In recent years, public discourse has often portrayed rural areas as neglected or abandoned regions, as there is a long list of adverse conditions like dependency on decision-making by urban elites or demographic issues attributed to today’s rural regions. Some contributors to the discourse claim that globalization and the global economy are among the main reasons for an increase in social and territorial inequality between urban and rural areas.

But what are the true conditions of the countryside? Are rural communities doomed to become extinct? And are rural inhabitants really discontent or unhappy with their life?

These questions and many more are tackled by authors from the Japanese Studies section at the University of Vienna, from the Center for Policy Studies (Seisaku Sōzō Kenkyū Kyōiku Sentā) at Kumamoto University and from the Federal Institute for Less Favoured and Mountainous Areas (Bundesanstalt für Bergbauernfragen) in Vienna who in November 2016 presented their papers at a conference at the University of Vienna to discuss basic issues concerning rural areas in Japan and Austria.

This volume of BZJ is divided into two sections: The first section provides a general account of rural living conditions in Japan and Austria, and the papers of the second section present examples of rural community development and revitalization.