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Library Bridging between the regional degree and the community approaches to rurality—A suggestion for a definition of rurality for everyday use

Bridging between the regional degree and the community approaches to rurality—A suggestion for a definition of rurality for everyday use

Bridging between the regional degree and the community approaches to rurality—A suggestion for a definition of rurality for everyday use

Resource information

Date of publication
December 2012
Resource Language
ISBN / Resource ID
AGRIS:US201500217302
Pages
781-788

The territorial approach to rural development highlights the role of local actors, networks, culture, nature and landscape amenities. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) definition of rurality is, however, not capable of dealing with local and community definitions of rurality, which vary from study to study. In everyday life, physical planners, rural policymakers and local rural actors need a consistent definition of rurality. The reason is that structural reforms have led to larger administrative units that have less experience-based knowledge about the individual rural communities within a municipality than do local authorities. In this article, we propose a consistent definition of rurality that is easy for physical planners, rural policy makers and local rural actors to understand and apply in everyday use. In addition, our definition will be able to deal with both the regional and the community approach to rurality. This definition is based on an interdisciplinary literature review that starts with land cover and geographical mapping. The definition is then applied to the case of Denmark.

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Authors and Publishers

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s)

Johansen, Pia Heike
Nielsen, Niels Christian

Publisher(s)
Data Provider
Geographical focus