The rurality in the Santiago Chile metropolitan region (2002): determination and relationship with the people employed by economic sector

Abstract

The new geographical contexts of the rural-urban interactions on the outskirts of large cities motivate a more detailed characterization of the “rural” character. The paper develops a methodology to define several levels of "functional rurality" in the region. It applies the combined use of the census population density, along with the determination of the travel times to central regional market, the tool used was GIS. The results establish statistically significant associations between levels of rurality and the economic activity of the population. It further notes that travel time shows an important influence on the level of “functional rurality”, which has direct influence on the urban-rural forecasts of requirements for investment in infrastructure and accessibility in an urban region. The highest levels of rurality in RMS are mainly related with people employed in the agricultural sector.