What does “rural” mean to you?

[HowDairy]

We see it very often on MN - “I live rurally”.
So what do you consider is rural?
Just how far out of town is proper rural living?

To me, it means that you have to drive for the essentials - milk, bread etc.
But then, “ walkable” means different things to each and every one of us, dependent on ability.
So, answering my own question, it’s basically a how long is a piece of string scenario 🤔

Anything beyond zone 2 in London

I grew up in the middle of nowhere - no pavements let alone taxis, buses, takeaways etc. So to me that’s rural. But then, I went to school in Cheddar which to me is still rural despite having not only taxis, buses and pavements but alos pubs, schools, a leisure center etc. It’s surrounded by the Somerset levels. I’m not sure anyone would argue that’s not rural. Certainly don’t have to drive to get milk. So. Not sure where the yardstick is for ‘rural’!

I'm definitely rural. Small village with no shops, bus every 2 hours to a local village with shops or the nearest small market town.

It's definitely possible to be more rural.

Personally to be rural means not in or on the edge of a city or town

but it depends on definition in many surveys the choices are urban suburban and rural in that case rural encompasses quite a lot in fact it means everything that is not in the city/ large town or the suburbs of that town /city

if the categories are inner city, city, suburbs, large town, market town, large villiage small village hamlet remote, very remote then less is rural but most definitions would be in countryside farmland moorland a small village or hamlet (larger villages are debatable)
you can be rural and 3 minutes from motorway junction
remote I think is the word when you have to drive to facilities of any kind

We live in a small village, no shop, but has a pub (under threat) and a primary school. One bus a week. Not on mains drainage and internet connectivity variable. 40 min walk to next village with small co-op, pharmacist, health centre and bus stop with one bus an hour Mon-Fri (although under threat). And a small secondary school - also under threat. No pavements for most of the walk and no street lighting so not safe for winter-time early mornings and late afternoons onwards. Getting taxis can be a challenge too. Basically if you don't have access to a car - you're very cut off

We're 4 miles outside Reading so hardly in the back of beyond. Would I call this rural - no, although we are surrounded by farmland. We are simply an illustration that resources are focused in centres of population.

No fast wi-fi!

Can get utterly snowed in like that pub in the Peak District

No one would hear you scream!

We are in a village in a rural setting, though not particularly remote.
Small market towns about ten miles away in three directions.

Rural doesn’t mean no amenities, either.
Until a few years ago, we had a shop, garage, butcher's, antique shop, post office and school. Two pubs, a bus service and a blacksmith.
Now we have a community shop and twice weekly post office in the village hall, the school and one very active pub, with live music, bike nights and a beer festival in summer.
There is a weekly youth club night and a weekly breakfast morning in the village hall, plus occasional social nights, tai chi, knit and natter sessions, etc, plus the WI.
There is a sort of dial up bus service once a week, that alters its route according to bookings.
(We know how to live large out here in the sticks)

Obviously there's different levels. I got told I didn't live rurally, when at the time my house backed onto wheat fields for miles. I get told I don't live rurally now when there's a large dairy farm at the end of our road and we are surrounded by woodlands. If you can walk less than 5 minutes and be in countryside and agricultural land, that's rural to me.

Our village is surrounded by farmland. There's no shop or pub but there is a bus service that runs every 2/3 hours 6 days a week between 8 and 6ish. There's a village shop up the road but it would take about 30/40 minutes to walk but there's sections with no pavement so not safe. In the other direction is a big Tesco about a 5 minute drive and regular bus services to the nearest towns. You can walk up to the main road in about 30 minutes but again no pavement so not safe. I'm guessing you might say the whole area is more like semi rural with towns and villages surrounded by agricultural land.

I'm in the South East but I live a good 20 minutes walk (via muddy footpath with styles) from the local village where there is a single (excellent) pub, a church and a dozen houses. I'm surrounded by fields, farms and woodland. The community run village/farm shop is another 20 minutes+ walk further on in another village that still has a small primary school serving a wide rural area. We have absolutely no public transport to the village, access is via narrow single track roads, many with grass down the middle, there is no mobile signal, no fibre broadband (we use satellite) and we are in a satnav black spot. No street lights anywhere. Water pressure is miserable and the electricity flickers regularly. It would be impossible to survive without a car here. I class that as rural.

Rural I think means living in an area where there is open countryside nearby and you need to travel from where you live to reach “higher level” services through countryside eg no secondary school, no large supermarket, no hospital though there may be a general store, primary school and drs. Population a few thousand at most.

i live semi rurally as my house is in a town with a secondary school and proper supermarkets but still no hospital, no “big shops” and need to travel through countryside to reach things that people in cities take for granted.

We're 4 miles outside Reading so hardly in the back of beyond. Would I call this rural - no, although we are surrounded by farmland. We are simply an illustration that resources are focused in centres of population.

I'd say it's rural. The whole surrounded by farmland bit makes it rural. There are a lot of rural areas close to Reading.

We don’t live in the UK, for context. Where we lived before we moved to where we are now (same non-UK country), we were 28 miles from any form of shop. We lived on several acres with no neighbours in sight. We were 75 miles away from a town that had things like a hospital, cinema, department store. No takeaways, supermarkets, etc delivered. After a storm the power would be out for a week or so. We had a generator for such events. We paid a monthly fee for an air ambulance service as there was no way a regular ambulance would get to us and get us to a hospital in an emergency. There was one road to us and if that was blocked due to landslides or wildfire (common in this country), the only way to get to us was by helicopter or boat. I once needed the air ambulance service and if we hadn’t had it I would likely have died. It was the possibility of future medical emergencies that made us sell and move to a place more connected.