Defining rural areas of Visegrad countries

Abstract

abstract:The article is focused on the introduction and categorization of various approaches to rurality, and the identification and delimitation of rural areas in Visegrad countries. Three substantively different groups of conceptualizations and definitions of rural and rurality are described as follows: functional definitions, rural as locality (political-economic approaches), and social representation. Latter, basic sorts of methods and approaches to the delimitation of rural areas in V4 countries are introduced emphasizing its historical development, differences in spatial level and criteria of delimitation in current research. Due to different nature of rural areas and even local administrative units (the basic units usually used for delimitation of rural areas), it is not possible to reach sufficient and reliable identification of rural areas for whole V4 area using any of criteria or definitions applied in the research at national levels. Therefore, the average population density of entire V4 area was used as a main criterion for distinguishing between urban and rural LAU 2 at the whole Visegrad area level. Such approach is also affected by generalization but it captures various conditions in each country relatively well and moreover, it is comparable with the OECD and European Union methods to some extent. key-words: rurality, rural areas, Visegrad countries, population density, local administrative units.

Definition and delimitation of peripheries of Visegrad countries

“…The most important diversification is related to administrative units' size, especially between LAU 2 (Table 1). Population density, although significantly diverse at regional or local level, is relatively similar among the four countries analysed at national level (see Novotný et al 2015). Also spatial distribution of urban centres is relatively regular.…”

How do various types of regions attract creative industries? Comparison of metropolitan, old industrial and rural regions in Czechia

“…Ostrava is also a metropolitan core, but we classified both Ostrava and Ústí nad Labem as the cores of old industrial regions Ostravsko and Ústecko. Rural regions were defined by the index of rurality (inspired by Novotný, L. et al 2015), which is based on three criteria: dispersion of the settlement, low population density and low spatial productivity, which suggests higher share of agriculture and limited presence of high value-added knowledge-intensive economic activities (see Ženka, J. et al 2017c for details).…”

On non-agricultural and non-tourism economic industries in rural areas

“…As the best practices from Egedy et al (2015) show, despite the limitations of rural milieu (see Novotný et al 2015) rural areas can offer suitable conditions for starting, developing and expanding new or already established businesses. Distance from main markets, at least in the context of Visegrad countries, is no longer the decisive element which defines the economic success of a particular rural locality.…”