Cultural Village of Europe

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Cultural Village of Europe is a European movement that aims to claim a place for small communities. It believes that current politics treats all communities as if they were urbanised areas and that this approach leads to great problems in rural and suburban areas.

The movement started in 1999, when the Dutch village of Wijk aan Zee claimed the title "Cultural Village", in response to the title "European Cultural City" that was given to German Weimar. It turned out the Danish village of Tommerup St. had already claimed such a title three years earlier, and a collaboration was born, which expanded to a network of twelve villages from across Europe:

Although the movement is concerned with communities, it can be seen as rather individualistic in some sense. The small scale of villages would - according to Cultural Village - allow people to maintain a stronger sense of self, because small-scale or localised politics would not anonymize people like central government does, but rather take their individuality into account. Politically, Cultural Village seems to float around responsive communitarianism, but a real verdict on this matter is still out, given the pluriformity of the movement.

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