What Happened to Rural Community and Regional Development? The Evolution of a Planning Idea

Abstract

At the beginning of the profession in the early 1900s, planning considered uniquely rural places and communities through the lens of regionalism. Yet today it tends to regard all spatiality as part of the urban environment and non-city-dwellers as part of the urban population. To understand this shift, we examine the history of rural regional development planning over the past century up to the Great Recession. We then apply the lessons to consider what a 21st century reinvention of rural planning might entail, particularly the possible recovery of the comprehensive, reformist approach.