Improving urban-rural co-operation and
contributing to territorial cohesion
Metropolises and metropolitan regions as nodes of innovation and economic development have become a hot topic in European development in recent years. Now the question arises how to interrelate them with their neighbouring rural areas.
- In which sectors could both benefit from a closer co-operation?
- What is necessary to stimulate a more intensive relationship?
- And how could such a supra-regional co-opera tion contribute to new forms of shared spatial responsibility, solidarity and territorial cohesion?
Whereas relations or interactions between urban and rural areas are common due to commuter flows, provision of food production or leisure activities, there is a need to define, develop and test further fields of urban-rural partnerships and to widen the territorial dimension of co-operation. An array of conferences, workshops and study visits as well as three pilot implementations on urban-rural partnerships in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands will contribute to the exchange of experiences and help to identify and analyse good practices. All in all, URMA creates new impulses for a concept of decentralized cohesion, enriches the European discussion on large-scale urban-rural partnerships and serves as a laboratory and testbed for innovations in supra-regional co-operation.
The basis for URMA was laid during the preceding project “Supra-Regional Partnership Northern Germany/ Hamburg Metropolitan Region”, integrated in the German Federal Government’s programme “Demonstration Projects of Spatial Planning”. URMA is connected with the RURBAN (Partnership for sustainable urban-rural development) action - agreed by the European Parliament in 2010 and managed by the European Commission – as well as the related METREX Expert Group.
- Project duration: January 2012 – December 2014
- Nine project partners from five EU member states
- Total project budget: 1.7 Mio. €
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Regional Initiative Project, Priority 1:
Innovation and the knowledge economy
Sub-theme:
Innovation, research and technology development - Funded by the EU’s European Regional Development fund through the INTERREG IVC programme
Parco Agricolo Della Piana and the URMA project - Watch the video!
