European Territorial Cooperation and the Concept of Urban Rural Relationships

Transcription

1 Planning, Practice & Research, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp , August 2007 PRACTICE FORUM European Territorial Cooperation and the Concept of Urban Rural Relationships WIL ZONNEVELD & DOMINIC STEAD Introduction The concept of urban rural relationships has a history in academic literature on economics, geography and regional planning (Davoudi & Stead, 2002). In policy terms, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) (Committee on Spatial Development CSD, 1999) has been instrumental in drawing attention to urban rural relationships and urban rural partnerships at the European, national, regional and local levels. The ESDP contains three main objectives (or policy guidelines in ESDP terms), the first of which explicitly refers to the concept of urban rural partnerships. The background to this is the recognition that the vitality of rural areas is under threat in large parts of Europe, in many cases as a result of a combination of depopulation and agricultural decline. Urban areas on the other hand face different problems, such as congestion, pollution and urban sprawl. The concept of urban rural partnerships thus serves as an umbrella term for a large variety of issues, some applying to peripheral rural areas with dispersed small settlements, whereas others such as sprawl and need to preserve open spaces are only relevant in metropolitan regions. Even so, the concept of urban rural partnerships is largely the result of political concerns about the future of Europe s rural areas. It is also a reflection of the sensitive political discussions that have influenced and shaped the ESDP. In our view, the emphasis given to urban issues during the preparation of the ESDP (especially by countries from North-west Europe) was given a political counterweight through the expression of deep concerns about the fate of rural areas (see also Faludi & Waterhout, 2002; Bengs & Zonneveld, 2002). The ESDP calls for new urban rural partnerships to be fostered, and identifies a number of strategic policy directions (or policy options in ESDP terms) in order to achieve these. The strategic policy directions include:. Maintaining a basic supply of services and public transport in small and medium-sized towns in rural areas, particularly those in decline;. Promoting partnerships between towns and countryside aimed at strengthening functional regions;. Integrating the countryside surrounding large cities in spatial development strategies for urban regions in order to achieve a more efficient planning of land use and paying special attention to the quality of life in the urban surroundings;. Promoting and supporting partnership-based cooperation between small and mediumsized towns at a national and transnational level through joint projects and the mutual exchange of experience; and. Promoting company networks between small and medium-sized enterprises in urban and rural areas. Wil Zonneveld & Dominic Stead, OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies, Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 9, 2628 BX Delft, PO Box 5030, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands. W.A.M.Zonneveld@tudelft.nl; D.Stead@tudelft.nl ISSN print/ online/07/ Ó 2007 Taylor & Francis 439 DOI: /

2 Wil Zonneveld & Dominic Stead The ESDP uses the term urban rural partnerships (rather than urban rural relationships) because its focus is on cooperation across administrative and territorial boundaries. Clearly the notion of urban rural partnerships depends on the existence of urban rural relationships, as to have an understanding of urban rural relationships is a clear precondition for identifying possible urban rural partnerships. In other words, urban rural relationships relate to functional linkages between urban and rural areas, whilst urban rural partnerships address the policy dimension of these relationships. The inclusion of the concept of urban rural partnerships in the ESDP demonstrates a desire to promote, in Hoggart s (2005, p. 11) terms, joined-up thinking in both geographical and sectoral terms. He also argues that the emphasis on urban rural partnerships in the ESDP demonstrates that rural areas play an increasingly central role in current policy debates as a consequence of major recent cultural, economic and social changes. While there are various studies that concentrate on certain aspects of the links between urban and rural areas, such as employment, commuting, landscapes and migration, there are few academic theories and concepts concerning urban rural relationships per se (Davoudi & Stead, 2002) and there seems to be a general lack of clarity about the nature of these interactions and relationships (Caffyn & Dahlström, 2005; Hoggart, 2005), and certainly at a transnational and European level. This explains the increase in research activities concerning urban rural relationships in the late 1990s, in the context of the publication of the ESDP. For example, one of the three studies of the Study Programme on European Spatial Planning (SPESP), undertaken by a large network of research institutes between 1998 and 2000, was dedicated to an investigation of new partnerships between urban and rural areas in Europe. In the successor programme to SPESP, the ESPON programme, urban rural relationships also formed one of the main research themes. In fact, one of the first ESPON projects concerned the relationships between rural and urban areas (ESPON project 1.1.2: Urban rural relations in Europe ). One of the main contributions of this project to a better understanding of the concept in Europe has been in the development of two typologies: a typology of territories and a typology of relationships (see later). The INTERREG III Initiative ( ) also picked up the concept of urban rural relationships. (This had not featured in the previous INTERREG II Initiative.) The European Commission s guidelines for the INTERREG III Initiative, published a year after the launch of the ESDP, made explicit mention of cooperation among cities and between urban and rural areas (European Commission, 2000). The concept subsequently found its way into the INTERREG III Community Initiative programming documents and the cooperation projects funded (see also Waterhout & Stead, this issue 2007). The accent of this article is on those INTERREG III projects that have an implicit or explicit connection to the concept of urban rural relationships. We examine how the concept has been taken up by these projects. The article is mainly based on a study carried out for ESPON and INTERACT 1 (Zonneveld et al., 2006). One of the aims of this study was to identify and compare ESPON and INTERREG project activities and to suggest specific project ideas for future activities under the European territorial cooperation objective (INTERREG IV) and the ESPON 2013 programme in the EU Cohesion Policy period. The following section discusses some of the key ideas on urban rural relationships which have been developed over the years, with particular emphasis on the contribution of the ESPON programme to the debate. In the third section we outline the research methodology and analyse the spatial distribution of INTERREG projects concerned with urban rural relationships. In the fourth section, the nature of these INTERREG projects is discussed in more detail. The final section presents our conclusions in terms of the implications for ESPON and INTERREG programmes and projects, emphasizing in particular, the implications for future programmes and projects. Understanding Urban Rural Relationships Urban and rural areas are interdependent and economically, politically, socially and 440

3 European Territorial Cooperation & Urban Rural Relationships physically connected through a variety of issues including housing, employment, education, transport, tourism and resource use (Stead, 2002). Preston (1975) identified five categories of interactions between urban and rural areas that provide a useful framework for the analysis of urban rural relationships: 1. the movement of people; 2. the movement of goods; 3. the movement of capital; 4. social transactions; and 5. administrative and service provision. There are many more links between urban and rural areas other than physical connections. However, these non-physical links are often more difficult to pinpoint and quantify because many of them are invisible and/or unrecorded. Funnell (1988, p. 268) has pointed out that, although these categories may provide a useful framework for analysing urban rural relationships, many of the flows are extremely difficult to isolate and provide only one part of a complex picture. Equally important for the investigation of urban rural linkages, despite these difficulties, however, are the conditions which create these interactions, especially the social, political and economic basis of the geographical structure of the region (Funnell, 1988, p. 268). The different types of urban rural partnerships (and the relationships that they address) that are advocated by the ESDP are very broad in scope and content. The ESDP s strategic policy directions concerning urban rural partnerships and the supporting policy instruments give a clear indication of this (Table 1). The SPESP study on urban rural partnerships identifies various categories of urban rural relationships (Table 2), which also illustrate this diversity through the range of identified relationships and key issues. What is clear from both Tables 1 and 2 (and also the typology proposed by Preston, 1975 see earlier) is that the concept of urban rural relationships covers a broad spectrum of interactions, ranging for example from leisure and tourism to transport and communication, from labour markets and employment to food and drink, from education and training to services and facilities. The ESPON project most clearly addressing relationships between rural and urban areas is entitled Urban rural relations in Europe TABLE 1. Summary of the ESDP s strategic policy directions concerning urban rural partnerships What? Strategic policy directions Providing local services and public transport Improving cooperation between urban and rural authorities Integrated urban and rural planning Cooperation between small and medium-sized towns Networking between enterprises in urban and rural areas How? Instruments Land-use planning, infrastructure and service provision Joint planning and project implementation Spatial strategies Partnerships, joint projects, exchange of experience Partnerships, joint projects, exchange of experience Why? Rationale Promoting (sustainable) accessibility and providing a socially acceptable level of services Strengthening functional regions to provide access to services and employment Improving quality through the provision of amenities such as attractive landscapes Promoting innovation, competitiveness and good governance Promoting competitiveness and employment growth Source: compiled by the authors based on material from CSD (1999). 441

4 Wil Zonneveld & Dominic Stead TABLE 2. Types of urban rural relationships as identified in the Study Programme on European Spatial Planning (SPESP) Type Home-work relationships Central place relationships Network relationships Consumption relationships Amenity relationships Infrastructure relationships Resource relationships Keywords/key issues Employment, accessibility, housing, commuting, labour markets Local amenities, education, training, commerce, health, cultural facilities Connections between cities through development corridors, conurbations, polycentricity Recreation, leisure, food production, waste disposal Landscape/cultural heritage, open space Roads, railways, telecommunication, pipeline Natural heritage, energy, water, aggregates Source: complied by the authors and based on material from Nordregio (2000). (ESPON project 1.1.2). One of the main contributions of this project has been the development of two typologies: a typology of territories and a typology of relationships. Before identifying the various types of urban rural relations that there are, the project examines different approaches to the identification of urban and rural areas, arguing that any classification and mapping of urban rural relations is strongly dependent on the definition of urban and rural areas. Definitions of urban and rural areas vary widely across Europe and there is no single accepted definition of urban or rural : national definitions are strongly influenced by the spatial characteristics of the country. The majority of definitions found in Europe are, however, based on criteria such as population density, population size, employment density, agricultural employment and land-use type, or a combination of these using threshold levels which reflect the actual situation in a country (Bengs & Schmidt-Thomé, 2005). The ESPON project on Urban rural relations in Europe explores a range of ways to define and distinguish between urban and rural areas using criteria such as population density, land-use type and accessibility to transport infrastructure. The project ultimately uses a typology of urban and rural areas based on two of these criteria, namely population density and land-use type, in order to categorize the European territory into six different types (Table 3). Two types of population density are distinguished, namely higher than average and lower than average. The typology further differentiates three types of land use according to the extent to which a territory is influenced by human activity, ranging from high human influence (built-up) to medium human influence (cultivated) to low human influence ( wild ) (see Table 3). The areas most urbanized in Europe, according to this typology, are those that are highly influenced by human activity (built-up) and are most densely populated (the top left category of Table 3). All of Europe s large metropolitan areas fall into this category (Figure 1). The areas that are the most rural in character are according to this typology those that are least influenced by human activity ( wild ) and the least densely populated (the bottom right category of Table 3). A large part of the Alpine area falls into this category, as well as much of Finland, Greece and Sweden (Figure 1). More intermediate rural areas can also be identified, such as relatively well-populated wild areas (e.g. northern Portugal, south coast of France, southern Sardinia) or relatively unpopulated agricultural areas (e.g. parts of central France, central Ireland and central Spain). In terms of urban rural relations, the Urban rural relations in Europe project distinguishes between structural and functional relations. Structural relations are determined by the way the physical environment is constituted and shaped. These relationships are characterized by a high degree of stability. The interlock 442

5 European Territorial Cooperation & Urban Rural Relationships TABLE 3. Urban rural typology from the ESPON Urban-rural relations in Europe project Population density Built-up Rurality cultivated Other (wild) High Low Metropolitan areas: London, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, Paris, Bucharest, Budapest Eastern Europe: much of Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania South-west Ireland Coastal Italy Central Poland Central France Central Ireland Central Spain Northern Portugal South coast of France Southern Sardinia Finland Greece Northern Spain Sweden Alpine region: Austria, Italy, Switzerland Source: compiled by the authors based on material from Bengs and Schmidt-Thomé (2005). of built-up areas and open spaces is the clearest expression of these structural relationships. Functional relations between urban and rural areas arise through complementarity and result in a variety of different flows between urban and rural areas (see earlier examples). Due to the lack of detailed comprehensive data and information concerning urban rural relationships, the ESPON Urban rural relations in Europe project used a number of case studies from across Europe to examine urban rural relationships (both structural and functional). The Main Issues of INTERREG Projects and their Spatial Distribution Having explored the key issues behind the concept of urban rural relationships and examined some of their territorial implications, we now draw on this material to develop a typology for the classification of INTERREG projects that deal with urban rural relationships in one way or another. INTERREG III projects (IIIA, IIIB and IIIC) 2 are then classified according to this typology and their geographical distribution is examined. This is done by, for instance identifying patterns of projects with similar themes across the three INTERREG strands (A, B and C) and across the different INTER- REG programming regions. A more detailed examination of the different categories of INTERREG projects and the type of activities they involve is presented in a later section of this article. The analysis considers INTERREG IIIA (cross-border), IIIB (transnational) and IIIC (interregional) projects. Much of the information about these projects was taken from an ESPON- INTERACT project database that contains details of more than 3,000 INTERREG III projects (out of an estimated total of approximately 9,000 projects) and which was made available to the authors. Information on INTERREG IIIC projects was gathered separately from the websites of the INTERREG IIIC programmes. The study also involved an international seminar organized by ESPON-INTERACT, where provisional results of the study were validated and additional information about the role of urban rural relationships in INTERREG projects was gathered. A Typology of INTERREG Projects In order to identify INTERREG projects that have some link with the concept of urban rural relationships, criteria are needed for identifying and selecting relevant projects. The previous section has shown that the concept of urban rural relationships is multifaceted. Consequently, the criteria for identifying and selecting relevant projects need to be broad in scope. A typology of INTERREG projects with some link to urban rural relationships is presented in Table 4. This broad typology was developed using a combination of two approaches: 443

6 Wil Zonneveld & Dominic Stead FIGURE 1. Map of the urban rural typology from the ESPON project on Urban rural relations in Europe. Source: Bengs and Schmidt-Thomé (2005). top-down and bottom-up. The top-down approach involved synthesizing the conceptual material on urban rural relationships from the ESDP, SPESP and ESPON (summarized earlier), whilst the bottom-up approach involved reviewing and categorizing the main thematic 444

7 European Territorial Cooperation & Urban Rural Relationships TABLE 4. Typology of urban rural INTERREG projects Type Keywords/key issues 1. Economic and social Employment, labour markets, training, education, urban development regeneration, rural development, agricultural diversification, food production and marketing, innovation 2. Services and facilities Local amenities, services, commerce, settlement structure, cultural facilities 3. Transport, energy, Transport networks, information networks, commuting, energy information supply 4. Consumption and Tourism, recreation, leisure, landscape and environment, cultural amenity heritage, open space 5. Demography Housing, elderly, young people, healthcare 6. Governance Integrated development, new strategies and planning instruments content of INTERREG projects (using INTER- REG project databases, including those from the INTERACT Programme, from some INTER- REG IIIB programming areas and from all INTERREG IIIC programming areas). It is evident that there are inevitable overlaps between the six different categories of projects, particularly between the first category ( economic and social development ) and the other categories: there is after all an economic and social dimension to all INTERREG projects. In identifying and classifying INTERREG projects, only those projects were selected that had a link with both urban and rural areas. Explicit reference to urban rural relationships was not a selection criterion. If this criterion had been used, only very few projects would have been selected for analysis but, crucially, the breadth of issues covered by projects would have also been very much narrower. There was also another important reason for not limiting the selection process to projects with explicit reference to urban rural relationships. Several INTERREG project promoters (lead partners) found that the concept of urban rural relationships is often too abstract for potential project participants. By switching to more problemoriented concepts such as access to services or open space, project promoters could retain an urban rural dimension to their project and at the same time make their project more understandable. 3 In the end, more than 100 projects funded under the INTERREG III initiative were identified that have some link with urban rural relationships, with most of these being Strand B (transnational cooperation) projects (for more details, see Zonneveld et al., 2006). The Thematic Distribution of INTERREG Projects INTERREG projects are neither evenly distributed across the six different categories of urban rural projects as identified above nor across the European territory. There are marked differences in the thematic distribution of projects across the three INTERREG strands. More Strand B projects (transnational cooperation) were found to have a link with urban rural relationships than projects from either Strand A (cross-border cooperation) or Strand C (interregional cooperation). More than half of the Strand A projects fall into just one main category, namely consumption and amenity. Similarly, more than half of the Strand B projects fall into two main categories: economic and social development and consumption and amenity. For Strand C projects, the great majority fall into one of three categories: economic and social development, consumption and amenity or governance. The number of projects in two of the categories is very low: transport, energy and information and demography. In both the academic literature on urban rural relationships and the ESPON project on Urban rural relations in Europe, great importance is attached to flows between urban 445

8 Wil Zonneveld & Dominic Stead and rural areas. Two main types of INTERREG projects specifically address these flows, namely projects which focus on services and facilities (in which population centres and small towns are seen as central places for the areas surrounding them) and projects which focus on transport, energy and information (by supporting networks to facilitate the flows between urban and rural areas). Taken together, these projects concerning flows account for around a fifth of all INTERREG projects. The Spatial Distribution of INTERREG Projects In this section, we examine the spatial distribution of Strand B projects since this strand contains most projects concerning urban rural relationships. Certain patterns in the distribution of Strand B projects become apparent. Projects in the economic and social development category, for example, are particularly well represented in south-west Europe, whilst many projects in the services and facilities category are found in northern Europe. Projects in the transport and infrastructure category are often found in peripheral parts of Europe, projects in the consumption and amenity category are fairly evenly spread across the European territory and projects in the governance category are rather concentrated in North-west Europe. The relatively large number of projects in the Northern Periphery and the Madeira, Azores and Canaries programme areas is striking. Surprising is also that North-west Europe as the most metropolitan area of all INTERREG IIIB programming areas accounts for less than 8% of all INTERREG IIIB projects on urban rural relationships. As the number of project proposals was quite high in the programming area, which shows that there is a relatively high level of interest in the issue, the small number of urban rural projects which were funded in this area can be explained by comparatively stricter assessment procedures in the project application phase (Waterhout & Stead, this issue 2007). The relatively small number of projects in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) could have other reasons, but an investigation of these was not part of our research project. We could speculate, however, that the interest in participating in INTERREG projects is lower because of the availability of Objective 1 funding in these areas. Furthermore, there might still be a lack of experience with the organization and management of EU-funded projects in CEE countries, and particularly complex transnational cooperation projects. With these comments in mind we nevertheless suggest that broadly speaking there is a close relationship between the spatial distribution of INTERREG IIIB projects on urban rural relationships and the urban rural typology developed in the ESPON Urban rural relations in Europe project. INTERREG IIIB projects related to urban rural relationships tend to be clustered in areas characterized by higher levels of agricultural land use and/or lower levels of population density. The majority of urban rural projects in the North-west Europe INTERREG IIIB programming area fit into the consumption and amenity category and most of these projects focus on landscape quality and open space, which is the archetypal urban rural issue in areas characterized by high population densities and high levels of urbanization and urban sprawl. The general conclusion is that there is a strong relationship between the territorial characteristics of an area and the importance attached to urban rural relationships in INTERREG programmes. Because these programmes function as a filter for project application and project approval, there is a correlation between the typology of the ESPON Urban rural relations in Europe project and the distribution of INTERREG projects across Europe. The relationship between the territorial characteristics of areas and the content of projects can also be examined with a simple mapping exercise. Based on the postal addresses of all project lead partners, maps of the spatial distribution of projects were produced. Only the location of lead partners was mapped, as the relevant information was not available for all project partners. Another reason for mapping lead partners only was that the majority of subprojects within INTERREG urban rural projects are not territorially linked. In many cases, the subprojects within urban rural projects do not have a strong transnational dimension but are mainly at the local or regional level. This means that the territorial links between 446

9 European Territorial Cooperation & Urban Rural Relationships subprojects are of less importance. Taken all these considerations together, the geographical location of lead partners is therefore a good proxy for the spatial pattern of projects. Looking at the spatial distribution of projects grouped according to the six categories described above, some distinct patterns emerge (Figure 2). There are two large clusters of projects: one in FIGURE 2. Location of lead partners for urban rural INTERREG projects. Source: Zonneveld et al.,

10 Wil Zonneveld & Dominic Stead North-west Europe and another in the south-west of Europe. Two smaller clusters are situated in Scotland and Macaronesia. According to the distribution of lead partners of urban rural projects, project activity is unevenly spread across the European territory. The different levels of emphasis on urban rural issues in the operational programmes can clearly help to explain this, as do the differences in the decision-making process regarding project proposals (see also Waterhout and Stead, this issue 2007). The capacity to function as a lead partner and the availability of financial resources to comply with the co-financing regulations are other decisive factors, which might explain the fact that there are only five projects with a lead partner in any of the new member states. The member states of the EU 15 (plus Switzerland and Norway) had during the funding period more experience in INTERREG projects than the CEE countries, though it is perhaps merely a matter of time before the level of participation in transnational and interregional projects becomes more spatially balanced. The Content of Projects Focusing on Urban Rural Relationships Economic and Social Development One of the largest groups of INTERREG projects on urban rural relationships concerns economic and social development. This is not entirely surprising given the fact that the origins of the concept of urban rural relationships lie in the recognition that agriculture is decreasing in importance for the local and regional economy in many rural areas in Europe and that therefore other sectors of the economy need to be supported and encouraged. Most of the urban rural INTERREG projects in the economic and social development category are located in areas with low urban influence (according to the typology developed in the ESPON project on Urban rural relations in Europe ). Almost all of these projects are located outside the European Pentagon, that is the ESDP designation for the economic core area of the EU defined by the metropoles of London, Paris, Milan, Munich and Hamburg. However, we are nonetheless cautious about speculating about any causal relationship between urban density and rural development, as some projects have demonstrated that rural development can be a key issue even in highly urbanized areas. At first sight, policies and projects seeking to enhance the economic and social development of rural areas seem rather general. However, the content of INTERREG projects in the economic and social development category tells a different story. The partnerships behind nearly all projects are based on the objective of diversification, either in terms of the diversification of agricultural production or the encouragement of new enterprises and entrepreneurship outside the agricultural sector. We therefore make a distinction between agricultural diversification and economic diversification, although both goals are important in some projects, and agricultural diversification and economic diversification can be considered as a continuum. The agricultural diversification projects are concerned with changing agricultural production processes so that more added value is created locally. The rationale is that this leads to the higher local incomes and more local employment. The emphasis of many projects of this type is on the production of high quality products, often with an emphasis on organic or other environmentally sensitive methods of production. INTERREG projects that promote agricultural diversification therefore often focus on networks (e.g. suppliers networks, marketing networks and logistics networks). The high quality product approach goes hand in hand with efforts to sell a place or a region as a tourist product. For example, local products are sold at local and regional markets which then act as tourist attractions. The majority of these projects is situated outside North-west Europe, which is the area with the highest intensity of agricultural production. High quality products are a niche market but the concept is becoming more widespread especially in areas where economic productivity is not very high. This has both direct and indirect impacts for urban rural relationships since it creates new networks of producers and consumers and relationships between urban and rural areas change as a consequence. Strategies for economic diversification aim to expand the range of activities in rural areas and to promote new types of economic activities 448

11 European Territorial Cooperation & Urban Rural Relationships more generally. Almost all projects in this category are concerned with developing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In most of these projects there is the recognition that many SMEs have difficulties in finding an economic base in rural areas or that they have limited access to services and facilities compared to their counterparts in urban areas. Some projects examine this issue (e.g. improving the business environment). Others concentrate more on the role that local and regional government can play in improving the general conditions for entrepreneurship. Services and Facilities The overall majority of projects on this issue can be found outside the European Pentagon. Many of the projects in this category address sparsely populated areas, such as the Northern Periphery and the mountainous areas of the Alpine Space. These projects address the provision of services, which is a key policy issue in such areas. Local settlements in these areas are often small and in decline, and this poses difficulties for the provision and maintenance of basic services and facilities. The contracting out or the privatization of services may aggravate the situation. A number of projects in this category address services in general. Other projects consider particular types of service, such as healthcare. There is also a group of projects considering services and facilities in a more indirect way, by examining settlement structure and the role of small and medium-sized cities. Clearly these projects are linked to the notion of polycentricity (see also Gløersen et al., this issue 2007). In the absence of large cities, great parts of Europe depend on the performance of smaller cities, not only in terms of economic development in general but also in terms of access to services and facilities as a basic aspect of quality of life. Transport, Energy and Information There are only a handful of INTERREG urban rural projects concerned with transport, energy and information. The great majority of projects addressing these issues are rather sectoral and do not include a recognizable urban rural dimension. Of the projects which include this dimension most can be found in the more rural INTERREG programming areas, such as Alpine Space; Canaries, Madeira, Azores; Northern Periphery; and Western Mediterranean. A number of these projects are concerned with improving access to information and communication as a way of reducing some of the disadvantages of low levels of physical accessibility in remote rural areas. Improving the virtual accessibility of rural areas can have various effects on urban rural relationships, such as creating more varied opportunities for employment in rural areas and increasing accessibility to online broadband facilities and services, which have potential benefits for increasing the quality of life of local residents. Few INTERREG projects in the transport and mobility category directly address urban rural issues although there are a few exceptions, such as the IIIA France-Spain project on the rehabilitation of cross-border routes for hiking and the IIIB REVER-MED project (Western Mediterranean, MEDOCC), concerned with establishing sustainable transport routes between urban and rural areas for pedestrians and cyclists. Consumption and Amenity There is a relatively large number of INTER- REG urban rural projects concerned with consumption and amenity. Three spatial clusters of projects are apparent: one in the Low Countries and northern France, a second in the Pyrenees and a third in the Baltic area. The remaining projects concerned with consumption and amenity are fairly evenly spread across the EU territory. Three main types of INTERREG projects under the heading of consumption and amenity can be distinguished: projects on rural tourism, projects on local products and projects on landscape, the built environment and environmental protection. The projects on rural tourism seek to develop the potential of rural areas for recreation and tourism, particularly for urbanites in search of rest, relaxation, wildlife and open space. A substantial number of these projects focus on sustainable tourism: trying to promote and increase tourism on the one hand whilst seeking to minimize impacts on the local environment on the other. Most of these projects are funded 449

12 Wil Zonneveld & Dominic Stead through INTERREG Strand A, especially in rural areas that are within close proximity to more urban areas (e.g. North-west Europe). Other projects concerning rural tourism can mainly be found in INTERREG Strand C. In the second group of projects on local products, many seek to increase awareness about traditions and regional products and to stimulate the local market for products in order to strengthen the rural economy. As in the case of the previous group of projects, the main client group for local products is urban, particularly those with an interest in retaining local traditions and/or in reducing the environmental footprint of consumption patterns. Many projects in this group are found in INTERREG Strand A, particularly in the more rural parts of Europe as defined by the typology developed in the Urban rural relations in Europe ESPON project. There is a strong link between many of these projects and some of those identified under the heading of economic and social development (see earlier). The third group of projects under the heading of consumption and amenity is concerned with landscape, the built environment and environmental protection. In most of these projects, the focus is on the exploitation, management and/or protection of areas with specific landscapes, habitats or buildings. The location of these areas is diverse: some are rural, others are peri-urban and others are urban. Some of these areas are important because they contain unique landscapes, habitats or buildings while others play a vital role in providing amenity and open space for urban areas (e.g. urban parks, greenbelts). Areas with specific landscapes and habitats are of course also important for tourism, and some projects in this group therefore concentrate on rural tourism. The majority of projects in this group are found in INTERREG Strand B, particularly in the more urban parts of Europe as defined by the typology of the ESPON Urban rural relations in Europe project, and especially in North-west Europe. Demography Rural depopulation is a major concern in many parts of Europe. Outward migration is selective, and the migration of younger groups who move for education or employment reasons is therefore frequently an issue. Many INTERREG projects classified under the other five themes also try to address rural depopulation in some way. The rationale is that people are more inclined to stay or to return to rural areas if the local economy is improved and if local services and facilities are in place. Only a small number of projects have objectives entirely concerned with population and migration, and therefore little can be said about the spatial distribution of these projects other than that they are usually in remote, peripheral parts of the European territory. Governance The main difference between projects in the governance category and all other projects is that the objectives and approaches are much wider than in other projects. Although few of the projects selected in the other five categories could be typified as having a sectoral approach, projects in the governance category are generally more comprehensive and attempt to link various policy issues. This is a typical characteristic of a territorial approach in which policy issues are not selected because of their intrinsic characteristics but as a result of their interrelationships with other issues in the same area. Many of these projects are clustered in North-west Europe, which is probably no coincidence since many spatial planning systems in this part of Europe are explicitly oriented towards overcoming sectoral boundaries and integrating sectoral policies. The downside of such comprehensive projects is that they sometimes appear to be unfocused. This can also hamper progress within projects especially when much time and energy has to be devoted to reaching a common understanding of political and sectoral competences. Conclusion: Mutual Learning between ESPON and INTERREG The issue of urban rural relationships is multifaceted. In this respect there are no clear differences between the experience of ESPON and INTERREG projects. One of the aims of the ESPON Urban rural relations in Europe project was to deconstruct the concept of 450

13 European Territorial Cooperation & Urban Rural Relationships urban rural relationships in such a way that it could be linked to empirical data. In various INTERREG projects, the concept of urban rural relationships has been translated into issues that are recognized by project stakeholders as important and relevant. The difference between the ESPON and INTERREG communities is that researchers often use complex notions in their vocabulary to explain their findings, and this is not usually the case in INTERREG circles. Often it appears to be difficult to generate political interest in INTERREG projects unless they are framed in simple vocabulary and linked to real political issues. This implies that closer dialogue and interaction between the ESPON and INTERREG programmes and communities will be needed in future. Research results from ESPON that can be applied in specific regions through INTERREG projects are very much required; a demand that is illustrated by the fact that a considerable number of INTERREG projects, especially those funded under Strand B, devote some attention to spatial research. It should not therefore come as a surprise that on the whole the issue of urban rural relationships remains rather implicit in INTERREG projects and some of the operational programmes. The objective of many projects is formulated in terms of urban or rural issues and the development of urban or rural areas. If we had restricted ourselves in this article to those projects where the stated objectives were explicitly formulated in terms of urban rural relationships, only a handful of projects would have been selected, mainly in the category consumption and amenity and governance. We have widened the circle of relevant projects to include those projects that have a clear urban rural dimension, even though this is not always explicit. Nevertheless, there are strong similarities between the thematic content of INTERREG projects and the way urban rural relationships are understood in the ESPON project on Urban rural relations in Europe. In the ESPON project, the more dynamic part of urban rural relationships (generally described in terms of flows ) were considered a great challenge. Reliable and comparable data on flows between rural and urban areas are needed. This is particularly so as so far flows have been more or less ignored in urban rural INTERREG projects, for instance those involving water. While there are a number of INTERREG projects concerning water management, the issue is generally not framed in terms of urban rural relationships even though the issue has a very important urban rural dimension. Examples include measures to prevent flooding in cities and urban regions which almost by definition have to be implemented in rural areas. The same is true for the provision of drinking water. Flows of energy can also be framed in terms of urban rural relationships. The future shortage of oil will almost certainly put the issue of bioenergy production high on the political agenda, and this also has a clear urban rural dimension. For the new ESPON programme, this means there is the need for a better understanding of flows between different types of areas, including between urban and rural areas. Because of the scarce availability of data this will only be possible by means of case study analysis. Urban rural projects have to date almost exclusively addressed the micro scale (regional and local), thereby ignoring the wider transnational or European context. This means that the territorial links are often not clearly established. With the exception of partners in (cross-border) INTERREG IIIA projects, partners form alliances not because of intrinsic territorial relationships but because they expect to learn from each other. In-depth case research will be required to assess whether INTERREG cooperation is indeed leading to widespread transnational and interregional learning, which is one of the main objectives of the INTERREG programmes. The analysis of the spatial distribution of INTERREG urban rural projects revealed several patterns. In some cases, projects on certain issues are regionally clustered, as is the case with the governance theme for instance. We have recorded the small number of INTERREG IIIB and IIIC projects in the new member states and the accession countries and put forward some possible reasons to explain this phenomenon. This low level of participation in INTER- REG nevertheless forms a great challenge for the future of European territorial cooperation. This is yet another dimension of learning, namely of how to get involved in INTERREG and how to make use of ESPON results for 451

14 Wil Zonneveld & Dominic Stead improving understanding about the areas and locations within specific INTERREG projects. The lack of INTERREG urban rural projects in the larger metropolitan areas in Europe is an important spatial pattern. Whilst some large cities are involved in INTERREG urban rural projects, this is the exception rather than the rule. On the other hand, there are many INTERREG urban rural projects involving small and medium-sized cities. This coincides with an observation by Hoggart (2005) that certain policy options (and presumably also project types) are more applicable in the rural zones of city regions in the European Pentagon than in rural areas in peripheral, lower density parts of Europe (and vice versa). Involving large European cities in future territorial cooperation on urban rural issues will present an important challenge for the forthcoming programming period. In a survey carried out as part of the update of the ESPON project on the territorial effects of structural funds (ESPON project 2.2.1), the majority of INTERREG lead partners claimed never to have heard of the ESPON programme or have any clear view about the findings and results of ESPON projects (Lähteenmäki-Smith & Dubois, 2006). Consequently, references to ESPON projects in INTERREG project documentation (websites, databases, reports) are rare. Reasons for this may be that the INTERREG III programmes were already well underway when the ESPON programme began in 2002, and that many ESPON projects were not finalized until 2005 or even The results of ESPON projects which may have been relevant for INTER- REG projects may therefore not have arrived in time to have an impact. Future European territorial cooperation and ESPON research face a number of common challenges, not least to improve dissemination activities from ESPON to INTERREG and vice versa, to increase the visibility of ESPON projects for practitioners and to improve the translation of technical results for a non-technical audience. These are other crucial aspects of mutual learning. Acknowledgement This article is partly based on research carried out in 2006 as part of the ESPON-INTERACT thematic study on polycentric urban development and rural-urban partnership (see Zonneveld et al., 2006). The authors also wish to acknowledge the financial assistance of the Dutch government through the Habiforum Program on Innovative Land Use and of Delft University of Technology through the Delft Centre for Sustainable Urban Areas. Notes 1. INTERREG Animation Cooperation and Transfer. 2. For more information on the INTERREG programmes, please refer to the introduction to this Special Issue (Dühr et al., this issue 2007). 3. This was reported by various project partners at the ESPON-INTERACT seminar on Polycentric Development and Urban Rural Partnership held in The Hague on 25 April References Bengs, C. & Schmidt-Thomé, K. (Eds) (2005) Urban- Rural Relations in Europe. ESPON Final Report (Helsinki, Helsinki University of Technology). Bengs, C. & Zonneveld, W. (2002) The European discourse on urban-rural relationships: A new policy and research agenda, Built Environment, 28(4), pp Caffyn, A. & Dahlström, M. (2005) Urban-rural interdependencies: Joining up policy in practice, Regional Studies, 39(3), pp Committee on Spatial Development (1999) European Spatial Development Perspective: Towards Balanced and Sustainable Development of the Territory of the EU (Luxembourg, Office for Official Publications of the European Community). Davoudi, S. & Stead, D. (2002) Urban-rural relationships: An introduction and brief history, Built Environment, 28(4), pp Dühr, S., Stead, D. & Zonneveld, W. (2007) The Europeanization of spatial planning through territorial cooperation: Introduction to the Special Issue, Planning Practice and Research, 22(3), pp European Commission (2000) Communication from the Commission to the Member States of 28 April 2000 laying down guidelines for a Community initiative concerning trans-european cooperation intended to encourage harmonious and balanced development of the European territory, INTERREG III. COM (2000) 1101 final (Luxembourg, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities). 452

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