Territorial and Human Geography Challenges: How Can Smart Villages Support Rural Development and Population Inclusion?

Abstract

Rural areas are significantly affected by spatial vulnerability, the digital gap, depopulation, and population ageing. Marginalized populations are seeking collective well-being, social inclusion, and local development in smart villages, an increasingly important area of interest for scholars and practitioners as well as rural areas and communities. This article attempts to highlight the dominant trends in smart villages planning and depict the characteristics of Greek rural areas and populations alongside the implemented localized smart actions. To achieve this aim, the research utilized the existing literature through bibliometric analysis by extracting data from the Web of Science database. Building upon the bibliometrics, the research focused on identifying localized implemented interventions in the Greek rural areas. The results suggest that innovation, knowledge, growth, and management appear to impact rural smart planning, while the limited interventions of smart villages in Greece focus on social innovation and local development. The study argues that in Greece, a single holistic smart villages model cannot be proposed, due to the country’s geographical and demographical variability. The proposed trends, though, can be implemented locally to encourage rural development and population inclusion; therefore it is recommended to increase local stakeholders’ awareness and active engagement.

(Re)thinking smart in rural contexts: A multi‐country study

“…(2022), Anastasiou et al. (2021), Stojanova et al. (2021), Komorowski and Stanny (2021) and Visvizy et al.…”

“…Nevertheless, as authors like McGuire et al (2022), Anastasiou et al (2021), Stojanova et al (2021), Komorowski and Stanny (2021) and Visvizy et al (2019) have recently highlighted, rural areas are significantly impacted by spatial vulnerability, depopulation and population ageing, the digital gap and decreasing public services endowment quality. How rural populations can improve local development and collective well-being is a growing-yet still underdevelopedarea of research.…”

“…Yet, studies addressing this phenomenon in rural contexts are still scarce (Komorowski & Stanny, 2021). Some authors have taken potential equivalences between the concept of smart in urban and rural areas as their reference (e.g., Komorowski & Stanny, 2021; Manika, 2020); others have highlighted key differences between urban and rural environments and explicitly recognised that this approach is not adequate (Anastasiou et al., 2021; Stojanova et al., 2021). Moreover, although a growing number of researchers are analysing the concept, a unified, integrated reference framework for defining “smart” in rural contexts remains lacking.…”

“…As Anastasiou et al. (2021, p. 194) recently highlighted, research in this specific field is still embryonic—as of yet there is no official definition for “smart villages.” Moreover, the term does not lend itself to a one‐size‐fits‐all conception (Visvizy et al., 2019); it is territorially sensitive, as different areas vary in terms of climate, geography, history, culture, natural resources and other factors that recommend different ways to approach their most appropriate design (Macke et al., 2019; Stojanova et al., 2021; Wolski & Wojcik, 2019). Maybe for these reasons researchers propose the consideration of special features including demography, location, human geography, social and physical resources in definitions.…”

Mechanism for the Optimal Location of a Business as a Lever for the Development of the Economic Strength and Resilience of a City

“…At the same time, in order to obtain a better understanding of the relevant literature and its dominant trends, a bibliometric analysis was used. The main tool of the article's analysis was the bibliometrix package (along with biblioshiny App, an R-tool described in detail by Aria and Cuccurullo [20]), which presents an interesting multitude of results in its social science [21] and urban science [22,23] applications.…”