Pia Heike Johansen og Karsten Eskildsen: 68 villages in Peripheral Areas with Growing Population 1997-2007.
Published by the Ministry of the Environment - Agency for Spatial and Environmental Planning 2008.
English summary
(Full report - in Danish)
On the outskirts of Denmark, 68 villages out of 205 experienced a growth of inhabitants from 1997-2007. This is remarkable since villages in outskirt areas of Denmark are mostly linked to difficulties in sustaining inhabitants and in attracting newcomers and therefore resulting in depopulation. The Danish Ministry of the Environment, Agency for Spatial and Environmental Planning asked the Danish Institute for Rural Research and Development at University of Southern Denmark to make a research looking for explanations for the positive development in the 68 villages. Moreover, to see if those explanations may be transferable and repeatable to the villages in those outskirts that experience depopulation.
The report concludes that especially two mutual exclusive combinations of factors could explain the population growth in the 68 villages. The first factor combination was linked to local resource as natural and cultural heritage and infrastructure. The second was linked to actors taking advantages of the local resources. These actors represented local associations, local business life and public investments. Furthermore, it is especially relevant to highlight that in most of the 68 villages there was a balance between local and regional/national engagement that the local business life was an active actor in activating local resources, and that public and private service is merely to be considered a sustainer and developer of local identities. The study illustrated that it is possible to map factors of explanations taking local resources and actors into consideration to suggest combinations of factors that included in local anchored strategies may support the depopulating villages in developing local and regional strategies.
The study leans on the EU DORA project in search of factors. Since the study, however, concerns growth in population and not socio economic growth in general as does the DORA study, parameters limit to: degree of rurality, infrastructure, natural and cultural heritage, local engagement, labour market, public and private investments, public service and explanations from respondents. The empirical evidence includes quantitative data on for example distances to highway, number of villages with homepages and number of villages with public financed rural development projects. In addition, the study includes qualitative data, which are collected from observations in eight selected villages and from four interviews with local respondents in each of the eight villages. The respondents in each village are an actor from local associations, a newcomer, a local ‘fire soul’ and the local priest. In the study, the quantitative and qualitative data are firstly held against each other and thereby the results are discussed against results from the EU DORA project.
The conclusions give rise to further research for example of the role of marking special tourist routes like the Danish ‘Margueritrute’ for villages in the outskirts and the role of local business and cultural life in activating local resources linked to natural and cultural heritages as well as to civic mobilization and local identity.
Published by the Ministry of the Environment - Agency for Spatial and Environmental Planning 2008.
English summary
(Full report - in Danish)
On the outskirts of Denmark, 68 villages out of 205 experienced a growth of inhabitants from 1997-2007. This is remarkable since villages in outskirt areas of Denmark are mostly linked to difficulties in sustaining inhabitants and in attracting newcomers and therefore resulting in depopulation. The Danish Ministry of the Environment, Agency for Spatial and Environmental Planning asked the Danish Institute for Rural Research and Development at University of Southern Denmark to make a research looking for explanations for the positive development in the 68 villages. Moreover, to see if those explanations may be transferable and repeatable to the villages in those outskirts that experience depopulation.
The report concludes that especially two mutual exclusive combinations of factors could explain the population growth in the 68 villages. The first factor combination was linked to local resource as natural and cultural heritage and infrastructure. The second was linked to actors taking advantages of the local resources. These actors represented local associations, local business life and public investments. Furthermore, it is especially relevant to highlight that in most of the 68 villages there was a balance between local and regional/national engagement that the local business life was an active actor in activating local resources, and that public and private service is merely to be considered a sustainer and developer of local identities. The study illustrated that it is possible to map factors of explanations taking local resources and actors into consideration to suggest combinations of factors that included in local anchored strategies may support the depopulating villages in developing local and regional strategies.
The study leans on the EU DORA project in search of factors. Since the study, however, concerns growth in population and not socio economic growth in general as does the DORA study, parameters limit to: degree of rurality, infrastructure, natural and cultural heritage, local engagement, labour market, public and private investments, public service and explanations from respondents. The empirical evidence includes quantitative data on for example distances to highway, number of villages with homepages and number of villages with public financed rural development projects. In addition, the study includes qualitative data, which are collected from observations in eight selected villages and from four interviews with local respondents in each of the eight villages. The respondents in each village are an actor from local associations, a newcomer, a local ‘fire soul’ and the local priest. In the study, the quantitative and qualitative data are firstly held against each other and thereby the results are discussed against results from the EU DORA project.
The conclusions give rise to further research for example of the role of marking special tourist routes like the Danish ‘Margueritrute’ for villages in the outskirts and the role of local business and cultural life in activating local resources linked to natural and cultural heritages as well as to civic mobilization and local identity.