Counterurbanization

Counterurbanization, or deurbanization, is a demographic and social process whereby people move from urban areas to rural areas. It is, like suburbanization, inversely related to urbanization. It first occurred as a reaction to inner-city deprivation. More recent research has documented the social and political drivers of counterurbanization and its impacts in developing countries such as China, which are currently undergoing the process of mass urbanization. It is one of the causes that can lead to shrinking cities. While counterurbanization manifests differently across the world, all forms revolve around the central idea of migration movement from a populated location to a less populated location. Clare J.A. Mitchell, an associate professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Waterloo, argues that in Europe, counterurbanization involves a type of migration leading to deconcentration of one area to another that is beyond suburbanization or metro decentralization. Mitchell categorizes counterurbanization into three sub-types: ex-urbanization, displaced-urbanization, and anti-urbanization. Counterurbanization is the process by which people migrate from urban to rural communities, the opposite of urbanization. People have moved from urban to rural communities for various reasons, including job opportunities and simpler lifestyles. In recent years, due to technology, the urbanization process has been occurring in reverse. With new communications technology, people from rural communities can remote work because they can connect with each other via rural Internet, which means some employment opportunities no longer require moving to an urban community. Counterurbanization is about people being able to explore alternatives to living in the city, creating changes in living location preferences. In past years, a multi-corporation business would use outsourcing by hiring workers in poorer countries for cheap labor. In more recent years, corporations have been using "rural sourcing" which involves using small to medium-sized town as a source of labor.