ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the way in which social problems that are more commonly associated with city life are being uncovered in rural areas by academics and the media. It deals with the issue of youth homelessness which emerged as a significant problem in the UK in the mid-1980s. The continuing lack of provision for single people in state-owned rented housing has been a major barrier to solving youth homelessness. Homelessness in the cities was connected, by the speakers, with broken families and impersonal relationships. Homelessness is often divided, by those who write about it, into rough sleeping and hidden homelessness. Although youth homelessness is clearly caused by broad structural factors which operate across both rural and urban areas, it was associated, from the beginning, with rough sleeping in city centre areas. However, while there are specific features of rural housing markets which create difficulties, there is evidence that homelessness rates are lower in rural areas.
