ABSTRACT
The traditional image of the inhabited part of the West German countryside is one of a strongly humanised rural landscape which is characterised widely by quiet agricultural villages, timber-framed farmsteads and a centuries-old tapestry of tiny fields, lush meadows and dark tracts of forest. This chapter focuses on the process of rural change, considers the main causal factors of rural suburbanisation and deals with the quantity of postwar housing construction. It then moves on to such pertinent issues as the decline in the apartment tradition, the escalating costs of development land, the upsurge in personal, daily travel-mobility and the dispersal of job opportunities. The sheer magnitude of West Germany's postwar housing programme could hardly have been accomplished without some considerable extension of residential land use. The suddenness and extreme pace of residential dispersal from the cities soon exposed the inadequacy of the recipient areas' traditional infrastructure and levels of service provision.
