ABSTRACT
What is the countryside for? This is a question that it appears is being asked with increasing frequency in conferences and seminars and press articles, as contemporary society attempts to come to terms with the consequences of rural restructuring. Yet, historically, the answer to this question has been simple. Throughout history the primary function of rural space has consistently been understood as the supply of food and natural resources, including minerals, fuel and building materials. Whereas the town and the city have been constructed as centres of trade, manufacturing, cultural exchange, social provision and political administration, the countryside has been associated with the exploitation of its natural resources through farming, forestry, mining, quarrying, fi shing, hunting and energy production. The idea of the rural as a space of production and exploitation has arguably been the single most infl uential idea in shaping rural space, giving rise to particular landscapes, settlement patterns, forms of social organization, political structures and policies, and economic systems.
