Repositioning rural areas as promising future hot spots

In many countries, rural areas have shown a new spatial-economic dynamics that has meant a contrast with the traditional urban-rural dichotomy. In particular, the need to use economicecological sustainability as a guiding principle for new rural development is a prominent feature. But how will rural areas, sometimes suffering from lack of economic development, peripheral positions and relatively low social well-being is able to face new challenges? Can they be attractive, innovative and developed (hot spots), while maintaining their sustainability and continuity? This question was the background in conducting our research. Hence, this study aims to answer this question in three steps, viz. (i) offering a contemporary overview, (ii) identifying the critical factors for and defining the driving forces of sustainable rural development and (iii) developing a set of sustainable development scenarios. The first step includes a new concept for rural and regional studies, e.g. hot spots in order to show that rural areas can be regions of development if the priorities for each village can be carefully identified. The following two steps are conducted by the application of the so-called pentagon model and the use of multi-criteria analysis, viz. regime analysis. The data and information deployed in this study are obtained from field surveys conducted in 60 European and 17 Turkish rural areas. The results showed that the challenge to transform rural areas into hot spots is neither impossible nor difficult. On the contrary, rural areas and their inhabitants are ready to achieve such a future, but the policies concerning rural areas need to be restructured. The study concludes by offering some lessons about how to restructure the rural policies. rural areas ; sustainable rural development ; hot spot ; pentagon ; multi-criteria analysis ; regime ; Europe ; Turkey creativity