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The authors report a study of heritage conservation linked to rural small-town regeneration in Aotearoa New Zealand. The purpose of this study is to answer the question: how, with limited local resources, do the residents and administrators of small settlements conserve historic heritage in the processes of rural regeneration?

This research is based on an analysis of physical heritage objects (buildings, artefacts and landscapes), associated regulatory arrangements, archival material, news media reporting, community group newsletters and photography. The authors use the river-side town of Rakaia and its environs in Te Waipounamu/the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand to answer the research question.

This research found that in a context of limited resources, volunteers, supported by small businesses and local and central government, can contribute positively to the conservation and interpretation of heritage as part of wider rural regeneration activities.

There is only limited writing on the links between heritage conservation, rural regeneration and the development of small towns. To advance the debate, the authors combine ideas about community-led heritage conservation and management with concepts drawn from rural studies, particularly the multifunctional rural space paradigm. This allows us to explore heritage conservation in a context of rapid rural change.

A series of changes have taken place over the past 20 years that have transformed the face of rural Greece. At the heart of these changes have been the rural farm household and the European agricultural and rural development policies.The processes of de-agriculturalization and rural restructuring in the early 1990s have been accompanied by ‘rurbanization’ and socio-economic integration of rural populations. These interrelated processes have internally transformed the rural areas, thus forming a ‘new rurality’ characterized by contraction of agriculture, expansion of tourism and construction, increased pluriactivity, increased employment of international migrant labour and the reorganization of farm family labour and operation. However, in the environment of economic crisis, the conditions of the ‘new rurality’ have been affected by falling incomes, contraction of public services and by a ‘back to the land’ movement. This ‘reverse mobility’ has the elements of both modernity and tradition: engagement with new methods of organization and work and rediscovery of traditional crops, products and cultures.The chapter will discuss the characteristics and dynamics of the changing physiognomy of rural Greece in the past 20 years focusing upon three paths: the de-agriculturalization of the countryside, the perplexity of rural mobilities and rural resilience during the economic crisis. The chapter moves from a theoretical analysis of these paths to a detailed account of secondary sources on the transformation of agriculture and the countryside in Greece before it discusses the implications of the crisis upon the population movements and the ‘rediscovery’ of the economic, social and cultural values of rurality.

Purpose – The policy approach of multifunctionality – that agriculture has benefits beyond the production of food and fiber – has been debated within global trade negotiations. Little is known about the perceptions of agriculture's multifunctional nature at the local level. These perceptions may be particularly pertinent in rural locations undergoing rapid transformations of the agricultural system, economic base, and related land uses. This chapter describes research conducted to examine the perceptions of agriculture's impact on local communities and the policy choices needed to support agriculture's multifunctionality.

Methodology – Six focus groups were conducted in Pennsylvania, USA. Counties were selected to represent three differentiated rural spaces (contested, clientelist, preserved), in which production and consumption interests claims vie for control of rural land. Participants represented both production and consumption interests, and described their perceptions of local agriculture and policy preferences.

Findings – Production and consumption interests across the study sites expressed views consonant with global discussions, in that agriculture provides significant positive impacts and few negative. However, locally specific issues related to taxes, land use planning, and farmland preservation dominated discussion. Participants supported a mix of policy tools (voluntary, regulatory, educational), but gave little credence to federal programs.

Research limitations/implications – Policy initiatives to support agricultural multifunctionality need to be sensitive to local conditions and create an enabling environment to allow multiple stakeholders opportunities to identify issues and preferred policy mechanisms.

Originality – Previous research has identified multifunctionality concepts at the global level; this chapter localizes multifunctionality, and examines potential hurdles to implementation.

This chapter gives several explanations as to why peasant agriculture results in sturdy and sustainable growth – it also identifies the factors that undermine this capacity. Peasant agriculture entails a constructive capacity: it includes mechanisms that are used to make agriculture grow and to face adverse conditions. And when the ‘normal’ level of resilience does not suffice, the constructive capacity is employed to redesign and materially rebuild agriculture through the development of new products, services and markets. This capacity leads to a new farmer’s empowerment that have in the multifunctionality the key to go beyond the classical agricultural system where the farming capacity is completely expressed out of the farm leaving farmers to do only mechanical operation. The chapter illustrates several examples of how farmers are reclaiming control over their own resources by defining a new level of farm autonomy and by oriented their farm towards multifunctional activities and the concept of peasants agriculture. The ‘new peasantry’ is consolidating itself and becoming a highly effective alternative: a viable way of addressing the multifaceted crisis that beleaguers farmers, the increasing strictures they face and the ongoing challenges of sustainability.

In urban planning, peri-urban areas are often addressed with an urban-centric view on development, disregarding the multifunctional and dynamic opportunities that these spaces offer. As a consequence, we argue that land use functions such as agriculture do not reach their full potential, despite the increasing enthusiasm for peri-urban and urban agriculture. This chapter has a twofold structure: first it explores the opportunities and challenges for agriculture in peri-urban areas; and second, it studies success factors for envisioning processes promoting peri-urban agriculture in urban policy and planning.

Through action research, we gather and compare data from two envisioning processes in the Flemish cities of Ghent and Kortrijk. Both processes were initiated by the local authorities, with the purpose of developing a spatial vision for agriculture in peri-urban areas.

Results show that in both contexts, pressure on farmland is a key issue. In addition, we highlight that multifunctionality is rather complex, both in practice and from a governance perspective, but nevertheless promising as a territorial concept in envisioning processes. Regarding the envisioning process itself, the analysis shows that clarity and consensus on the objectives of the process, delineation of the study area, policy support, clear leadership, and inserting sound and reliable data into the process are important success factors.

This chapter provides insight into the visions, plans and strategies needed to embrace the potential of agriculture in peri-urban areas, through the exploration and valuation of participatory envisioning processes. Future research is needed to explore the implementation phases of envisioning processes in urban planning.

Comparing rural development with agricultural modernisation, there are fundamental differences. Industrial development of agriculture more and more segregates agriculture from other functions and is based on an ‘individualised transaction model’ in which the world consists of loose particles that are linked by markets (atomistic world view). Conversely rural development can be perceived as a form of re-socialisation of agriculture and is based on a ‘relational cooperation model’ in which new relations characterise business development.

This chapter is a second level type of analysis of many research findings of these common traits or features and gives a picture of the distinctiveness of rural development practices. Nine different features that characterize rural development practices are described and discussed: (1) novelty production, (2) relative autonomy, (3) synergy, (4) clashes and competing claims, (5) coalitions and new relations; the construction of rural webs, (6) common pool resources, (7) new division of labour, (8) the distinctive different impact and (9) resilience. The more these features are present and intertwined, the better the specific practice can face and withstand adverse conditions. These features and the associated practices have to be understood as part of a wider transitional process that might co-evolve with or run counter to competing transitional processes.

This chapter aims to analyse the evolution of competing paradigms and theoretical frameworks that have pervaded the debates on the present and future of agricultural and food systems and their associated rural areas. From this global overview, we will extract common features of paradigms that are being reproduced over time as well as highlight the innovations introduced. Particular attention will be paid to discuss the responses and contributions inspired by European Mediterranean-based research, setting up the framework that underlines the subsequent chapters of the volume.

This article aims to explore the changes and continuity in housing patterns of Turkish society comparing traditional and contemporary usage. In this context, the spatial and social structures of housing patterns are studied comparatively from an historical perspective. The article is based on research projects carried out by the author that aimed to identify the effects of socio-cultural and psychological factors on the spatial formation, meaning and use of domestic space in different types of Turkish dwellings. Examples chosen from a number of case studies in different housing patterns are mainly those of the Middle Asian Tent, the Traditional Turkish House and Squatter Housing ‘Gecekondu’. The article consists of six sections. In the first two, the aim and the general concept of the paper are defined, the research field is explained and the problem is specified. In the third section, the formation of spatial setting in different housing pattern of Turkish settlers will be analysed by comparing the tent, traditional house and squatter house. The fourth section focuses on related theoretical concepts in environmental behavioural studies with the conceptual model of culture and space interaction system in terms of meaning and use of home space. In the last two sections, the field study is presented and the article builds on the findings of the case studies to offer some proposals for new design principles.

This chapter presents an overview of the ‘big’ data of Mediterranean agriculture, with a special focus on the four EU countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece), in order to provide a backdrop for the rest of cases analysed in the volume. In this regard, two thesis are discussed: the assumption that farming systems in the South have not followed the process of ‘productivist modernisation’ characterising post-war Northern European agricultural change, and that, precisely due to this reason, most holdings and regions from the South would have more possibilities to adapt to new approaches of multifunctional rural development.Thus, the chapter tackles both the static and dynamic structural traits of Southern agricultures and their differences with the North, as well as several aspects of the organisation of farming in the Mediterranean and other key components of productivist modernisation: farm intensification and specialisation. Later, the diffusion of multifunctional dynamics is addressed, in order to introduce some reflections about their meaning and scope in the Mediterranean regions. The chapter ends with a straightforward typology of Southern farming systems and a concluding section, which goes back to discuss the two initial theses.