1247 | | Rural urban peripheries: slow dying or a chance for resurrection?

In the (post-) postmodern era in many parts of the European Union (including Hungary), besides the deindustrialisation and multiple de-economisation of certain regions and settlements, this complex phenomenon can be connected and completed with the demographic transformation and decline of towns (population decline/shrinkage, aging society, selective wandering, ethnical conflicts, poverty, lack of financial resources etc.), which can be characterised by the dilemma of ‘decreasing population – decreasing abilities (?)’, let alone the issue of maintaining, developing and making viable such small towns in the middle and the long run.
Because of the forementioned problems in many places of Europe there are rural places, where small towns (and the other settlements) strive for their survival. Demographic changes and their (urban) consequences are real challenges for these small towns; they face complex social, economic and environmental problems and challenges.
The postmodern period requires the existence and adaptation of different resources compared to the economy of the previous period of Fordism. Nowadays, the conditions for local and regional development do not depend only upon hard infrastructures but on soft infrastructures, among which culture occupies a privileged position. Today, motors of competitiveness and sustainable development are parameters like: quality of life, natural environment, social solidarity, cultural activities and services and the broad participation in them by social groups.
The future-oriented, new strategic way of thinking, urban planning (moreover: designing) and implementation focuses not only on material developments with an engineering aspect but it has a complex socio-philosophic approach as well. “It would consciously plan the potential penetration points of the town taking into account the special qualities, endogenous resources, local intellectual potential and the capital involved in the existing cultural symbols and man-made heritage of the given settlement.”
The town is a symbol: “the town is not a mere collection of dimensions given mostly by measurable parameters, perceptible and extended in time and mostly in space, [but] also a separate entity, not or partly comparable with something else, a closed universe which can be comprehended only by its unique qualities.” That’s why there is no universal cure for the maintenance and development of these towns, nor for stopping demographic shrinkage; resilience (based on symbols, man-made heritage or environmental resources) and local culture can provide good conditions to deal with the urban issues raised. Presentations are required, in English.

Tibor Kovács (1)
(1) 1

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