Does country life make you happy? It is not only since Corona and Lockdown that many a die-hard city dweller has discovered the advantages of country life. From a scientific point of view, however, the current wave of people moving to the countryside is nothing completely new. And yet, it is an opportunity for rural areas. Our guests Dr Annett Steinführer from the Thünen Institute in Braunschweig and Dr Thomas Dax from the Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics and Mining in Vienna explain how it can be used.
„Villages are much more than the substitute space for cities. Several elements that stand for quality of life are much better developed there than in the cities..“
Dr. Thomas Dax, Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics, Rural and Mountain Research, Vienna
At one time, villages are supposedly on the verge of extinction; at another, the village is the place for the better life. In times of rising rents and property prices, and exacerbated once again by the Corona pandemic and lockdowns, the seven largest cities in Germany are experiencing population losses. In contrast, rural regions - even far away from the big cities - are experiencing growth rates for the first time in years. For the municipalities, this development is both a curse and a blessing. For life in the countryside is also becoming more expensive: property prices are rising due to demand, a large number of ageing people need care close to home, there is a lack of fast internet for home offices and local public transport for commuting. This lack of infrastructure leads to a large ecological footprint: a recent study by the OECD, for example, has shown that people living in rural areas leave behind three times as many climate-damaging traces as residents of cities.
Annett Steinführer, a researcher at the Thünen Institute of Rural Studies who deals with people who move to villages or small towns for various reasons, accordingly advocates looking at the overall package of living costs in rural areas and using this to develop concepts for sustainable village development.
Thomas Dax also conducts research on regional development at the Austrian Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics, Rural and Mountain Research. He has been observing positive migration balances for rural areas in Austria and in south-western Europe for 15 years. In Finland, every second person has a second home in a remote area and spends several months a year there. Multi-local living is becoming the norm, but also a challenge - again in terms of infrastructure.
So do we need a master plan for rural areas or do they develop wonderfully without state guidance? Is the solution for densely populated urban areas to make the neighbouring rural areas more attractive, to equip them with the amenities of modern life - or is the village then already a city en miniature?
Sources and further readings
- Entwicklung ländlicher Räume in Deutschland (in German)
- Long-term study on the change of living conditions in 14 villages (West and East)
- Weingarten P, Steinführer A (2020): Daseinsvorsorge, gleichwertige Lebensverhältnisse und ländliche Räume im 21. Jahrhundert. In: Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 30 (4), 653–665. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41358-020-00246-z (in German)
- Menasse P, Wagner W (Hg.) (2021) Vom Kommen und Gehen, Burgenland. Betrachtungen von Zu- und Weggereisten. Böhlau Verlag: Wien, Köln, Weimar. (in German)
- Egger R, Posch A (eds.) (2016) Lebensentwürfe im ländlichen Raum. Ein prekärer Zusammenhang? Lernweltforschung Band 18. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. (in German)
- OECD (2021) Rural Well‐being Geography of Opportunities Paris
- On the work of the OECD in the fields of regional and rural policy
- European Commission (2021) A long-term Vision for the EU's Rural Areas - Towards stronger, connected, resilient and prosperous rural areas by 2040. COM (2021) 345 final, Brüssel 30.06.2021
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