Urban versus Rural? Conflict Lines in Land Use Disputes in the Urban–Rural Fringe Region of Schwerin, Germany

Meike Fienitz and Rosemarie Siebert
Additional contact information
Meike Fienitz: Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Straße 84, 15374 Müncheberg, Germany
Rosemarie Siebert: Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Straße 84, 15374 Müncheberg, Germany

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: Land use conflicts can present major obstacles to sustainable land management. An accurate understanding of their actor constellations and conflict lines is therefore crucial in developing tools for successful landscape governance. In this context, actors from cities and actors from rural areas are often seen as typical opponents. Hence, the objective of this paper is to analyze the extent to which empirical conflict lines indeed run between urban and rural actors. We applied qualitative text analysis to examine 124 land use conflicts in the urban–rural fringe of Schwerin, Germany, which were identified through semistructured interviews with key land use actors in the region. Results showed that actors from the city and the rural fringe were on opposing sides in almost half of the conflicts. However, they were also frequently in conflict among themselves, and many actor constellations involved actors from other regions or administrative levels. In conclusion, the narrative of the urban–rural dichotomy appears in the empirical data but does not appropriately convey the complexity of the actual conflict lines. The findings of this paper therefore emphasize that it is important to empirically identify the actor constellations in land use conflicts rather than rely on preconceived ideas about typical conflict lines.

Keywords: urban–rural conflict; urban–rural dichotomy; land use conflict; conflict parties; spatial affiliation; actor constellation; urban–rural development; balanced land use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/7/726/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/7/726/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:7:p:726-:d:591866

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().