The Socio-Economic Heterogeneity of Rural Areas: Towards a Rural Typology of Poland

Monika Stanny,Łukasz Komorowski,Andrzej Rosner

doi:10.3390/en14165030

Monika Stanny, Łukasz Komorowski + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/en14165030

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Abstract

The paper aims to identify the significant heterogeneity of socio-economic rural development in Poland by identifying different types of rural areas and clarifying the existing diversity. This objective requires the following: (1) defining the rural development in Polish conditions, (2) abandoning the urban–rural continuum concept, and (3) conducting an analysis involving data aggregated from the local administrative units (2173 gminas/communes). The approach is exploratory and is limited to two questions elaborating the main problem related to the scale and character of rural variety: What socio-economic types of rural area are found in Poland? How are they distributed spatially? The statistical procedure is based on Diday’s dynamic clouds typological analysis. This yielded seven types of rural areas that exhaust their diversity. The main indicator of the character of the different types is related to the level of deagrarianisation of the local economy. The authors argue that the a priori urban–rural continuum model should be abandoned in favour of a more open approach. Typologies based on local administrative unit data, which avoid a priori assumptions concerning rurality, provide an excellent insight into the heterogeneity of rural areas.

Highlights

Rural areas do not develop as autarchic elements, but as an integral part of a country’s entire socio-economic system
Cohesion does not have to entail counteracting the diversification of socio-economic structures; it may be understood to mean attaining a similar level of well-being in different structural conditions and functional systems
Through its use of Diday’s dynamic clouds clustering statistical procedure, the approach to the study is exploratory and may be limited to two questions elaborating the main problem related to the scale and character of rural area variety: What socio-economic types of rural area are found in Poland? How are they distributed spatially? Our aim is to distinguish certain rural area types, and to investigate the complexity of rural areas’

Summary

Introduction

Rural areas do not develop as autarchic elements, but as an integral part of a country’s entire socio-economic system. By its nature, this development is variable over space. Every theory of regional development assumes the existence of territorial differences as an objective fact [1,2,3,4,5]. The fundamental questions that come to mind concern the scale and character of this diversity, whether it is functional or dysfunctional, whether rural policies should aim to diminish these differences or accept their existence and select instruments to control the development that account for the socio-economic uniqueness of certain rural regions. Cohesion does not have to entail counteracting the diversification of socio-economic structures; it may be understood to mean attaining a similar level of well-being in different structural conditions and functional systems

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