{"id":59851,"date":"2021-10-14T15:59:36","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T19:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=59851"},"modified":"2021-10-14T15:59:36","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T19:59:36","slug":"without-schools-or-medical-centers-the-problem-of-basic-services-in-unpopulated-areas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/without-schools-or-medical-centers-the-problem-of-basic-services-in-unpopulated-areas\/","title":{"rendered":"Without schools or medical centers: the problem of basic services in unpopulated areas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nAccess to services is a key aspect in the welfare society.\u00a0Quality depends on the capacity we have to guarantee that basic services, such as education, health and commerce and banking, reach everyone in an adequate way.<\/span><\/p>\n

The concepts of threshold and scope explain the distribution of goods and services in the territory.\u00a0The threshold refers to the demand necessary for a certain service to be profitable in a location, while the scope is the distance that the demand is able to cover to reach a service.\u00a0The combination of both concepts prioritizes the specialization of services on the territory, with population and distance as fundamental variables.<\/span><\/p>\n

The consequence translates into two problems: cost and territorial imbalance.\u00a0The latter raises structural difficulties that have to do with the growing gap between urban and rural spaces, where the contrast is increasing, consequently increasing costs and progressively aggravating the problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

The situation of services in unpopulated areas<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In health,\u00a0<\/span>more than 75% of Spanish municipalities do not have a basic care center<\/span><\/a>\u00a0.\u00a0Of these, more than half are more than 30 minutes from a hospital.\u00a0We are talking about around 5 and a half million inhabitants without direct access to a basic health service, and about 4 million inhabitants more than 30 minutes away from a specialized service.<\/span><\/p>\n

In education, more than 40% of municipalities do not have second cycle or primary pre-school education, but the incidence is 500,000 inhabitants, reflecting the low proportion of young people in the rural world.\u00a0In secondary education there are more than 3 million students who do not have a center in the town where they reside.<\/span><\/p>\n

The affected municipalities are preferably located in the northern half of the peninsula, in inland areas and far from the main provincial capitals.\u00a0Castilla y Le\u00f3n, Arag\u00f3n and Extremadura, together with Castilla-La Mancha and peripheral areas of Andalusia and the Cantabrian coast are the spaces that show these deficits in access to services.<\/span><\/p>\n

The challenge of sustaining basic services is joined by private divestment, with the\u00a0<\/span>exclusion of banking as a more recent and obvious consequence<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, not only from the point of view of the individual client, but also due to the lack of financial services to local companies.\u00a0The increased use of digital banking has driven this process, which negatively affects access to personalized services in the rural productive fabric.<\/span><\/p>\n

Technology, infrastructure and mobility: challenges and solutions<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In a context in which the withdrawal of facilities and infrastructure is the general trend, the solution that appears is the increase in rural mobility.\u00a0This is far from ideal, as it increases dependence on the private vehicle.<\/span><\/p>\n

Transport by own car is the most flexible and viable alternative, public transport services are also scarce, with long connection times and frequent waits.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problems can be summarized in three:<\/span><\/p>\n