ABSTRACT

Europe is characterized by a significant diversity in terms of its rural history, property ownership, class formation, demography, and politics. This diverse history is reflected in different definitions and concepts of rurality, as well as in the evolution of national and EU policy frameworks. As a result, a narrow concept of rural policy is not useful for understanding contemporary developments of rural–rural or rural–urban social and economic inequalities. This chapter presents various theoretical approaches to understanding the transitions from rural to urban society, and the relationships between them. It discusses how rurality (and urbanity) is measured today, drawing on the OECD rural indicators approach as well as the Eurostat definitions. It outlines the transition to an “agrarian” understanding of rurality, through the multi-sectoral territorial understanding, to the environmental understanding, and the notion of the rural as the prime locus for a “bioeconomy” which ultimately replaces all or part of the fossil fuel economy that fueled Western, and later Eastern and Southern, economic development from the nineteenth century on. Finally, it discusses data on evolving inequalities within and between rural territories in Europe, and the evidence on the reasons for such trends.