The name is absent

1. Introduction and background: defining a research question

Modern Community Infrastructures (CI) (also called social sphere and social infrastructure
by Soviet authors) located in Estonian small rural centres, were built in large capacities by
the collective and state farms and industrial enterprises during the 1970s and 1980s. These
premises and facilities are rather old fashioned today and would need high investments to
be upgraded.

Highly problematic fact is, that this CI, also living estates and production facilities
were built to the smaller local (2^nd rank) centres outside of historical local centres (3^rd
rank), which were growing in Estonia during the second half of 19^th and first half of 20^th
centuries up to 1960s. The old (3^rd rank) centres did not receive virtually any CI
investments during the 1970s and 1980s because of their location outside collective/state
farm territories.

The return to the Western World and capitalist development in the early 1990s
created better opportunities for old and larger centres and political pressure to recover after

Figure 1. Population change in Estonian rural communities (%) 1989-2000 according to
census data (ESA 2001). Case study (chapter 4) area is indicated with a red (bold) line.

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