Rural Scotland is a charged landscape, alive with history, soaked in myth and often rather sublime. For those of us living an urban existence, the countryside is a retreat for refuge and decompression, but it is also a place where infrastructures strain to reach and in which livings must be made. The countryside is resistant to easy explanation and is thus vulnerable to stereotyping. The nine building stories told in this book show how rural households and communities define themselves, and the role architecture plays in this. Illustrated with beautiful photography and drawings, the projects, from affordable housing on the islands to exquisite renovations of traditional agricultural stock, and all recognised by the Saltire Society's Housing Design Awards, are visually rich both in themselves and the contexts in which they sit.

For the past century, governments have been compelled, time and again, to return to the search for solutions to the housing and economic challenges posed by a restructuring countryside. The rural housing question is an analysis of the complexity of housing and development tensions in the rural areas of England, Wales and Scotland. It analyses a range of topics: from attitudes to rural development, economic change, land use, planning and counter-urbanisation; through retirement and ageing, leisure consumption, lifestyle shifts and homelessness; to public and private house building, private and public renting and community initiatives. Across this spectrum of concerns, it attempts to isolate the fundamental tensions that give the rural housing question an intractable quality. The book is aimed at policy makers, researchers, students and anyone with an interest in the future of the British countryside.

This book reviews international experience of housing pressure in rural areas in a number of countries.

This title was first published in 2000: Improved communication links between urban and rural areas and an increase in property prices in urban regions have made commuting an attractive option for European town and city dwellers eager to 'escape' urban living. This has lead to a proliferation of second homes in certain remote or deep rural areas, and this trend is compounding problems that are already affecting the indigenous populations in these areas - such as socio-economic decline, agricultural depression, a lack of services, and unaffordable house prices. Consequently, many politicians in European Member States are calling for the introduction of housing and planning laws to control the proliferation of second home ownership. This book addresses the origins of second home growth, the nature of ownership and demand, the economic costs and benefits and the environmental and social impacts of second homes. It also considers policy and practical responses at European, UK and local levels. The book will be invaluable reading for students and policy analysts in the fields of rural geography, planning, politics, housing studies and cultural studies.