The second-best option for a territory as a challenge to rural depopulation: application to the Catalan Pyrenees

Abstract

The Alt Pirineu i Aran (APiA) has been depopulated since the mid-19th century until the 1990s when it has recovered population due to immigration, basically foreign, and a process of naturbanization, concentrating in the towns at the bottom of the valleys rather communications. Using the second-best option method (SMO), it has been possible to identify the most appropriate activities and land uses (AyUS) for economic improvement in each APiA district and thus recover population. The SMO allows us to define which AyUS could be the most suitable for a territory, even if there were other territories more suitable to do it better. Focus groups (qualitative methodology) are used to apply the SMO method and secondary data (quantitative methodology) for the analysis of the population. The results show a diversified territory between population centres with different degrees of functionality, the greater or lesser importance of second homes in each district, and the existence of entrepreneurial projects around protected natural spaces. The AyUS proposed for each of the six APiA districts allow recommendations to be made to configure an economically, socially and environmentally viable territory that facilitates and ensures maintaining or even improving its population.