Basic services in decline? Social and economic infrastructure development in rural areas of Austria
2007
Machold, I. | Tamme, O.
The social and economic infrastructure (basic services) in rural areas and mountain regions is under threat. This paper presents selected findings of the research project The development of social and economic infrastructures in rural areas in Austria carried out by the Bundesanstalt für Bergbauernfragen. Main aim of the paper is to analyse the importance of basic infrastructure for the functional capacity of rural areas. Supply and demand of public services have been subject to a dynamic change process in the past few years, and in various fields of social and economic infrastructure (e.g. postal services, elementary schools, public transport, local food-supply) the situation has deteriorated. In other fields, restructuring of the offer and some improvements can be observed (childcare, care of the elderly). Where services are in decline, the retrenchment is most extensive in rural and mountain areas. Correspondingly, infrastructure facilities are increasingly concentrated in medium-sized local centres whereas small municipalities have lost a significant number of facilities. They suffer from out-migration and loss of purchasing power. Case studies of two municipalities illustrate the current situation and development of infrastructure at the local level in a mountain region of Styria. Besides its core provision function, the basic services have additional - multifunctional - dimensions. Infrastructure facilities are important informal meeting points and places of communication. Furthermore, they create and safeguard jobs. As peripheral rural areas are especially vulnerable, because of their relatively unsatisfactory price-to-performance ratio compared with urban areas, the level of provision of services should not be reduced to a purely economic dimension. Particularly, the proper offer of basic services in rural-peripheral areas is essential to keep these areas intact.
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