Title: Creative capacity for sustainable development: a comparative analysis of the European and Turkish rural regions

Authors: Aliye Ahu Akgun, Tuzin Baycan, Peter Nijkamp

Addresses: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Istanbul Technical University, Taskisla 34437, Taksim, Istanbul, Turkey. ' Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Istanbul Technical University, Taskisla 34437, Taksim, Istanbul, Turkey. ' Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Department of Spatial Economics, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract: Creative capacity studies mainly focus on urban regions, however the late rural studies showed that rural region has a great potential in terms of five components of this capacity viz. knowledge, innovation, entrepreneurship, creativity and networks. This study aims to evaluate which component is relatively important to identify the level of rural creative capacity. The study focuses on 77 villages from Europe and Turkey by deploying the data obtained from the survey questionnaires. This is a first attempt at settlement level to measure the opportunities of rural regions. The results showed that traditions are the most important component in both European and Turkish cases.

Keywords: creative capacity; sustainable development; Turkey; Western Europe; rural regions; sustainability; comparative analyses; knowledge; entrepreneurship; networks; networking; villages; rural settlements; rural opportunities; rural traditions; Belgium; Wallonia; France; Italy; foresight; innovation policies; innovative business resources; economic development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJFIP.2011.040073

International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy, 2011 Vol.7 No.1/2/3, pp.176 - 191

Published online: 25 Apr 2015 *

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