Rural Areas and Rural Economy in Serbia

Abstract

AbstractSerbian rural areas are represented through the prism of the heterogeneity of their geographical and socio-economic features. It is difficult to strictly define the rural area and settlement in Serbia due to the mosaic structure of rural settlements’ network. This chapter introduced rural areas as a network of the non-urban settlements, at the same time offering an overview of varieties in defining Serbian rural areas, which are still matter of consensus. The different pace of development, variety of potentials and spatial dispersion of socio-economic processes led to developmental inequalities in rural areas and expressed polarization in many rural attributes (morphology, population distribution, settlement network, economic structure, etc.). It conditionally divides the whole territory on “inhabited, vital north and empty, non-vital south”. This argument is justified by observation of the two distinctive processes on rural areas: intensive depopulation and rapid deagrarization, as well by the quality of rural environment based on the evaluation of the outdoor amenities. Such “polarized Serbian rurality” offers a simple but relevant understanding of the development trends and real state of rural areas in Serbia.KeywordsRural areasPolarizationDepopulationDeagrarizationOutdoor amenitiesRural economy