Territorial Cohesion

1
Territorial Cohesion Potential

• Debate about whether Territorial Cohesion is
  about competitiveness (Lisbon agenda) or about
  social solidarity and balanced development.
• Green Paper reconciles these ideas through the
  concept of potential (which I support)
• But will realising each places potential produce
  balanced development? Barca?
• What actions follow? And what role can rural
  urban linkages play?

2
Territorial Cohesion

• Stimulating position paper...
• Durkheim saw social cohesion as necessary given
  the interdependencies resulting from the division
  of labour in modernity.
• Similarly, the spatial division of labour both
  engenders territorial inequality and so also
  necessitates territorial cohesion policies.
  Moreover, it seperates us from the consequences
  elsewhere of our actions.

3
Territorial Cohesion

• Think of territorial cohesion in terms of the
  processes which bind places together, preserving
  a sense of solidarity, shared responsibility and
  converging well-being while other (stronger?)
  processes do the opposite.
• An increasing tension arises between
  interdependence and freedom (Mulgan).
• Linkages are infused with power, and the power
  relations are crucial to who benefits.

4
Processes of territorial cohesion

• What are the processes of territorial cohesion?
• They might be a territorial analogue of social
  exclusion/ inclusion, in so far as this focuses
  on the multidimensional, dynamic processes
  through which territories converge and cohere,
  and vice versa. We need to understand these
  underlying processes, to address causes rather
  than symptoms.
• How do these processes relate to urban rural
  links and interactions? For example...

5
Processes of territorial cohesion?

• Market processes
• Spatial division of labour supply chains
  labour markets and commuting housing and land
  markets consumer spending (leakages) new firms
  etc
• State/ bureaucratic processes
• Where is power? Local tax base and
  equivalisation? Administrative exclusion. Spatial
  planning regulation.
• Community and voluntary sectors
• Institutional capacity. Social movements.
  Interest groups
• Friends and Family
• Social networks, social capital remittances
  knowledge

6
Eg. Functional urban regions

• Often administrative restructuring brings rural
  areas within broader urban regions, or
  city-regions.
• the elephant and the ant ?
• We heard that the outcome may be policies which
  adopt the residual rural model or view rural
  areas as consumption space, rather than a place
  of endogenous potentiality. Or dont see them at
  all.
• second or third class citizens ?
• What intervention would transform this linkage to
  a partnership of mutual gain? (as in Umea) How
  can the unequal power relations be addressed?

7
Where next?

• Budapest conference identified
• Poverty of rural places
• Poverty in rural places
• DG Agri and DG Regio promote the endogenous
  potential of rural places and both are aware of
  the value of rural community devt, and
  networking, as in LEADER.
• DG Employment might be encouraged to develop a
  new initiative on social inclusion in rural
  places.
• Rural - urban interdependence is fundamental but
  little understanding of processes, and therefore
  little guidance on what interventions are
  required. More critical analysis.