The human factor and Croatia’s rural development

Rural development includes social and economic changes in the rural area and is influenced by many factors that can be observed on several levels. In this article the author presents changes in the rural agricultural population (the first level of analysis) and regions (the second level of analysis). In the case of population, the author points to intense rural depopulation, but he also remarks a return to the village, a trend primarily caused by the crisis. The rural settlement as a framework of living has changed because the boundaries of everyday rural life have changed. The main reason for this was the spread of communications. The author mentions the need of regional rural division according to intensity of urbanization processes. He ends by giving a typology of agricultural holdings divided into five groups, ranging from holdings with industrial production to self-sufficient holdings with subsistence production. He considers that each of those types can find its place in Croatia’s new agrarian structure, which means that agrarian policy must guard against reduction to only one or two types of holding