ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the historical development of rural and urban categorisations through an analysis of four macro-social representations of rural-urban relationships in Europe born in specific moments. It explores two opposing conceptions from the nineteenth century; on the one hand the Rousseauist or moralist and, on the other hand, the Marxist or materialist. Short-termism is a result of rather complex processes. In the 1950s, just after the end of the Second World War and up until the construction of the Berlin Wall, long-term planning was the rule in the Western core countries' which set up the first European Coal and Steel Community (CECA) and then the European Economic Community (EEC), as well as in the socialist Eastern and Central parts of the continent. The chapter discusses the limits and consequences of short-termism and needs for a new conception of development policy.
