Future-proof cultural policies outside urban areas. What can the EU do to promote culture in the peri-urban spaces (outside of urban centres), the suburbs and the periphery?

EU policies and instruments can contribute to achieve a more balanced territorial development paying more attention to non-urban, rural and peri-urban areas. After a recall of the main challenges for cultural policymaking and implementation in non-urban areas, stereotyping approaches to the rural areas and the related cultural offers and activities are briefly considered, as well as some misunderstandings of the different types of nonurban areas and the wide diversity of rural spaces and cultural use and nonuse- patterns. Voices of Culture framed the Brainstorming meeting around three areas of discussion, proposing to focus the work on three main types of territories and related cultural policies and artistic questions: a) Inbetween- and «Non-spaces» outside urban centres; b) Rural areas burdened by over-tourism; c) Territories affected by depopulation.