Smart village in depopulated areas

The politics of smart village is an innovative area of the European rural policies that can have a remarkable usefulness in depopulated rural areas. It is necessary to distinguish the gap in the politics of smart villages between the core rural areas and peripheral rural areas in Europe and national scales. The implementation of smart villages is easier in the core rural areas and presents more problems in the peripheral rural areas. An integrated scalar vision is needed for/from Europe and a vision for/from each country with different problems, needs and expectations. In this context depopulated Spain is a double rural periphery: European and national. There are two roads around the smart villages: (a) horizontal connecting territories, and (b) firms that favor diversification. Depopulated areas are attractive locations for leisure, work and retirement. The problem is how it is possible develop a politics to smart and competitive areas in the whole of European rural areas and how is possible implement a smart and competitive policy and politics in depopulated areas. Some answers are detailed in this contribution focused mainly in depopulated Spain.The contributions covered in this volume are the outcome of the research on smart technology for the village and society at large, across the globe. We are thankful to the authors of this volume and the departments which supported the research at large. We express our heartfelt thanks to the Senior Editor Dr. Leontina Di Cecco, of the Springer Book Series on Modeling and Optimization in Science and Technologies, for her constant support and time-to-time monitoring to bring out this volume. We are thankful to the research team of Interscience Institute of Management and Technology, Bhubaneswar, India, for constantly supporting, helping in reviewing, communicating with authors, and organizing meetings for bringing out this volume. We would like to thank Adam Kureshi of Morgan State University, in Baltimore, for his valuable research assistance. We would like to extend our thanks to Nancy Menefee Jackson of the National Transportation Center at Morgan State University for valuable editorial assistance. Lastly, but not the least, we express our valuable thanks to all our reviewers to bring out this volume