Urbanisation des campagnes

In: Etudes rurales: anthropologie, économie, géographie, histoire, sociologie ; ER, Band 49, Heft 1, S. 5-9

Abstract

Urbanization of the Countryside.
The urbanization of the countryside or the integration of rural inhabitants into new economic and social relations with town-dwellers, can be interpreted either as the obliteration of the countryside by the technical progress of the town, or as the cooperation of rural and urban inhabitants, resulting in the disappearance of the town/country dichotomy. The essential problem is whether or not a new "urbanized" rural society can develop and create a new balance between natural conditions and technological possibilities. Urban/ rural relations can take three forms: the town, as a colonizer or parasite, lives off the rural populations to whom it rents land; the town, or industrial complex, develops independently of its surroundings, "sterilizing" instead of "fertilizing" them; the town and the countryside work together in view of a generalized and common expansion.