Larger context for LACK in Corpus USbrown_UKbncw/UK_bncw.txt
Another problem according to Lewis (1983, 149) is " the lack of an adequate conceptual framework" and as a result (1983,149): " most rural studies have tended to be empirical and holistic, thus lacking comparability and depth". This was certainly true of the majority of studies before and even till the 1970s, which usually adopted a social anthropological approach (Arensberg and Kimball, 1940) to static or declining farm communities (Davies, 1970) and even by 1971 it was possible for Franklin (1971, 12) to argue that"the peasantry, though diminishing in number and importance, still forms the largest single category within the rural community throughout Europe".
However, the effects of urban growth on rural communities had been recognized as long ago as the late 1930s, when Ashby ( 1939) argued that the unbalanced age structure and uneconomic service provision caused by rural depopulation had been offset by the spread of urban population into the rural areas in the inter-war years.