Small towns ensure services on the basic urban level, jobs, social contacts, occasions to travel outside the micro-region, services of the state administration and sometimes also an identity of the micro-region. Mass commuting from villages to small towns is usual for Czechia for a long time....

Small towns ensure services on the basic urban level, jobs, social contacts, occasions to travel outside the micro-region, services of the state administration and sometimes also an identity of the micro-region. Mass commuting from villages to small towns is usual for Czechia for a long time....

Digitalization and social innovation are often discussed separately and without any spatial reference or in relation to cities, although newer works show the importance of social innovation also for rural areas. Existing digitalization projects illustrate the potential of digital technologies...

EUROPEAN COUNTRYSIDE is defined as an international on-line scientific journal in the branch of rural development. It publishes first of all theoretical and methodological articles, dealing with multi-functional development of countryside, articles related to regional aspects of rural...

The aim of this article is to explore the relationship between agricultural and socio-economic development in Finnish rural areas (later expressed as rural development) since 1995. The statistical analyses being employed are mainly based on municipal (i.e. LAU-2 level) income, employment and...

European policy increasingly supports territorially based rural development in which local actors play a decisive role in realising economically, socially and ecologically responsible development. This paper makes use of four case-studies, from a largely depopulated mountainous area in Galicia,...

In recent years rural areas, specially the most peripheral and remote ones, have become increasingly perceived and identified as spaces of outstanding environmental quality. This relatively new function of the rural, while widely recognized both socially and institutionally, is to some extent...

This paper analyses how dependence on primary production, distance, climatic conditions and the intensity of land use bring about variations in economic well-being in rural areas. The conventional interpretation in Finland often concludes that economic well-being declines as dependence on...

The EU LEADER initiative has been running for 20 years and plays an important role in the development of European rural areas, however, in countries joining to the EU after 2004 it is still a relatively new phenomenon. In Hungary, for example, the LEADER+ programme was launched in 2005 with an...

The EU LEADER initiative has been running for 20 years and plays an important role in the development of European rural areas, however, in countries joining to the EU after 2004 it is still a relatively new phenomenon. In Hungary, for example, the LEADER+ programme was launched in 2005 with an...