cartoon of rural & isolated young people

Working with rural & geographically isolated young people

Definition

This section looks at the needs of young people living in rural and geographically isolated areas.

Rural areas can be characterised by:

  • low population density
  • small total population
  • predominantly agricultural or primary industry functions
  • non-built-up areas are predominant compared to built-up areas
  • being geographically isolated from essential services such as schools, shops, health and community services 9

Demographics

The Nepean area has a mix of metropolitan and geographically isolated areas.

Nepean localities which can be considered rural and geographically isolated are:

Suburb

Total population

Blue Mountains

Bell, Mt Irvine, Mt Tomah, Mt Wilson

213

Megalong Valley

113

Mt Victoria

1048

Hawkesbury

Berambing

 117

Bilpin

 677

Cattai

 717

Colo Heights

410
Colo Valley 593
Comleroy 625
East Kurrajong 918
Lower Portland 377
Maraylya 670
Mulgrave 238
Oakville 1545
Sackville 410
St Albans 302
Scheyille 319
Tennyson 617
Webbs Creek 184

Penrith

Agnes Banks

572

Berkshire Park

1788

Castlereagh

819

Llandilo

918

Londonderry

3488

Luddenham

1160

Mt Vernon (incl Kemps Creek)

1573

Mulgoa

1604

Orchard Hills

1739

Wallacia

1044

Based on 2001 ABS statistics

Terminology

This section refers to young people who live in rural and geographically isolated areas.

The Commonwealth Government has developed a method of classifying rural areas known as the "ARIA - Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia". However there is still much debate about the index and many other definitions of "rural" exist.   The ARIA Index measures remoteness based on the road distance from any point to the nearest service centre and does not consider road conditions, travel time or the broader issue of accessibility. 13

Other words that are commonly used to describe rural areas include regional, remote, country, bush and geographically isolated.