Image: city photo
A new rural exodus has set in in Upper Austria, summarized ÖVP club chairman Christian Dörfel on Friday morning. However, not from the country to the city, but vice versa. Rural areas have become much more attractive during the pandemic. “More and more Upper Austrians want to live in nature,” said Dörfel. “But they also expect certain standards of living that can be compared to life in the city.” However, it is not about “the country now copying the city.”
No mergers
“We support the communities, but there will certainly be no mergers,” said Dörfel. Much more one wants to strengthen the cooperation of the communities, for example in clubs, tourism regions or joint projects. You will only merge “if it really makes sense”. Like last time in Rohrbach-Berg.
With the Upper Austria plan and the future fund, the state government has also created the financial prerequisites for the expansion of rural areas. EU projects like the Leader initiative would contribute a lot. Municipalities can submit their new funding projects here in the middle of the year.
“That would be the wrong way”
According to Dörfel, childcare is an important criterion when choosing a place to live. The state is therefore currently financing 166 projects with a total cost of 127 million euros. 100 new groups are to be created every year. However, Dörfel rejects the demand recently made by the opposition for a legal right to childcare. “That would be the wrong way.”
Health care is also to be expanded, because the family doctor system is still working well. In order to relieve this, the state wants to promote the establishment of further primary care centers. There are already ten and three more are planned. “There are 40 in all of Austria, and they are already doing very well here,” said the club chairman.
Expansion of public transport
Local supply and mobility are also to be expanded, with Dorfel, who is the mayor of Steinach an der Steyr himself, also holding the communities accountable. “They have to come to an agreement, not that there is a huge shopping center in every community.” Incidentally, in the future these should be built on sealed surfaces, more rarely on green meadows. Vacancies in the towns are to be filled because the town center is “the heart of a community”. A town center never dies, “it just changes,” said Dörfel. Outside of his party, however, he is likely to be alone with this view.
Another goal is good transport connections, so the state is investing in the existence of branch lines, condensing the timetables and building Park & Ride facilities.
Source: Nachrichten
