What is smart rural development?

Published Date
August 2015, Vol.40:90–101, doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2015.06.006

Author 

Lucia Naldi ^a,

Pia Nilsson ^b,,

Hans Westlund ^c,d,

Sofia Wixe ^b,

aCEnSE – Centre for Entrepreneurship and Spatial Economics and CeFEO – Centre for Family Enterprise and Ownership, Jönköping International Business School, Gjuterigatan 5, SE-551 11 Jönköping, Sweden

bCEnSE – Centre for Entrepreneurship and Spatial Economics, Jönköping International Business School, Gjuterigatan 5, SE-551 11 Jönköping, Sweden

cCEnSE – Centre for Entrepreneurship and Spatial Economics, Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping, Sweden

dKTH Royal Institute of Technology, Drottning Kristinas väg 30, SE-111 44 Stockholm, Sweden

Received 25 June 2014. Revised 5 June 2015. Accepted 22 June 2015. Available online 2 July 2015.

Highlights

• Discusses smart growth and smart specialization from the perspective of rural regions.
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  Presents indicators of smart rural development.
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  Discusses potential determinants of smart rural development.
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  Highlights the role of connectivity and local amenities for the growth of rural regions.

Abstract

In 2010, the European Union adopted the notion ‘smart’ in its new ten-year growth strategy Europe 2020 stating that Europe should become a smart, sustainable, and inclusive economy. The broad and policy-oriented concepts of smart growth and smart development are part of the strategy introduced as a response to the observed low growth rates of innovation and productivity across European regions. In all its essence, the growth strategy states that smart growth supports sustainable development, which is achieved by promoting research, innovation, and knowledge in order to attain regional economic growth. What is made less clear is how the concept of smart growth can be translated to fit a diverse set of rural regions. Other outstanding issues discussed in this paper relate to the possibility to measure and empirically address the outcome of policies for smart rural development. Hence, in this paper we conceptually analyse and bring together the ideas that underlie the logic behind policies for smart growth by focusing on smart growth from the perspective of rural regions. The paper also presents indicators of smart rural development and analyses their relevance in future empirical studies.

Keywords

Smart growth

Smart specialization

Europe 2020

Urban-rural classification

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  Corresponding author.

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