"Urban" or "rural"/"rural" and "urban" perceptions of the type of the commune in Polish and French small towns
Résumé
In the paper authors focus on the perceptions of the type of small towns in France and Poland and the use of urban and rural references in the urban marketing and inhabitant’s appreciations.
Small towns are a good way to question the construction of territorial models and modes of spatiality as they make over 75% of all cities and are inhabited by over 21% of all urban population in Poland and similarly in France (89% of urban units and 22,4% of the urban population). “Small” towns are small in size (from 2000 to 20 000 inhabitants according to official and academic references in France and below 20 000 inhabitants in Poland), but they are playing a key role in the attractiveness of urban spaces and their surrounding areas. Depending on their spatial location, they can be in the direct influence of bigger towns or situated in more isolate context (peripheral small towns). The issue of mobility is also important, due to more extended commuting distances. People can live in a small town, in a “rural” environment, and work in bigger cities. The identification of the motives of settlement in small towns in both countries became the important element of the paper.
Very often, local stakeholders are using urban and rural references to promote their territory, leading to commonplace pictures (“city where life is good”, “human sized towns”). Representations of rurality and urbanity, and their clichés, are widely used. Positive aspects of both are mobilised (equipments and services, urban dynamism on the one side; friendliness, solidarities and inter-acquaintance on the other) and negative sides are often minimized. Is this mixing of urban and rural promotion a pertinent one or does it tend to blur references and identifications?
Furthermore, in a context of social demand for a better quality of life, linked with increasing impacts of sustainable development criteria, what are the perceptions of small towns’ inhabitants? Do they identify themselves as living in ‘urban”, “rural” or “in-between” places? Is this urban-rural spatiality important for their choice of residence and everyday practices? Does the rural or urban lifestyle can still and to what extend be treated as the element of space identification?
Those elements are illustrated by empirical fieldworks conducted in French and Polish small towns (in a Polonium Research Program, in 2011 and 2012). Issues of comparison are exposed but also elements of more general and systemic analysis on the urban-rural divide through small towns perspectives.