The situation, development lines and perspectives of small and medium-sized towns in Germany and France are compared and similarities and differences within the central place systems and the spatial planning of both countries are discussed. With different approaches to definition, these towns...

By seeking to identify the centralities of a territory, one has to take into account the ongoing evolution of the spatial structuration. The strong employment increase, together with the slowdown of people working in the town they live (i.e. stablesʺ), triggers a transition in the...

Across the world, people in urban rather than rural areas are more likely to support gender equality. To explain this global trend, this paper engages with geographically diverse literature and comparative rural-urban ethnographic research from Zambia. It argues that people living in...

This article is an analysis of how the rural area was defined in the Romanian legislation starting with the oldest law in force until last legislative initiatives in the field. The texts of Romanian legal acts were studied comparatively and against the provisions of the European Charter of Rural...

Subjektive Lebensqualität ist heute stark geprägt von der Diversität zwischen Stadt und Land sowie zwischen den einzelnen Generationen. Ein hoher Anteil alter Menschen lebt heute in gering besiedelten Gebieten, wobei dieser Anteil zukünftig noch steigen wird. Die empirischen Analysen der...

Rising concern over urban-rural economic disparity in China in the early 2000s spurred a series of policy initiatives to improve people's quality of life in rural areas. A recently launched Rural Land Transition Program in Sichuan Province aims to increase land-use efficiency and rural incomes...