Los Serranos, among technical staff, politicians, traders and buyers.

The municipalities of the study have a varied profile, with towns that in the moment of the field study (2011) had a profile of reduction of population (Alcublas e Higueruelas), leader towns which attract population and commerce (Villar del Arzobispo), and, in third place, towns which have experienced processes of relocation of activities and an economic and demographical revitalisation due to its proximity to a great urban centre as it is Valencia (Andilla and Sot de Chera).

Article:

Escribano Pizarro, J. et. al. (2015). El comercio en los espacios rurales valencianos. Cuadernos Geográficos 54(1), 87-112