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THE LAST TWENTY YEARS have seen considerable academic interest in the concept of'counterurbanization.'Defined simply, it is the population revival and growth of'rural areas,'together with the corresponding population decline of the cities and large towns. Moreover, this' rural revival'is explained by net population migration to more rural areas, rather than by adjustments in the rate of'natural change'(cf. Champion 1989d, 1992). Initially identified in the United States (Beale 1975), counterurbanization is almost ubiquitous in the developed world (see Berry 1976a; Vining and Kontuly 1978; Fielding 1982, 1986; Vining and Pallone 1982; Moseley 1984; Perry et al. 1986; Champion 1989a, b, 1992; Serow 1991), in contrast to the'concentration paradigm'(Vining and Pallone 1982, p. 340) of the first half of the century, which remains the norm in the developing world. Thus, there has been a'population turnaround'in the …