Counterurbanization: the British experience

"A classification of relatively self-contained functional regions is used to test for the existence of counterurbanization in Great Britain. It is shown that population deconcentration from Metropolitan to Freestanding Britain was underway during 1961-71 and increased in magnitude in 1971-81.... Reference to annual estimates of population, however, indicate that these counterurban shifts reached a peak in the early 1970s and that after the mid 1970s there was a significant narrowing of the range of growth rates along the metropolitan dimension. The early 1980s were characterized by a marked reduction in the rate of population loss from the larger metropolitan centres alongside a continuation of relatively rapid growth in the more rural parts of the country."