Rural Revitalization through Integrated Mobility: Policy, Infrastructure, and Demographic Challenges in North Macedonia

In the last few decades in the Republic of Macedonia, and especially in some parts, there have been significant changes in the population, especially in areas with primarily rural and agricultural population. Bearing in mind the total knowledge of the influence of the wider geographical area on the development of the larger urban agglomerations, it is quite certain that the development policy so far in our country regarding the construction of the road network in the village was not sufficiently in accordance with real needs and opportunities, i.e. did not rest on wider and longer-term perceptions and processes. According to the dynamics of the movement of the structure of the non-agricultural population, which is expected to continue in the future, the issue of building, expanding and modernizing the road network in the villages is an inevitable need.
Local authorities have an important role in regulating most of transport strategies that contribute towards facilitations and integrations of local needs and services. Take into consideration that this issue is part of Cohesion Policy of EU, Macedonian authorities must keep abreast with regional policy of rural development. Transport policy is not some miraculous tool with which to solve some rural development problems. It must work in unison with national development programs, physical planning, investment, region and economic policy, legal regulations and other areas. It must move in step with the implementation of these programs and respond with vitality and responsibility to the changes taking place in society. We must all acknowledge that, in many respects, our quality of life depends on the success of our transport policy.
The dynamic development of industry and traffic technology, as the main factors of progressive urbanization, are the core of the fundamental perturbation of the structure of the spatial environment, imposing new models and elements of industrial civilization, and, according to C. Davis, the return to rural life is almost impossible. But as long as the "hearth", in a godly sense, exists as an essential feature of a family, the last link with the village is not interrupted.