Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Page 101

BYGDADVØL - HVÍ UNGFÓLK BÚSETAST í FØROYSKUM BYGDUM
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°f Faroese villages mentioned above is in fact
Very popular amongst settlers and should be
Seen as a high-quality altemative to living in
the town; not necessarily as a second choice.
Although the Faroes are increasingly ur-
banizing, as people tend to move into the
towns, especially Tórshavn and Runavík,
there is also (still) an “anti-urbanization” and
~ iHore important - a “counter-urbanization”
§°ing on. The anti-urbanization trend can be
Seen as a resistance towards urbanization and
Perhaps also as a “loyalty” towards the
home-village”. The counter-urbanization is
~~ on the other hand - a transposing of the ur-
ban into the rural (or a “mral restructuring”
as in Marsden et al., 1993); a strategy for es-
Caping the town-life in favour of the peace-
ful village-life without abandoning the func-
honal belongingness to the town or the
l°wns that the respective village is referring
to and subordinated to. Naturally counter-
Urbanization is - as in the surrounding
c°untries - primarily localizing in the rela-
tlve proximity of the town(s). Counter-ur-
banization is - functionally spoken - a dis-
Persed kind of urban sprawl creating a spe-
Clal kind of suburbs that maintain the chann-
lng village-morphology that thereby offer an
authencity that the newly developed suburbs
(e-g- Floyvík or Norðasta Flom in the outskirts
°1 the capital Tórshavn) are not yet quite able
to provide.
The interesting point is that the counter-
Ul'banization is a phenomenon very much
f'lled with paradoxes and ambivalences. The
niain two paradoxes, that are related to each
other, are, firstly, that people settle in the vil-
'ages because of qualities like peace, open-
sPace and friendlyness, but that at the same
time they are occupied with a post-modern
“urban” life style which diminishes the pos-
sibilities (especially the time-resources) of
actually utilizing the qualities of the villages,
as a large part of the everyday time-re-
sources is invested in everyday-travelling of
many kinds. The other important paradox is
that people settle in the villages in order to
obtain peace and relaxation and a safe en-
vironment for their children, but that they
at the same time become more dependent on
the automobility, which is - in tum - a major
source of stress in the everyday. This latter
paradox is a very commonly studied prob-
lematic in countries such as England and
Denmark, where mobility is in fact a ne-
cessity to the life of many modern people
but at the same time a huge social and en-
vironmental problem, both in urban and
rural areas (Uth Thomsen etal., 2005). Sum-
ming up, therefore, the “village-dwelling”
is compromised by a change in both life-
styles and daily routines and practices (e.g.
commuting), which is putting the semiotic
structures under pressure. The subjective
dwelling-imaginations are not necessarily
corresponding to the objecive reality, and
the result is that understanding young peo-
ple’s reasons for settling in the Faroese vil-
lages becomes very complicated.
Counter-urbanization can not be explai-
ned solely through practical terms as e.g.
“cost-benefit’’. Of course the prices of petrol,
the prices of land (or built houses) and the
length of the distances are important when
explaining the counter-urbanization. But
there is much more to it than only econo-
mies.
The main idea is that the qualities of the