La densidad de población como indicador clave de ruralidad, pero con matizaciones

Resumen

The diversity of criteria adopted in the different European countries for the boundary and characterization of the rural areas, as well as the different underlying objectives, make difficult the joint analysis of the rural thing facing the elaboration of development policies that, still contemplating the diversity of each territory, allow to a certain homogeneity in their configuration and treatment within the UE. Of the set of analyzed indicators of rural character, they are fundamentally two, density of population and morphology, those that better adapt to the definition of the rural thing from a geographic point of view. Density as the expression of the concentration of a certain number of people on a determined space, and morphology as the reflection of that density of population and a determined type of use of the ground. Without putting in doubt the validity, in general, of the indicator density of population to establish the rural-urban opposition, its use can be questioned in certain cases, being necessary to clarify its use based on the concentration or dispersion of the habitat, the territorial surface considered for its calculation, etc. Admitting the operative suitability to maintain simple criteria, unidimensionales and easy to implement and to update, we propose a new indicator, complementary to the previous one, that allows to take a step ahead within the boundary of the rural areas, graduating the rural character of different territories with similar characteristics as far as absolute population and, even, to density of population. This new indicator of degree of rural character, which could be called "density of the surrounding areas" because of the methodology that its calculation implies, was obtained from certain methods used in certain countries (for example, in Holland) to get the urbanization degree. In this work we give an application example, justifying its use for the decision making in the elaboration and execution of plans of rural development.