Knowing when it is time to go: managing rural decline in Central and Eastern Europe
Andrew Cartwright has recently published an article on "Knowing when it is time to go: managing rural decline in Central and Eastern Europe" in the Pannon Management Review.
Rural depopulation raises sociological and political as well as demographic and economic issues. Andrew Cartwright shows the comprehensive effects on rural areas of depopulation and the greying of the rural population. For example, the closure of schools results in the loss of teachers (often the teacher) and in the disappearance of professionally competent villagers capable of providing local leadership and negotiating with local authorities. Unlike English villages, for example, villages in Central and Eastern Europe do not generally attract affluent retirees, able to provide voluntary labour and tax revenues for maintaining rural services. The urban peasants (Czegledy 2002) who maintain contact with their villages of origin through vacations and weekend visits may preserve the physical amenities of the villages, but do not provide the basis for continuing social and political organisation. Because of fragmented land ownership, the transformation of agriculture through investment in technology is difficult, with ageing owners lacking the energy and indeed the capital for restructuring and reorganizing agricultural production. Rural development, including tourism, is practical only in areas within reach of major cities, ideally of outstanding natural beauty, such as Lake Balaton in Hungary, for example. Where resources to sustain local provision are lacking, policies may be to transfer remaining residents to urban areas, or to service rural areas by mobile provision of services, for example medical care. However, transfer to urban areas destroys rural social values, whilst the mobile provision of services is difficult to organise as well as disproportionately expensive.
Knowing when it is time to go: managing rural decline in Central and Eastern Europe (Download)