ABSTRACT
Between September 2005 and February 2006, we conducted 4,157 minutes of interviews and created 1,473 pages of transcript with a total of 65 interviewees in 18 local areas in all provinces of Austria with rural areas (that is, all but Vienna). As no full representation of local-area structures in Austria was intended, but an explanation of typical development trends, no randomly selected local areas were analysed, except those for which (1) in the period between the two job counts, 1991 and 2001, a significant increase or decrease in jobs and other indicators was recorded and (2) a clearly discernible category was determined a priori that showed an influence on the (positive or negative) development of local areas. The following categories of characteristics were, for instance, considered: region for which a particular product is well known, social cohesion, drastic change in the economic structure or inter-communal business zone. For each of these categories, two local areas were identified, of which one developed well and the other less so in the period surveyed.
