Rural Areas Under Urban Pressure in Europe

Abstract

In this Introduction paper, I will describe the motivation behind this special issue on the role of rural–urban relationships in preserving the rural landscape in Europe. Based on the RURBAN project ‘Building new relationships in rural areas under urban pressure’, the special issue aims to identify the impact of urban pressure on rural landscapes and to explore the contribution of ‘rural goods and services’ (RGS) to them.

This paper will start with an overview of the concepts of rural–urban relationships and RGS, both from a rural perspective and from the perception of different actors, followed by a conceptual model of demand and supply of RGS. To be able to identify differences and similarities across Europe, rural case study regions near a metropolitan area and a tourist area in Finland, France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Spain will be presented. The Introduction paper closes out with a brief overview of the papers in this issue and the themes explored.

Keywords:

• Rural goods and services
• landscape
• actors
• metropolitan and tourist areas

Acknowledgements

This special issue is based on the RURBAN project funded by the EU (5FP, CT-2002-01696) and for the Netherlands in part by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature & Food Quality (VLG, BO-01-005). On behalf of all the authors, I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions improved the quality of the papers.

Notes

The RURBAN project was conducted in December 2002–05.