[LINK] "Ghost Towns"

[rfmcdonald]

Over at Transitions Online, Ljubica Grozdanovska has an article up ("Ghost Towns") that takes a look at the accelerating phenomenon of rural depopulation in the Republic of Macedonia.

According to the State Statistical Bureau, half a century ago, 20 villages in Macedonia had fewer than 50 inhabitants. Today, there are 458 villages with fewer than 20 people living in them. There are 147 village that have no residents at all.

The draining of populations began soon after World War II and lasted for several decades. Government officials and economic developers in the newly formed Peoples Federative Republic of Yugoslavia – later the Socialistic Federative Republic of Yugoslavia – devised plans to stimulate the economy. They focused their attentions on developing mining, textile, and metal industries in lucrative regions and municipalities, most of which already showed signs of urban growth.

In turn, the government ignored the needs of rural, agriculture-based villages in order to save money for investment in new sectors, free up land for industrial complexes, and encourage laborers to move to newly growing areas.

With investments sent elsewhere, many villages were cut off from civilization. The government allowed roads to degrade, communication channels to disconnect, schools and hospitals to close, and electricity to shut off. Consequently, people in the villages moved to faster-growing areas to escape low standards of living.

[. . .]

According to a paper presented to the European Association of Agricultural Economists in 2001, Macedonia’s rural population in 1948 was roughly 72 percent. By 1981, the number had dropped to 46 percent. By 1994, it had hit 40 percent.