A report on the 3rd Congress of the European Society for Ru Sociol, Sep 1962, in Austria. Planning in our industrial society pays too little attention to the problems of the Ru countryside. The following questions arise: (1) what are the problems of Ru areas, (2) how far can sociol solve them, & (3) how is res & planning to be improved? H. Kotter (U of Bonn, Germany) defined the various concepts, insisted on freedom of value, judgments & on a planning adapted to the generally accepted norms & values. The 3 topics corresponded with 3 types of Ru regions: (1) planning in regions of concentration (by G. Isbary), (2) planning in agri'al regions (by A. K. Constandse), & (3) planning in underdeveloped areas (by M. Rossi-Doria). The common problem is the backwardness of these types of regions compared to the standards of our urbanized industrial society. To improve this situation, particularly in the regions of concentration, planning implies an increasing intrusion of public bodies into private matters. To avoid arbitrary behavior by both authorities & individuals, a democratic planning needs far reaching res, as Constandse explained, to provide the data for the 'guiding image' of the planner. AA.
