Places have changed their function and characteristics over time

🔗 Places change their function and characteristics over time. Very few places are static through time. The main functions of places are:

Administrative → Council offices, schools, clinics and hospitals (eg. organising waste disposal)
Commercial → Offices of services industries, legal services, accountants
Retail → Shops that range in size from grocery stores to malls
Industrial → Factories, warehouses and distribution centres Demographic changes can also occur:
Age structure: Rural areas in the UK are increasingly elderly, while urban areas often have an increasingly youthful population
Ethnic composition: Migrants often cluster together in major cities
Gentrification: The process of improving an area to make it more acceptable and attractive to higher income groups into formerly poorer urban areas

Costs	Benefits
● People on low incomes cannot afford the higher property prices/rent ● Higher car ownership may ↑ congestion ● Potential loss of business for traditional, local, low-order shops ● May be seen as a threat to the traditional community and friction may occur between newcomers and original residents	● Rise in general level of prosperity and ↑ number & range of services and businesses ● ↑ local tax income for the local authority ● Physical environment of the area improved ● Greater employment opportunities created

Reasons for Change

National government policies to ↑ housing, improve accessibility and connectedness, HS2
National government policies to conserve culturally or environmentally important places
Local planning grants or refuses permission for changes to places