Getting to Services in Towns and Villages

Executive summary

Successful service delivery within and across regions can produce societal benefits such as growth in productivity and jobs, not just in regions but for the country as a whole. The efficient organisation of services and transport links across settlements – cities, towns and villages – can also help regions cope with demographic change and meet net-zero carbon targets.

Cities, towns and villages provide access to services and broader economic opportunities. Settlements typically serve their own residents along with others nearby. The presence and accessibility of good-quality services such as healthcare and education can enhance prosperity and well-being for the whole region. Likewise, a lack of services can have many negative impacts, reinforcing the idea that governments should help co‑ordinate and fund efforts to reduce territorial inequalities in access to services.

Accurate information on the ease of access to different services is fundamental as governments try to balance costs, access and quality in service provision. Demographic changes, including urbanisation, ageing and population declines in rural areas, increase the urgency with which policy makers need to understand how physical access to services varies across different places.

This report uses novel approaches to fill information gaps, including methodological improvements in measuring the location of population, services and travel times on an internationally comparable basis. Since measures of the actual use of services are typically unavailable, the report takes a practical approach by determining the number of local service locations (if any) for each settlement and measuring how many people could reach each settlement within reasonable travel times.

Main findings

Access to a city affects the provision of local services. Cities typically have more services than towns and many more than villages. Towns and villages far from cities tend to have more services than similar-sized settlements close to cities, as those living near a city may obtain some services in the city rather than in their smaller suburban locations. Towns have more services when they are regional centres, i.e. the largest settlement within a certain driving time.

Transport connectivity also matters for service accessibility. On the one hand, towns with efficient public transport services tend to have more service outlets. On the other hand, towns that are more reliant on driving to serve the surrounding population tend to have fewer available services. Fast connections by road – for instance, through high-speed highways – may result in more services being offered in smaller places as potential outside demand increases, but can indirectly result in less provision if drivers favour larger settlements offering more varied and better services.

Over the last decade, most towns close to a city grew even though half of all villages in the European Union and more than 40% of its towns have lost population. Settlements near cities provide their residents with access to employment opportunities and services, and most, in fact, do not offer a full range of services within their own boundaries. Many settlements far from cities – and regional centres in particular – are service hubs but have still experienced population decline as the population is being pulled into cities and their surrounding areas. Going forward, because an increasing number of towns and villages across the OECD are projected to experience population decline and ageing, service provision needs to be complemented by targeted, cohesive development strategies to help smaller places, in particular, remain attractive.

Policies need to focus on the accessibility of services. The conditions for service delivery are usually easier for regions with larger cities compared to more rural regions. To make sure everyone can get access to services, governments can strengthen the provision of local services that should be easy to access, like elementary schools and primary medical care, in a cost-efficient way – for instance, through service co‑location – while seeking feasible digital or mobile alternatives and consolidating specialised services in nearby regional centres. Better (public) transport connectivity to cities, towns and regional centres can promote service access for everyone.