The “Smart Village” as a Way to Achieve Sustainable Development in Rural Areas of Poland

Abstract

In each country, rural areas cover the bulk of available land; however, they generally remain outside the mainstream of innovative development processes. Still, they have potential and are vital for implementing the highly valid concept of persistent and sustainable development. The idea of such growth can be implemented in many ways, and the smart development concept is one of these ways. The aim of this paper is to present the smart village concept as a means to achieve the sustainability and resilience of rural areas, relying on the analysis of basic theories of sustainable and persistent growth. The study examines and evaluates the state of the potential for the smart growth of rural areas in all regions of Poland, as well as presents the results of the empirical research on such potential in three regions of Eastern Poland. The smart growth potential of the regions in question was determined by means of 24 variables representing the following fields: management, life quality, economy, society, natural environment and mobility. It was concluded that the smart village concept can be useful in facilitating sustainable development of rural areas. Further research concerning the problem should in particular focus on strengthening the relations between rural communes with cities and towns in their close vicinity.

The Potential for Innovative and Smart Rural Development in the Peripheral Regions of Eastern Poland

“…Rural areas include many different forms of the use of space: agricultural land, forest areas, water, communication areas, areas not used for economic purposes, valuable natural areas, rural settlements inhabited by farmers and non-agricultural residents, but also more and more often the buildings and facilities of public institutions, and industrial and service companies located there. These areas often include parts of small towns, especially those which are the seats of urban-rural communes [21]. Therefore, the nature and functions of rural areas are changing.…”

“…These concepts have been the focus of the researchers' attention for several years and have brought to light a great number of publications in different countries. This work refers to the selection of these publications [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30].…”

“…Firstly, the publications that constitute a general theoretical base for peripherality and development of peripheral areas. The second basic sources are common research works conducted at the Pope John Paul II State School of Higher Education in Biała Podlaska and published jointly by the author with Magdalena Zwolińska-Ligaj and Danuta Guzal-Dec [20,21,25,31,32]. These publications include the main concepts and empirical evidence.…”

Agricultural Development Processes in the Context of Globalization Challenges and New Approaches to the Concept of Sustainable Development

“…The first consists in expanding the field of sustainability beyond environmental, economic, and social aspects. The second means intensifying and strengthening internal ties among these aspects (Adamowicz and Zwolińska-Ligaj, 2020). The concept of sustainable development applies to all areas of the economy of social groups, individual and collective economic entities, private and public institutions, governments, and international organizations.…”

“…The concept has been implemented into the regional policies of all European Union Member States. The concept of smart cities and smart villages relating to urban and rural communities was also developed (Adamowicz and Zwolińska-Ligaj, 2020). They point to a need to use endogenous development potentials, build development on the strengths of a given system, and on available resources supported by an influx of new knowledge, innovation, development of networks of services, and the application of digital information, communication, and management solutions.…”