UDIRA stands for "Urban Development in Rural Areas". "Urban development" means concentrations of lots which do not reflect land-extensive and natural resource-based activities such as agriculture. It can be in the form of crossroads or hamlet communities, strip development or planned subdivisions. It can be based on either year-round or seasonal dwellings.

"Rural areas" are mostly those without central water and/or sewer services. Present or formerly incorporated towns and cities are considered urban. Designated Places in the Canada Census have been classified as high density settlements above a certain threshold in size by the Province of Nova Scotia and are also considered urban. Some Designated Places are not centraly serviced but are nevertheless of the requisite density and scale. Some hamlets may be centrally serviced but have not been included within the list of Designated Places. Known serviced areas around Truro and Census Urban areas in Chester are also shown as urban.

UDIRA is located in two kinds of areas. First, there is the "urban shadow" or "spillover" which surrounds major urban centres such as metro Halifax, Industrial Cape Breton and the Pictou County towns. Second are those dense rural areas, usually following the coastline, where there are no major urban centres - such as in Richmond County, Barrington and Argyle. The urban shadow animation shows the general location of both of these.

The UDIRA animations for each area is a time series depiction of the creation of lots decade by decade. The present resultant pattern of lots can be classified as one of three types of setlement pattern: hamlet, strip and subdivision. Each of the areas with a time series UDIRA animation also has a settlement pattern animation which shows each of these three components of settlement in sequence.

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Return to: UDIRA Introduction