The lawn grew too quickly! Perception of rural idyll by Czech amenity migrants

Abstract

The arrival of amenity migrants has significant impacts for many rural areas in economic, environmental and social terms. While the causes of relocation from cities to remote rural localities can be generally understood as attempts to change the way of life, the consequences of this phenomenon are relatively diverse. Perception of rural space from the migrant´s point of view stems partly from the so-called rural idyll, which shapes the image of the countryside across society, especially through media, tourism and recreation. This study aims to discover links between rural idyll and motivational factors of the Czech amenity migrants. Semi-structured interviews with the Czech amenity migrants have been used in order to uncover the social dimension of the phenomenon of rural idyll. Emphasis has been put both on the genesis of their relationship to the rural environment, but also on the consistency and differences between expectations and the reality of rural life. I identify the key role of tourism and recreation in shaping the initial perception of rural space, whereas the role of media is rather implicit. In the perception of amenity migrants, the initial image of rural space differed only slightly when the physical environment of rural space is considered but a mismatch is found between initial ideas about rural communities and their real experience after moving there.

Environmental and Economic Factors of Migration from Urban to Rural Areas: Evidence from Poland

“…A significant part of such inconveniences results from the failure to keep up with the development of technical infrastructure, including road, sewage, and energy systems, in addition to the shortage of public transport, the lack of commercial and service offers, and smog. These results are consistent with those found in other studies [99,111,124] which refer to car dependency, noise, and insufficient infrastructure (transport, sewage systems, and energy).…”

“…Most of them positively assessed the change of place of residence. The positive assessment of the migration obtained from the respondents refers to the majority of environmental benefits, which are in line with the research provided by Píša and Pandas [99,123]. These previous findings indicated, inter alia, improvement of the health of inhabitants of suburbia or rural areas.…”

“…The aforementioned smog in new suburban settlement areas is often the result of too great a dispersion of buildings and the unprofitability related to building more modern heating systems, which means that households are forced to find individual solutions, i.e., usually coal-fired furnaces. Hence, it is proposed that the promotion of distributed generation solutions [99] is of particular importance for the development of energy in suburban areas (and generally with dispersed settlements). This problem seems to be of key importance for improving environmental quality in countries with dispersed settlements.…”

“…Research on phenomena related to migration triggered by environmental concerns has been conducted in different countries and by various authors. The direction of migration influx has been found to be toward, for instance, mountainous areas, such as the Andes in Argentina and Chile [97], the Alps in Austria and Italy [97], the Šumava Mountains in the Czech Republic [81], the Tärna Mountains in Sweden [98]; protected areas or areas near protected areas, such as Bohemian Switzerland in the Czech Republic [99] or peri-urban areas of Wrocław in Poland [100]; and coastal areas, such as hinterlands of Melbourne in Australia [101] or coastal Maine in the United States [102]. A relatively new trend in Central and Eastern Europe is so-called entrepreneurial migration from cities to the countryside [103].…”

Lawns in Cities: From a Globalised Urban Green Space Phenomenon to Sustainable Nature-Based Solutions

“…Recent studies from Europe and USA have revealed that people's love of lawns is connected to the integral role lawns play in the everyday landscape [1,22,[60][61][62][63]71,72]. Short cut lawnscapes are associated with improved quality of life and personal safety.…”