The link between cities and their immediate rural hinterlands is eroding across NW Europe as urban centres develop closer links with the global economy. These kinds of pressures are especially great in the Central Zone of NW Europe, where the LIFESCAPE project partners are all based. The objective of LIFESCAPE is to demonstrate that there is synergy between the maintenance of landscape identity and economic development. The project will, for example, help rural agricultural producers label their produce to both show that it is produced locally, so demonstrating that it has generated employment, and promote biodiversity. The 6.7M Euro project, which is being led by the Province of Noord-Braabant in the Netherlands, aims to create a toolkit of measures for restoring the relationship between cities and their rural hinterlands that can be disseminated to other areas in North West Europe and so help inform spatial planning strategies. It is also a bottom up project that seeks to involve local businesses and agencies on a transnational basis.