Commercial counterurbanites in rural coworking spaces: Supporting neo-endogenous development by building embeddedness?

Counterurban migration has become increasingly relevant in many European countries. This trend is driven mainly by young professionals and entrepreneurs working remotely in knowledge-intensive sectors who relocate to rural areas for lifestyle reasons and in search of the rural idyll. This paper focuses on entrepreneurs of this rural creative class and their potential to support local development by analysing the role of coworking spaces in rural areas. Coworking spaces have expanded into more rural areas, driven by the rise of remote working trends that accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on 23 interviews with coworkers and managers of seven coworking spaces in rural areas across the Austrian region of Upper Austria, this study explores how coworking spaces foster local neo-endogenous development by supporting the social and economic embeddedness of these commercial counterurban in-migrants and returnees. Results highlight the capacity of rural coworking spaces to attract commercial counterurbanites, both in-migrants and returnees, looking to overcome isolation and engage with local networks, and how they facilitate the formation of weak ties that increase the integration of these entrepreneurs into the local economy. By doing so, coworking spaces enable the local transmission of knowledge and skills and act as platforms linking rural areas with urban networks.