No abstract

No abstract

Social innovation is attracting increasing attention in research and policy, heightened by continuing austerity across Europe. Therefore, this paper examines earlier research into community-led local development (CLLD) initiatives in rural areas of Europe to develop our understanding of the meaning and scope of rural social innovation. We draw on a Schumpeterian view where innovations emerge from new combinations of resources that bring about positive changes and create value in society. A Schumpeterian social innovation framework is derived as the basis for re-analysing data from previous evaluations of LEADER policy in five different national contexts. This elicits a clearer understanding of social innovation in a rural development context, identifying different processes and outcomes that create social value. As the CLLD agenda and the demand for innovation in Europe gather pace, our aspirations are to inform future research and other initiatives on how to integrate social innovation into the design and evaluation of new rural development policies and programmes.

No abstract

Migration into rural areas in Western countries is often explained by the pull of the rural idyll for urban, middle-class migrants. Although previous research has shown that this counterurbanisation model is insufficient to explain rural immigration in sparsely populated countries, this paper shows that also within core regions, more diverse conceptualisations of migration into rural areas are required. This is achieved by distinguishing popular, average, and less-popular rural living areas in the northern Netherlands, on the basis of average house prices, and by analysing the migration flows to these areas. Data from Housing Research of the Netherlands demonstrate that popular rural areas attract more highly educated people and people moving from urban areas compared with less-popular and average rural areas. For movers to less-popular areas, being near to family and friends is more important. The characteristics of the movers to popular rural areas fit very well with the counterurbanisation story. Less-popular rural areas in the Netherlands share personal reasons as an important motivation for in-migration with more remote rural areas in Europe. This indicates that conceptualisations of periphery and remoteness have to be considered within the local, regional, and national context. Research into rural population change in both core regions and sparsely populated countries should consider these different contexts to be able to acknowledge the variety in the way amenities and peripherality are perceived by different groups of people.Measured from the town hall of the specific rural municipality to the city hall in the nearest provincial capital city or the nearest of the two cities in the centre of the country, as predicted by a website on travel routes. 2 * p<0.05. 650R. A. Bijker and T. Haartsen

No abstract

Some regions in The Netherlands have been experiencing population decline in the last decade(s). Although decline figures are much lower than in more traditional areas of decline in Europe, Dutch planners and policy-makers feel the need to develop several strategies of planning for decline. This paper gives an overview of regional population trends in the Netherlands up to 2040, showing that at the regional level, population growth and decline can occur next to each other in both urban and rural areas. The number of single-person households is expected to continue growing. However, single households form a varied group, and population trends differ substantially between urban and rural areas. The strategies applied by policy-makers who focus, so far, on accommodating decline through measures on the housing market are analysed. Next to this, some additional policy alternatives are discussed. Copyright (c) 2010 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.

Few studies examine immobility or staying as a demographic process worthy of investigation. This paper seeks to address this gap in the literature. It uses a life course approach to analyse interviews with young adults who continue to reside in their rural home areas of Northern Ireland and the Netherlands. Our analysis relates to stayers' biographies and linked lives, staying as a state of flux, and staying as an attachment to (rural) place. Staying is found to be the outcome of a complex interplay between competing personal considerations, which are closely associated with the stayer's past, present, and anticipated future biography. It is a relational process linked to the lives of others (parents, partners, and children) through either choice or senses of obligation. Far from being a passive process, stayers exert considerable agency. They elect to belong to the familial, physical, and social elements of rural place, informed by senses of nostalgia and dwelling. The decision to stay is renegotiated with the onset of new life stages. The process of staying is, therefore, dynamic, multifaceted, and nuanced. Staying is in a state of flux.