How come everyone on MN is 'rural'?

[managedmis]

I'm not rural

I would describe our area as "surburban".Think tree lined Avenue ,30s style detached houses /small shops .My neighbour said "of course dear we live in an urban village"! Covered all bases there I think!

They aren't. A huge number seem to be in London.

I'm not rural and as I can't drive I will never live rural. I'd hate it anyway, I'd feel scared living somewhere isolated.

I live in a commuter town, population 40,000 ish, in a flat. Moving to a semi soon though near to the town centre.

You're only properly rural if you have an outside loo and a septic tank.

I’m kind of rural . Older new build estate surrounded by miles of fields and farms

We are peak suburbia.

Parents are rural. Small village - about 20 houses - no shop, no post office, no pub, no nothing.

(They open their door if someone knocks though)

I live on a farm but we're on the edge of a wee town. What does 'rural' mean?. I never hear anyone say 'I live rurally' here. It sounds wanky. Isn't 'remote' a better word?

I think there are a good number of people on here who used to live in London and have now moved to Weybridge and believe themselves to be 'rural'.

Everyone either lives in a flat next to rowdy neighbours who have a daily bonfire or they live in a rurally with their newborn and can't drive.

Rural doesn't mean the same as remote - I live in a small village, surrounded by farmland, no shop, pub or school here, 5 busses per day, It's definitely rural. But it's only 4 miles to the nearest town, if I'm feeling energetic I can walk there - so not remote at all.

I say rural as it's a village with only a shop, no pub, nor Drs etc, no bus service. But that said it's next to a major motorway so you can be at a number of major cities in a relatively short space of time, one less than 30 mins. So not really rural but those who can't drive here are rather snookered.

Where I grew up you had to drive over an hour to get anything more than gas and air to give birth, that was rural and I couldn't go back to that.

Probably a lot of people are actually semi-rural. We live on the outskirts of a village, with cottages on one side of the road overlooking fields, but I consider this semi-rural.

We own a flat in an old pub at the other end of the village. If we were living in it at the moment, would we still be semi-rural? Could hardly be described as a town-dweller - we have no amenities!

It’s all in the definition I think.

I think a lot of people say rural town meaning very small town in the countryside rather than big town or city. That's how I tend to interpret it rather than living in a house on a hill like Peppa Pig 😁

Rural doesn't mean the same as remote

Yes - not at all the same thing but people on this thread seem weirdly to be conflating the two things.

I'm not rural and as I can't drive I will never live rural. I'd hate it anyway, I'd feel scared living somewhere isolated

You can live rurally and not be isolated. In the middle of a village, for example.

We are rural but not remote - in a village. I don't drive but we chose a village with shop, school, doctor, clubs for kids etc in.

If they are I had no idea. I thought it was predominantly London, nannies and cleaners etc

I'm semi-rural (semi-feral too at the moment but that's another story)

We're on the edge of a small town but with walking country in the other direction. I wouldn't say remote though as 1.5 miles away is a railway station. No buses to speak of though.

I definitely think people interpret rural differently. For example, I consider a village to be a few 100 people tops, a town 1000's with multiple shops. Several family members live in the latter with fields 10 minutes drive. They consider it a village. I don't. It's just perspective.

I used to live in a village. Pub, shop, 1 bus a day. Next village 10 minutes drive, town 40 minutes. Technically am probably more rural now as out of a village but 10 minutes drive from town.

1 field does not equal rural living. A lack of gas/mains water/mains drainage often means rural. As do fields for 30+ minutes walk. No public transport or 1 bus per day. No take away including no delivery.

Isolated is something else entirely.

I do live rurally, but we're not in the middle of nowhere. Wiki says the population density is 0.4 persons/hectare. It's very peaceful here.

We do have the benefit of being only a 30 minute drive from a small city and there is a supermarket around a 15-20 drive. Nothing in my actual village though, no shop, post office or pub etc. But I like it here.

I think of the average mumsnetter as living in Surrey or the better parts of London with horses / cleaners / au pairs.
Highly paid jobs and long commutes or now wfh! Children go to private school or good grammar schools. Husbands are stock brokers or consultants. Tend to be more socialist leaning or Conservative with a small c : upper middle class.
Not sure why and it's a huge generalisation but I think the working classes are in the minority ( like me)
Lots of people are very well informed about politics or the royals I've found. I've learnt a lot being on mumsnet!!

I'm semi rural outside of the UK. We are in a cluster of houses and theres another 2 clusters about 1mile away each. On one side it is farmland for many many miles with nothing but small villages for about 2 hours. The other side there is a small town 15 minutes away through farmland and then it's 1-1.5 hours into the nearest city. It's a lovely balance for me, plenty of countryside all around but not isolated. I also own a 4x4 as when it rains I wouldn't be getting anywhere if I didn't.
I have lived in big UK cities, small UK towns, outside the UK in a very isolated area (40 minutes to neighbours,1.5 hours to small town, 5 hours to nearest city/hospital) and I agree with many previous posters peoples perceptions are very different. Lots of people would say where I am now is rural but to me it doesn't feel fully so.

@alibongo5 No, not Shropshire, have another guess?

Very rural here, nearest neighbour mile and a half away, nearest road two and a half miles away. Love it! Have to be very organised though, is a bit of a trek popping out for milk!

Surely your environment is rural, you aren’t. I wouldn’t describe myself as urban. Well unless I was an odd combination of being a thinly disguised racist on mumsnet and a black person (of which I am neither).