Environment and Marginality in Geographical Space: Issues of Land Use, Territorial Marginalization and Development at the Dawn of New Millennium by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, General, Science, Earth Sciences, Geography, Social Science
ISBN: 9781351730259
Google: L_lADwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-11-30T04:07:52+00:00

The duality Solsona-Comarca and the marginality of a territory

As in other rural areas, in which the population densities are relatively low, the population tends to concentrate in certain points where most of the basic facilities and services are located. Due to the crisis in the agrarian sector, the processes of depopulation and the reduction in the number of active farms in most of the municipios continue. Meanwhile the population tends to become concentrated in those nuclei which have the administrative function of being heads of the comarca, the market centres of the surrounding rural spaces. At the scale of the comarca, this phenomenon has become more marked since the crisis began in the mountain zones, in the agrarian sector. This is a general trend in most of the rural comarcas in the interior of Catalonia. In the case of Solsonès this trend is particularly apparent.

This duality in the processes between the capital and its comarca is more evident than ever these days since Solsona has become the economic and social motor for its area of influence and is responsible for making Solsonès a dynamic comarca. The influence of the capital over the surrounding territory is such that in recent years the demographic (increase in population) and economic trends are visible in the general indices of the comarca and its power of attraction, as a market centre, goes well beyond the strict limits of the comarca.

In the demographic evolution experienced by the town of Solsona, over the last 20 years, more than evident are the direct consequences on the population of the function undertaken by the town as the capital and service centre of the comarca (attraction of the population). Recently, the population of Solsona has continued to grow, albeit moderately, and from a population of some 6,000 inhabitants in 1975 it has grown to more than 7,000 in 1996 (7,128 inhabitants). However, in the rest of the comarca the evolution of the population has shown a gradual fall. In the last five years, the increase in the number of inhabitants in the city of Solsona has been large enough to affect the overall trend of the comarca giving a positive growth rate to the population. However, it should be noted that most of the population increase in Solsona is due to migrations from other places in the same comarca and it is the main receiver nucleus of recent arrivals, in the main from the same comarca or those neighbouring it.

This divergence in trends is also evident in economic terms and in the characteristics of the job market. On the one hand, around 70% of the work force in the smaller and least populated municipalities - on average in those municipalities with less than 500 inhabitants - is primarily engaged in the primary sector. In contrast, in Solsona these percentages are reversed, as here it is the industrial and service sectors in which the greatest proportion of the population is engaged. Here also the comarcal statistics reflect the trends within the

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