Shrinkage of agricultural and rural areas: the case study of Kastoria

The increasing urbanisation of modern societies led to the shrinking of many EU rural areas. In Greece, the area facing one of the largest shrinkage is the Municipality of Kastoria, which presents both simple (demographic) and complex (socio-economic) shrinkage. The simple shrinkage appears with a great population decline, low rates and population fertility density. Regarding the complex shrinkage, the economic crisis started in 2010 has the largest impact, coupled with the lack of public/private services, specialised labour force and the settlement of incoming migrants to city centres. The shrinkage of rural areas is a burning issue that is affected by multiple factors and needs to be immediately addressed by applying EU, national and local scale policy measures. This paper aims to examine the factors that led to shrinkage, to identify the problems and the obstacles, as well as to suggest forms of support and policy recommendations for policy mitigation or adaptation strategies.