METHODICAL APPROACHES TO DISTINGUISHING AND IDENTIFYING RURAL AREAS (IN THE CONTEXT OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE)

Abstract

Emphasis is placed on the absence in the legislation of Ukraine of legal norms on methodological and legal criteria for identification of rural areas at certain hierarchical levels of administrative-territorial structure of Ukraine, specificity, consistency, predictability and effectiveness of state policy of rural development. From the standpoint of implementation in Ukraine of modern European tools for distinguishing rural areas, a variant of the legal definition of the term “rural area” is proposed, which specifies the criteria for identifying rural areas, in particular:
• at the level of the local administrative unit (LAU): the population density is usually less than 300 people per 1 km2; the share of the urban population of the local administrative unit does not exceed 50% (rural population is more than 50%), except for the local administrative unit, which is a zone of connection (influence) of the city with a population of at least 50 thousand people, employing at least 15% inhabitants of a local administrative unit;
• at the subregional (district) level (NUTS-3): population density is usually less than 300 inhabitants per 1 km2; the share of the urban population of the district is less than 50% (at least 50% rural population), if the district does not include a city with more than 200 thousand inhabitants, or at least 25% of the total population of the district.
Taking into account the existing significant obstacles to the methodological implementation of European tools for rural identification, the classification of territories of administrative districts of Ukraine is substantiated and tested as small regions of NUTS-3 level and analogues of local administrative units according to available statistics, with the distinction of mostly urban, intermediate and mostly rural areas, in particular, the latter according to pro-European criteria.