Toward a New Sustainable Development Model for Smart Villages

Abstract

Rural society is increasingly open to a globalized world, and migration from rural areas to cities is becoming increasingly important. Many rural areas face depopulation, an aging population, and limited access to a range of services. To address this challenge, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) involved in the concept of smart villages have much to offer. In order to streamline the debate, this chapter proposes a methodology based on resilience. Resilience is defined as the ability of a habitat or system to recover to its initial state when the disturbance to which it has been subjected has ceased. In this regard, a retrospective of rural areas is proposed based on the experience of the garden city model, for which the advantages of rural areas were evident over those of urban areas. The objective is to reconsider the intrinsic qualities of rural areas in order to recover and enhance them with the added value of the European Union (EU) Smart Villages approach. These facets will be the driving forces behind sustainable development. In conclusion, a number of recommendations are presented, including the development of a catalog, structured by regions and territories, of rural areas and their different potentials and opportunities, for the development of smart villages projects.

Citation

Pérez-delHoyo, R. and Mora, H. (2019), "Toward a New Sustainable Development Model for Smart Villages", Visvizi, A., Lytras, M.D. and Mudri, G. (Ed.) Smart Villages in the EU and Beyond (Emerald Studies in Politics and Technology), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 49-62. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78769-845-120191005