Postwar development as a possibility for rural revitalization

The central theme of this article is the relationship between the essential renewal of war-ravaged rural areas and possibilities for the more lasting consolidation and revitalization of the village. In previous development the industrial-urban sector was favoured, which together with centralized decision-making resulted in differences between regions and the pronounced depopulation of most rural regions. To renew settlements that suffered in this war, return the displaced population to its homes and renew economic life in devastated regions, a consistent strategy of rural revitalization must exist favouring a different policy of spatial development, the stimulation of various industrial and tertiary activities in rural zones, and a change of attitude towards agriculture. There are possibilities to draw the village out of the longlasting phase of decomposition and start it on a phase of recomposition, i.e. renewal that rests on new foundations combining the advantages of urban contents and the quality of rural regions. The author also suggests a change of attitude towards the peasantry and pleads for stimulation of so-called market farming in the development of the peasant agriculture