Sectorial policies are inefficient when coping with complex relationships between urban and rural areas. This areas are consequently facing with loss of competitiveness, landscape degradation, loss of water and soil quality, loss of biodiversity, territorial fragmentation and abandonment, intense use of resources, quality of life decay etc.

Main objective of the project is to develop cooperative and integrated governance models for cooperation between rural and urban areas towards the implementation of Joint Development Strategies that induce territorial requalification processes in order to hand back value to the economic, social, environmental and cultural heritage. The goal is that rural/mountain and urban communities become “equal players” in an inclusive decision making process.

At the beginning of the project we will delimitate the territorial systems according to homogeneous criteria and select the pilot areas. Than we will collect main policies that are influencing the territorial relationships and the economic and spatial development of the territorial systems. Policies will be evaluated and compared. In the framework of cooperative governance models preparation we will put the emphasis on stakeholders identification and their cooperation in preparation of project outputs. We will organise development discussion tables to share experiences, opinions, problems, visions etc. Partners with similar challenges will cooperate, exchange experience and share knowledge. On this basis we will start to develop territorial vision with new development measures. This will help us to prepare development plan and update territorial and regional policies with possibility to transfer the findings also to national and EU level.

RURBANCE team.

Ljubljana (photo: Bojan Erhartič)