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The chapter focuses on rural-urban food links in the context of governance. We seek to understand a rural-urban innovator mechanism is emerging through the food system and the renewed question of proximity and relative autonomy in the alimentary supply of this type of space and local society. We present case studies from Paris and Budapest metropolitan rural areas exploring institutional and private actors of governance, their power networks, food and related cultural components of rural-urban relations, the function of food links and the way in which they are governed. We have found several differences in governance methods between the Paris and Budapest metropolitan ruralities. The areas surrounding Paris are characterised by multi-level governance methods. However, an isolated form of rural governance of the rural-urban local food link can be identified in Budapest’s rural areas. Understanding the complex and dynamic interaction of food links and related activities within metropolitan areas offers the possibility of a far greater understanding of the complex and multiple links between sustainability, renewal of social interaction and cohesion.

Territorial food markets and governance have emerged as a key mechanism for the design and implementation new food systems and policies aimed at sustainable cities. However, the many existing policies tend to overlook the way food markets and supply strategies work. This chapter analyses governance in traditional agri-food markets in Brazil, aiming to demonstrate how, in different contexts, the economic interactions between actors are embedded in a set of social institutions (cultural values), which define modes of governance, participation in the markets and can be potential to fostering new (sustainable) rural-urban relations. These institutions challenge and compete with formal regulatory requirements imposed by the public authorities, which often disrupt and/or inhibit the development of local and traditional production and consumption practices, posing obstacles to the fostering rural-urban relations and the construction of solid local policies for food supply. Empirical data refer to three traditional Brazilian markets: the Feira do Pequeno Produtor in Passo Fundo, located in the South of Brazil, the Feira Central de Campina Grande and the Feira de Caruaru, both located in the Northeast of the country. The results point to the necessity and centrality to cities food supply policies recognise, encourage and institutionalise these markets traditional institutions in order to overcome supermarketisation and consolidate sustainable food systems. These process could be able to remove traditional markets from marginalise, promoting not only their survival, but their growth and consolidation as a source of decent work, healthy food and new sustainable rural-urban relationships.

Purpose – This chapter focuses on ways urban – and other non-local – pressures have influenced a rural archipelago area by studying changes in fisheries-related livelihoods, use of natural resources and regulatory regimes.

Design/methodology/approach – The material for this chapter comprises mainly of structured and semi-structured interviews with fishers and other stakeholders in the Archipelago Sea and in the Åland Islands, SW Finland. A governance approach is used, taking into account the interactive social, economic and ecological systems embedded in institutions, social networks and cultures.

Findings – The economic importance of traditional fishing livelihood has diminished, but fishing still holds a strong position in the culture and life mode of the local people in the studied archipelago areas. In families selling fish, this income stands typically for a part of the household income and especially wage work has become an important income source in the pluriactivity. Providing services for the tourists and summer cottage dwellers is a potentially growing source of livelihood. The increased recreational use of the Finnish Archipelago Sea has changed the ownership structure of the land area, mostly due to the popular summer cottage dwelling. New public fishing rights for (often urban) recreational fishers have narrowed the scope of the local decision-making and aroused resistance among the local archipelago people.

Originality/value – Rural–urban relations and governance aspects have been rarely studied in relation to the use of natural resources. This chapter gives new insights into the multifaceted roles of new urban influences in rural settings.

The objective of this work was to analyze the income differential of the rural–urban worker in relation to the rural–rural worker and in relation to the urban–urban worker in the Brazilian labor market. Two databases were used, the 2005 and 2015 PNADs (Pesquisa Nacional Por Amostra de Domicílios).

The methodology is the decomposition approach proposed by Firpo et al. (2007, 2009). This method adopts estimates of unconditional quantile regressions, based on the concepts of influence function and recentered influence function (RIF).

Among the main results, income differentials were shown to benefit the urban–urban worker when compared to the rural–urban worker, and income differences to the benefit of the rural–urban workers, when these were compared to the rural–rural workers. The educational variable was relevant in explaining the income disparity and expressing increasing effects in the higher quantiles.

The methodology used in this work is considered recent in the literature as it is based on the RIF regression (Firpo et al., 2007, 2009). The main advantage of this method is the possibility of assigning a “composition effect” and a “wage structure effect” for each variable that determines the level of income at different points of the income distribution.

This chapter introduces the theoretical and political-practical underpinnings of this volume. It also gives an outline of the editorial organisation of the book and the various chapters. The chapter examines the literature on rural-urban relations, city-near rural areas and current challenges and problems identified in these areas. We identify huge sustainability and resilience problems in current rural-urban relations and metropolitan ruralities. We also relate to writings about a transition from the current carbon-based economy and society to a post-carbon society with reduced ecological footprints. The contributions in this volume are based on the current situation and provide ideas to develop the debate on rural-urban relations, metropolitan ruralities and post-carbon transition.

Purpose – To discuss the rural–urban dichotomy and its far-reaching implications, first and foremost from a rural sociological point of view, and at the same time, to structure the volume and present the individual chapters.

Methodology/approach – Literature review and analysis of scientific discourse.

Findings – The rural–urban dichotomy has been very persistent in demographic and other kinds of rural and urban research despite intense discussions about its shortcomings in nearly half a century. However, there are mounting arguments for alternative conceptions of rural–urban relations, some of which are found in the chapters in this volume.

Originality/value of chapter – This chapter presents some new ideas about the rural–urban dichotomy, and alternative, more realistic conceptions of rural–urban relations, at the same time as it gives an introduction to the volume.

Purpose – The chapter answers the question if urban regime theory (URT) can provide a useful framework to understand and solve problems of cooperation in regional processes in rural–urban areas.

Methodology/approach – The chapter is a theoretical discussion on problems found in contemporary rural spatial governance.

Findings – URT can provide a framework for understanding the obstacles encountered in regional development and is a promising perspective for the analysis of regional processes. A solution for problems in regional cooperation can be found in so-called ‘vital coalitions’, forms of vital interaction between regional actors, based on energy and productivity, that can create a ‘capacity to act’ in regions that have become ‘gridlocked’ by current procedures and regulations.

Research limitations/implications – A modern URT, applied in a regional context:(1)Can point out ‘how power is organised to act’;(2)Analyses informal networks between actors as bases for cooperation and vitality, and as a possible starting point for new (cultural) counter-regimes and(3)Offers insight into regional complexity and cooperation and into emergent regimes.

Practical implications – Vital coalitions are forms of self-governance, that introduce new agendas and function as forms of niche-innovation in regions. This can lead to the forming of new ‘cultural regimes’ in which the motives and values of civilians are a key element.

Originality/value of the chapter – The value of the chapter lies in the use of concepts in regions from a fresh new perspective, by translating the URT from a local, urban context to a regional rural–urban perspective.

Departing from an ideal interpretation of the collaborative governance approach, the authors analyse the integrative and collaborative capacities of project-based regional development actions in spatially diverse city regions in Finland. Scrutinizing the relevance of collaborative ideals and their institutional prerequisites becomes all the more salient given the strong emphasis on collaborative approaches to regional diversities throughout Europe. The results show that the integrative potentials are related to specific types of areas. They also call the facilitating capacities of politico-administrative institutions into question. The results are interpreted in terms of an institutional duality that strongly corresponds to the public-private divide.

Purpose – Rural–urban divides characterize many violent internecine conflicts. The lack of rural development is often cited as an underlying structural cause of this phenomenon, and thus strengthening rural–urban linkages is often touted as a way of dismantling the structural conditions for internecine violence. This chapter attempts to identify how both the strength and the form of rural–urban linkages influence the intensity of insurgent violence.

Methodology – Using geographic information systems, this chapter analyzes the intensity of specific violent attacks by rural insurgent groups in Maoist India as a function of rural–urban linkages and transportation network redundancy.

Findings – It finds that the degree of interconnectivity in transportation networks is a more robust determinant of restraint among violent actors than the sheer strength of rural–urban linkages. Production networks characterized by highly networked road systems are more likely to incent restrained behavior among rebel groups, which may be dependent on taxation or extortion through obstruction.

Limitations/implications – The chapter quantitatively analyzes a phenomenon, but does not identify causal mechanisms driving it. The policy implication is that providing transportation infrastructure within rural areas may be a more effective guard against insurgent violence than connecting urban and rural areas.

Originality – The chapter makes a methodologically unique link between the large existing literature on rural–urban linkages, and the growing literature on trade networks in violent conflict.

This chapter summarizes the theoretical perspectives and empirical studies in the volume and draws up some final conclusions. The methodology is meta-analysis of the chapters in the volume. The main conclusions are that ordinary citizens, professionals, and administrators alike generally are willing to reform urban and rural-urban policy into a more sustainable direction but that the affected political and governance systems have difficulties in responding to this. The editors’ advice is to further develop collaborative governance involving a broad range of stakeholders and perhaps also to start using the wide range of economic incentives available to decision-makers today to further a more sustainable development in rural-urban catchments. We hope that this concluding analysis will feed the debate on these critical issues.