Dumfries

Dumfries (Dùn Phris in Scottish Gaelic: pronounced dum-freece, not dum-fries) is a Royal Burgh and town of about 45,000 people on the River Nith in Dumfries and Galloway in the south west of Scotland.

The Economy of Dumfries

Dumfries has a long history as the county town of a rural backwater. The rich agricultural land between the hills and the sea has for many hundreds of years been carved up into huge estates controlled by hereditary ruling class interests. Since the arrival of the railways a strong middle class has grown in the town and county.

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The abandonment of the traditional rural economy over the past one hundred years has pulled the very disadvantaged poor from communities scattered across the countryside into local authority and other social housing schemes, and low grade commercial housing, generally in the towns.

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The displacement of the whole spectrum of the local rural population by the purchasing power of incomers is moving ever faster at the start of the 21st century. The overall effect of this process is to decrease the sustainability of Dumfries as an ecomomic area, and to increase its dependence on a diesel-powered subsidiary relationship to the north of england and the scottish central belt.

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