The Problems of the Contemporary Socio-Geographic Transformation of the Olib island

Abstract

The island of Olib, one of the small Croatian islands, is a rural space of striking depopulation and economic regression. Centuries-long development dynamics within the framework of the Mediterranean polycultural production has been seriously disrupted by the deagrarianism and an intensive emigration. It has considerably weakened the demographic basis, which is the main factor of the socio-economic development. In the recent half-century period the way of life has changed radically, which, among other things, manifested also in the changes of island (rural) landscape. Arable areas are fewer and fewer, social fallow dominates, and the physiognomy of the only island settlement has also significantly changed. The appearance and functions of a traditional Mediterranean island settlement have been replaced by an urbanely nuanced "spatial mechanism", where newbuilt weekend houses and renewed old village homes, primarily intended for rest and recreation, have predominant importance.