Rural Renewal Research Articles

Valonska regija: kmetijsko-gozdarska pokrajina brez kmeta?

Predstavljena je pokrajinska pestrost valonske regije, ukrepi za obnovopodeželja, selitve nazaj na podeželje in novi izzivi valonskega podeželja.

Africa becomes electric [Careers

Sten Bergman is helping African villagers, far from the grid, get cheap efficient power. As the Swedish Development Agency's representative to the World Bank's Africa Rural Renewable Energy Initiative, Bergman is charged with helping set new template for rural electrification in Africa. That means scouting out low-cost energy technologies to match local needs, as well as explaining those technologies to government ministries, local leaders, utilities, and the man in the street. The Initiative's philosophy is a radical departure from traditional development approaches. Rather than pursuing the centralized power systems favored by big utilities international lending agencies, the initiative encourages the private sector to develop small independent grids in remote regions. The whole concept behind this African initiative is to channel electrical resources into activities that have an economic return.

Les citadins au village

City Dwellers in Villages. The migratory flows, engendering demographic growth, is the key to rural renewal. The majority of rural counties register more settlements than moves. Young couples leave the city to settle permanently in close by villages, keeping their jobs. They buy or build a house, organising their familial and personal life first. They are the more numerous but by no means alone in provoking the change of village society. With them, well-to-do retired people as well as a fringe of population in precarious situation have converted the rural areas to urbanity.

La reprise démographique rurale en Wallonie et en Europe du Nord-Ouest

Since the seventies, strong urbanized regions within Nord-West Europe ar.e affected by the emergency of new demographic movements in particular with regard to sparsely populated rural areas. This process, known as rurbanization, is the result of various factors playing different roles in time and space. To only specify demographic aspects of this rural renewal, we shall draw attention to : a various shape of agglomerations giving out urban exodus, the contribution of urban migrations to the process of counter-urbanization, a continuous development of multiple-functions in the small towns and a resumption of residential migrations from an inside rural space since the early nineties.

New Rural Pluriactivity? Household Strategies and Rural Renewal in Norway

It is a common assumption that pluriactive Nordic smallholders would prefer an income from ordinary paid work to the daily search for income. However, this article shows that a large proportion of pluriactive people live in regions with considerable access to paid work. The question therefore becomes why they choose traditional rural adaptations when there is ample opportunity to obtain ordinary full‐time paid work. The analysis is based on data collected in ten Norwegian rural municipalities, and interviews with pluriactive households living in four communities close to Norwegian cities. The article confirms that the income of a majority of entrepreneurs is obtained by running more than one small‐scale industrial enterprise, or by mixing operating enterprises with ordinary paid work. These kinds of strategies are based on exploiting new niches in the rural economy, which are shaped by modern gender relations in rural households.

Managing the transition from agriculture to tourism: analysis of tourism networks in Auvergne

Developing tourism is popular among regions involved in rural renewal. Changes taking place in agriculture are a particular catalyst giving rise to all kinds of initiatives. In this paper, the development of tourism will be examined in the context of these rural transformations. It will be argued that there is a need for innovative strategies that create economic development yet preserve the rural character of the countryside. This requires time and place specific innovations. The central question addressed in this paper is what type of organizational structure and management will stimulate these types of tourism innovation. Drawing on sustainable development literature and the concept of ‘innovative regions’, some remarks are made about basic prerequisites. ‘Network’ is a central notion in this respect. These theoretical ideas are then used to evaluate the organization of tourism in the Auvergne, a rural region in central France.

Aspects of rural renewal in western Connemara

(1978). Aspects of rural renewal in western Connemara. Irish Geography: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 176-179.

Rural Areas in an Urban Economy

V HEN the Congress passed the Appalachian Regional Development Act in 1965, it established a new agency, provided it with a new set of operating instructions, and told it to work on a relatively old problem. That problem, of course, is the record of relatively low incomes, high unemployment and underemployment, out-migration, poor health, and inadequate education that have been generally characteristic of Appalachia-symptoms also characteristic of America. The approach of the Appalachian program to these problems, therefore, has significance for all areas of the country and, in fact, for all areas. In the debates and discussions of recent years concerning balance, rural renewal, and a national policy, one thread of agreement seems to exist-the intertwining of and problems. We simply cannot separate the solution of our and problems into separate compartments. The historic exodus from our areas has depleted their most valuable resource, their young people, who have too frequently been redundant and ill-equipped in their new environment. An approach to overcoming typically problems that holds even modest promise would be welcome in the effort to reduce problems of and areas to manageable proportions. Another thread of agreement in the discussion of urban-rural policy, though less overtly stated, is that there is no possibility for a program to stimulate a return to the land. For better or worse, we are an and urbanizing nation and national policy must both recognize this fact and, simultaneously, avoid confusing the term urban with metropolitan. The former does not necessarily mean the latter, and wise public policy must capitalize on what both can offer. There have been numerous attempted explanations of this urbanizing phenomenon. Some seek an explanation in a hierarchical structure of cities whose size and placement follow some regular pattern. Others seek it in agglomerative economies that confer pecuniary and non-pecuniary advantages. Still others seek it in an increasingly greater rate of invention and innovation as size increases. And there are those who seek the explanation in a higher degree of income elasticity of demand for services than for goods. Candor requires that we admit that a preference for one of these expla-