Aspects of Rural Development in Greece: Indicators, Policies and New Opportunities

Rural development has attracted the interest of European regional and agricultural policies in the last two decades. This is more evident after the late 1990’s when rural development became the second pillar of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In Greece, traditional agricultural programs have given their place to rural development programs. This shift of emphasis in European agricultural policy reflects the change in the way rural development is perceived at an international level. Rural development is no more synonymous to agricultural development and the role of other factors such as alternative employment opportunities and accessibility to urban centers is widely recognized. Greece has a large agricultural sector compared to the European average, although employment in the primary sector has decreased significantly in the last three decades. In terms of rural development great differences are observed among regions which can be attributed to differences in agricultural potential and accessibility to the markets as well as to a differentiated degree of incorporation to international markets. The prospects of the agricultural sector in Greece would not be considered as favorable, especially after the latest CAP reform. Therefore rural development has to be promoted through non-agricultural activities or through some innovative agricultural activities. In this paper a series of indices describing the agricultural potential in the NUTSIII regions in Greece as well as several aspects of rural development will be presented. Statistical analysis, mostly classification techniques, will be employed in order to explore the factors contributing to rural development in Greece. Special attention will be given to the introduction of organic farming in Greece and its potential contribution to rural development. Organic farming is considered as an innovative agricultural activity and it can be a viable alternative for declining rural regions. Finally, rural development policies in Greece, through regional policy programs and the current Rural Development Program, will be presented, with emphasis on the shift from measures for the agricultural sector to measures for rural development. Special consideration will be given to the measures addressed to organic farming and their effectiveness in the development of the sector will be discussed.

Transformation of Rural Patterns in Greece in a European Regional Development Perspective (The Case of Crete)

Rural space in Greece is experiencing a significant transformation. During the last four decades the traditional urban-rural dichotomy has given its place to complex spatial patterns which are in a process of continuous change. This change is the result of a variety of factors such as the international economic environment, the emergence of new economic activities in rural areas, mainly the service sector and tourism, the changing urban-rural relations as well as the implementation of national and European policies for the agricultural sector and for rural development. In addition, rural development is not any longer dependent solely on the agricultural sector but also on the rural- urban relationships and the presence of a large variety of economic activities in rural areas. In this paper data concerning demographic, economic and infrastructure characteristics of rural areas are analyzed for the last five population Censuses, describing the transformation of rural space in Greece. A number of typologies of rural areas in Greece are presented for different time periods which demonstrate the significant changes of rural patterns in the last two decades. These typologies are employed in order to suggest policy guidelines for rural development in Greece. The results will be presented in a GIS environment and when appropriate will be compared to similar studies in Europe. Finally policies for agricultural and rural development, in the context of European regional and spatial development, will be examined in relation to rural patterns in Greece and the development perspectives of rural areas.

Spatial analysis of housing prices in the Athens Region, Greece

In this paper the housing prices in the Greater Athens region are analyzed employing data for the structural and locational characteristics of dwellings. The sample is derived from the total housing supply in 2017 and includes several thousand dwellings for sale available by online real estate agencies. However only houses for which the approximate location, in terms of geographic coordinates, is available are included in the sample.At first a description of the houses is provided, in terms of their structural characteristics, such as type of the dwelling, size, floor, number of bedrooms, parking etc. In addition several characteristics relative to the location of dwellings, such as distance from the closest metro station or distance from the city center are calculated in a GIS environment.Second, the influence of several factors on housing prices, for example the provision of parking or the type of the dwelling are examined, through statistical testing.Finally, regression analysis is used in order to estimate housing prices in the Greater Athens region. The explanatory factors are structural as well as locational characteristics.  Due to the spatial dependency of the residuals in Ordinary Least Squares method, a spatial regression model (Geographically Weighted Regression) is also presented, which improves the accuracy of the prediction.A general conclusion is that most locational characteristics did not contribute significantly to the explanatory power of a regression model when compared to structural characteristics. However, the importance of locational factors was more evident when some critical distances were incorporated in statistical testing

Risk Mapping of Visceral Leishmaniasis: A Spatial Regression Model for Attica Region, Greece

Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) is endemic to the Attica region of Greece. The geographical distribution of VL cases was analyzed employing methods of spatial analysis in a GIS environment. A geographic database was constructed including data for the disease cases and environmental factors, such as land cover types, stray dog population, and socioeconomic factors. Classic and spatial regression models are presented that suggest the factors contributing most to the incidence of leishmaniasis are green urban areas and the population of stray dogs in the municipalities of Attica region. The results of the spatial regression model were more accurate, thus were used to produce a disease risk map. This map indicates the high-risk municipalities in which surveillance for the control of leishmaniasis is necessary