INTRODUCTION
The major challenge currently facing rural Europe is to find and promote appropriate forms of
economic development to maintain and improve the social and economic vitality of rural
areas as they adjust to the changing demands placed upon them by Society and by the market
economy. The proposed project focuses on the role that small and medium-sized towns play
in rural development. It seeks to measure the economic linkages between such towns and the
surrounding countryside in order to assess their present and potential role as growth poles in
rural development. Since the proposed project will pay particular (but not exclusive) attention
to the linkages with farm businesses and households, it will also help measure the likely
impact of changes in agricultural policy on other sectors of the rural economy.
The project will yield two types of output. It will provide a firm basis for sound advice to
policy-makers at regional, national and EU level who are seeking to foster sustainable rural
development. It will also improve the methodologies through which the impact of changing
agricultural and rural development policy may be modelled in ex-ante and ex-post policy
evaluations.
The proposed project has the following objectives:
(i) to measure the flows of goods, services and labour between firms and households in a
purposively-selected sample of small and medium-sized rural towns and their
surrounding countryside in order to establish the extent and nature of local economic
integration;
(ii) to compare the degree of local economic integration of different types and size of town,
firm and household found in the selected areas;
(iii) to draw conclusions and make recommendations for those at local, national and EU
level seeking to stimulate more diversified economic activities and employment
opportunities in rural areas;
(iv) to provide an accessible source of spatially referenced microeconomic data to those
seeking to model the future impact of EU policies on the rural economy.
According to the methodology of the Marketowns’ project, six small and medium sized
Portuguese towns as study area: