Socio-Economic Differences in Rural and Urban Areas in Latvia

Abstract

The one of most common tendencies in world now days is urbanization, as a result of which the economic structure of territories changes - both human and financial resources are moved, and human lifestyles and the perception of life become more diversified. One of the main goals set by the European Union (EU) is to balance the development of urban and rural areas by promoting their mutual functional linkages and partnerships based on concept that urban and rural areas are mutually interconnected and depend on each other. To evaluate rural and urban areas the administrative division approach will be used - the territory in Latvia is subdivided into 118 municipalities - both urban and rural. The values of social indicators in 2009 are better in rural municipalities, but higher values of economic indicators are observed for the urban municipalities, indicating the impact of the large urban areas. Over past six years all socio-economic indicators have improved both in urban and rural areas, but there are still significant differences between them.The significance of interaction between urban and rural areas is emphasised in planning documents of all levels in Latvia. The directions of development that have to be perfected are: mobility possibilities for residents, promoting the flows of labour and knowledge both to urban and rural areas, increasing the flow of capital to rural areas to diversify their economy, and supplying quality and unique tourism services in rural areas.