Europe witnessed massive migration away from rural areas throughout the 20th century. Spain was no exception to the rule, albeit with differences in timing and pace, and the population in Cantabria constitutes a paradigmatic case. Here, the rural exodus began early – before the mid-20th century – in some mountainous districts, but reached a peak in the 1960s and continued throughout the following decades. Since the 1990s, population levels in rural municipalities have fallen at a slower rate, while the population of the region as a whole has increased slightly. Disturbingly, the rural population has continued to decline in the early 21 ^st century, in an overall context of almost zero population growth. The demographic trends analyzed here are not only different in time, but also in space. With the partial exception of regional capitals and their neighbouring communities, municipalities in mountain districts have witnessed such a substantial decline in their populations that they have experienced a genuine process of depopulation. This case does not explain the all-similar cases in rural Europe as a whole, but it can help in interpreting other comparable processes in different regions of southern Europe where depopulation reached its maximum in the second half of the 20th century and still continues today.

The relationships and interactions between rural and urban spaces have long been of interest in the territorial sciences. However, the approaches taken to these questions have evolved in line with the changing characteristics of the two types of territories, reflecting new relationships and structures. From these premises, we update the concept of rural–urban interaction by means of an extensive bibliographic review, which, among other results, highlights: (1) the profound change that has taken place in recent years in rural–urban interaction through processes such as de-agrarianisation, the tertiarisation of the economy and improvements in transport and communication infrastructures; (2) the resulting obsolescence of earlier typologies and procedures focused on discrimination between rural and urban environments, rather than on the interaction between them; (3) the difficulty of establishing valid, widely applicable typologies, given the profound differences in terms of (a) the scale and content of the statistics available in each country and (b) the territorial background in terms of economic functions and the characteristics, ancient and modern, of human settlement; (4) the predominance of an urban-centric approach, to the detriment of more traditional rural functions, such as agriculture, the importance of which is diluted by its low relative weight in terms of employed population and contribution to GDP. Consideration of these findings leads us to propose a new approach to the question of rural–urban interaction, reflecting the multifunctionality of rural spaces, and we identify useful areas for future research.

Este trabajo pretende ser una primera aproximación a la dimensión del despilfarro de recursos públicos en infraestructuras en España desde 1995 hasta la actualidad en los distintos niveles de gobierno. A partir de algunas precisiones sobre los conceptos de despilfarro y corrupción, se analiza, de una parte, la inversión y los sobrecostes en infraestructuras innecesarias impulsadas y ejecutadas por la Administración General del Estado en el ámbito de sus competencias, y de otra, infraestructuras, proyectos, eventos e inversiones fallidas, vacías o infrautilizadas acometidas por las Comunidades Autónomas y los gobiernos locales. Se abordan los déficit de marco institucional y de gobernanza territorial y se sugiere una posible agenda de reformas a partir de unas conclusiones generales.

<![CDATA[La proliferación de viviendas en el suelo rústico ha tenido un fuerte impacto sobre el territorio, especialmente agudo durante las últimas dos décadas. Mediante el estudio de casos en dos regiones españolas (Cantabria y Extremadura) revelamos las diferentes particularidades que muestra este fenómeno, contrastando las dispares maneras de afrontarlo. Las tendencias compartidas hacia la desregulación de esta clase de suelo quedan evidenciadas en el estudio realizado sobre las modificaciones legislativas de corte "flexibilizador" y los procesos de legalización en ambas Comunidades Autónomas. Por último, aportamos ideas encaminadas a resolver el problema, entre las que destacan la redistribución de las competencias en materia de urbanismo. La prolongada inacción de los gobiernos para mantener la disciplina urbanística ha posibilitado las agresiones al territorio del que deberían ser custodios, por lo que es acuciante la confrontación del hecho y sus consecuencias para evitar que aumente su magnitud y complejidad.]]>

El objetivo del presente trabajo de investigación es hacer una contribución geográfica a la comprensión de los efectos de la pandemia COVID-19 en diferentes contextos territoriales desde una perspectiva multiescalar. En concreto, se trata de contribuir a dar una respuesta a la pregunta ¿qué consecuencias ha tenido y podría tener en el futuro la pandemia sobre la economía y la población, sus elementos integrantes y estructuras en los espacios rurales? Los resultados obtenidos prueban que la forma en que la COVID-19 ha afectado a los espacios rurales de Cantabria ha sido muy similar al modo en que se ha producido el impacto para el conjunto español, por lo que la mayor parte de las conclusiones obtenidas son extrapolables a otros ámbitos territoriales. El análisis del comportamiento de la pandemia desde el punto de vista espacio-temporal pone de manifiesto la existencia de contrastes intrarregionales, que son consecuencia de los desequilibrios preexistentes entre el área central y litoral, más urbanizada, y los espacios rurales periféricos, caracterizados por una estructura del poblamiento más dispersa que se ha convertido en un elemento capaz de moderar la expansión del virus, a pesar de tratarse de las zonas con las tasas más altas de envejecimiento. En tal sentido cabe resaltar los rasgos excepcionales de las dinámicas observadas durante el año 2020, definido por numerosas singularidades que podrían haber modificado sustancialmente, incluso adulterado, los condicionantes tradicionales de las dinámicas socioeconómicas, pero que, hasta el momento, no parecen haber tenido continuidad sino un carácter puntual.

The term deagrarianization refers to the dwindling importance of agrarian activity as the economic and social basis of a rural area. Deagrarianization is reflected in the declining number of people engaged in agricultural production and a reduction in the relative importance of agricultural incomes. In addition to the economic consequences, deagrarianization also erodes the importance of the rural population in territorial organization and management and social functioning in rural areas. However, it is also true that the simultaneous shift towards the service economy in present-day rural economies and societies has not led to the disappearance of the rural space but, instead, given rise to new and multiple forms of rurality. The priority objective of the research on which this paper is based is to gain insight into the rural deagrarianization processes in Spain through the specific case of Cantabria. In order to analyze these dynamics, a series of basic indicators have been used. In order of importance, the main indicators employed were those related to the recent dynamics of agriculture, livestock, and forestry activity and the occupational structure of the population as regards its sectoral distribution, with particular attention being paid to the relative importance of livestock and forestry activities in relation to the direct exploitation of territorial resources. In the past, primary sector activities were very important in Cantabria, but their importance has steadily declined in both absolute and relative terms until reaching the current situation. In 2023, only 4579 people have been employed in agriculture out of a total of 214,574 active people (2.13%). It is very significant that between 2012 and 2021, the total number of employed people increased by 9.08% in Cantabria while the proportion of people employed in agricultural activities decreased by −12.90%. Farming is no longer the rural occupation par excellence; however, it continues to be important in most Cantabrian rural municipalities. The territorial distribution is even more revealing. Southern mountain municipalities can be considered the last stronghold of agricultural activity since, in most cases, more than a quarter of their active population is employed in this sector. These are also the rural areas with the highest levels of depopulation. In contrast, other activity sectors have also gained importance in rural areas, although not in the same way. In general, there is less service economy employment in inland rural municipalities, except in those that are county capitals offering services. Some rural, peri-urban, and coastal areas where tourism is more strongly developed also reach high values.