Planning to meet challenges in shrinking rural regions. Towards innovative approaches to local planning

For parts of the sparsely populated areas, the trends of globalisation, urbanisation and deindustrialisation constitute difficult circumstances. Population decline, escalating dependency ratios, lack of human and financial resources, and diminishing commercial and public services form part of lived experience in many of these areas. This paper discusses what geographers can do for these territories. The paper suggests that geographers can aid in understanding and demonstrating (a) how resources have been distributed in space over time and (b) why patterns of resource distribution take the shape they do. Geographers can also illuminate (c) what it means to live, work, and operate in shrinking, rural territories. Geographers could also (d) make implicit geographical imaginations explicit, (e) elucidate how shrinkage is dealt with by various policy actors, and (f) point to alternative policy directions. The paper also suggests that geographers in the Nordic countries could enrich an international research field of studies of shrinkage by (g) providing case studies or comparative studies from a Nordic context.

Section: Policy Responses To Shrinkagesupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: How Have Resources Been Distributed In Space Over Time?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Policy Responses To Shrinkagementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

What can geographers do for shrinking geographies?

Syssner¹

2023

“…Several scholars argue that to ensure the quality of life in shrinking areas, development policies must change (Hospers 2014;Syssner 2020;Hagen et al 2022). It is expected that growth will be understood from a new perspective, meaning disengagement from policy approaches that exclusively aim at increasing economic growth (Hospers 2014;Sousa & Pinho 2015).…”

Section: The Development Policy Of a Shrinking Municipalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Relying on LEADER? A place-based policy approach to the rural development of Finnish municipalities

Mustakangas

2024

In Finnish rural development, the role of municipalities has proven to be modest, even though the place-based policy approach in principle gives them an important position. The main part of municipal rural development involves cooperation with LEADER groups, to which municipalities give priority. In this study I ask: What explains the current status of municipalities in place-based rural development, that is, the dominance of LEADER and the small scale of the municipalities' own rural development? The methodology is based on critical realism, and the analysis draws from semi-structured interviews conducted in three municipalities. The aforementioned state of local rural development is called demi-regularity, which is the starting point of the research. Using a thematic analysis developed by Tom Fryer for critical realist research, the study proposes three causal explanations for this observation, namely the idea of responsible local communities, the development policy of the shrinking municipality, and the challenges of projectification. According to the findings, the increased role of villages in rural development does not necessarily support the involvement of municipalities, but rather the opposite. The study also shows that when municipalities are primarily looking for (economic) growth, they have difficulties in trusting the potential of rural areas, let alone exploiting it. On the other hand, the challenges of projectification do not characterise LEADER projects in the same way as other municipal project work, making it tempting to rely on LEADER in municipal rural development. Overall, the study shows how strongly and differently LEADER is rooted in place-based rural development in Finland. In order to bring municipalities back into the scene, a broader discussion on the actual preconditions of municipalities in place-based rural development is needed.

“…Political stakeholders must keep in mind that a decrease of individual human influence on the farming system may marginalize the role of farmers, contribute to decreasing farm numbers, and thus, also potentially to the shrinking of rural regions, which calls for a more targeting local planning approach (cf. Hagen et al 2022).…”

Section: Reconfiguring the Rural Through Altered Agricultural Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

How agriculture performs urbanity: connecting urbanization and socio-practical shifts in farming cultures

Preininger

2024

Agriculture and farming practices are often at the center of idealized imaginaries and characterizations of rurality. At the same time, agriculture is in flux, undergoing rapid change through globalized economic restructuring and new globalized cultural paradigms. Agriculture is thus a venue where farmers put into practice the latest technological advances to remain competitive economically, a process which simultaneously challenges farmers’ (self-)perceptions and the characterizations of rural communities. Scholars of urbanization theory propose exploring rural transformations through the everyday, as performed through practices and reflected in the habitus. Building on such scholarship, this article connects insights from urbanization studies with a qualitative assessment of practice shifts in farming by situating digitally-assisted farming practices as indicators of rural transformation. Using the participatory visual method of photovoice, the article follows how farmers from south-eastern Austria outline contexts in which digitization has led to transforming their farming practices. The conceptual framework of habitual urbanity (Dirksmeier 2006, 2007, 2009) is used to analyze the resulting material. The main qualitative results highlight how digital technologies led to the reordering, reassessment, and at times, discontinuation, of everyday farm tasks. These disruptions potentially lead to a growing variety of business modes and at the same time, mark cornerstones of rural transformation in thought and behavior.