Co-locating services has become a common solution to the many longstanding challenges of service access and provision in rural areas. Rural service hubs – which offer two or more services at the same outlet – take many forms, typically responding to triggers for social innovation. Despite their growing ubiquity, however, rural service hubs have been little studied in comparative perspective. This article shifts the lens on service hubs from place-based solutions towards a broader, multi-scalar and multi-level perspective on rural connectivity. We propose a five dimension conceptual framework in contribution to the emerging theorisation of nexogenous rural development a model for resourceful reconnection beyond place and across rural–urban space. Drawing on examples from Austria, Finland and Wales, we illustrate how diverse service hub models mobilise social innovation, networks, scale and proximity to support service access and provision.

协同定位服务已成为解决农村地区服务获取和提供的许多长期挑战的常见解决方案。农村服务中心——在同一个网点提供两种或多种服务——有多种形式，通常是对社会创新的触发因素作出反应。然而，尽管农村服务中心越来越普遍，但很少从比较的角度进行研究。本文将服务中心的视角从基于地点的解决方案转向更广泛、多尺度和多层次的农村连通性视角。我们提出了一个五维概念框架，以促进新兴的外生理论化农村发展是超越地方和跨越城乡空间的资源重新连接的模式。我们借鉴奥地利、芬兰和威尔士的例子，说明多样化的服务中心模式如何调动社会创新、网络、规模和邻近性来支持服务获取和提供。