POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES STANISŁAW LESZCZYCKI INSTITUTE OF GEOGRAPHY AND SPATIAL ORGANIZATION CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN STUDIES POLISH GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY EUROPA XXI 15 REGIONAL PERIPHERY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE EDITORS: TOMASZ KOMORNICKI and KONRAD Ł. CZAPIEWSKI WARSZAWA 2006 VOLUME REVIEWED BY: Roman Kulikowski VOLUME CO-FINANCED BY: Ministry of Education and Science EDITORIAL OFFICE: Stanisław Leszczycki Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, PAS 00-818 Warszawa ul. Twarda 51/55 tel. (48-22) 69 78 849 fax (48-22) 620 62 21 www.igipz.pan.pl/cbe e-mail: [email protected] PREPARED FOR PRINT BY: Robert Maik PRINTED IN: Drukarnia Klimiuk, 00-372 Warszawa, ul. Foksal 11 © Copyright by Stanisław Leszczycki Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, PAS Warszawa 2006 ISSN 1429-7132 http://rcin.org.pl CONTENTS MAREK DEGÓRSKI—Editorial—Spatial structure – some problems of the core and peripheral regions in Central and Eastern Europe ...................................... 5 ANTONÍN VAISHAR—Regional periphery: What does it mean? .............................. 7 ANDREAS RÖHRING, LUDGER GAILING—Cultural landscapes as a potential force for regional development – theoretical approaches and case studies in East German suburban and rural regions .................................................................... 13 MIROSLAV MARADA, PAVEL CHROMÝ, VÍT JANČÁK, TOMÁŠ HAVLÍČEK—Space polarisation and peripheral regions in Czechia .................................................. 29 MARCEL HORŇÁK—Identification of regions of transport marginality in Slovakia ............................................................................................................... 35 MIROSLAV MARADA, TOMÁŠ HUDEČEK—Accessibility of peripheral regions: a case of Czechia ..................................................................................................... 43 DANIEL MICHNIAK—Accessibility of the railway network in Slovakia .................... 51 MARIAN HALÁS—Theoretical preconditions versus the real existence of cross-border relations in the Slovak-Czech borderland ................................. 63 KONRAD Ł. CZAPIEWSKI—Rural areas of success — in search of definitions and measures .................................................................................................................. 77 VLADIMÍR SZÉKELY—Urban municipalities versus rural municipalities – selected aspects of quality of life in Slovakia ...................................................... 87 JOANNA WIĘCŁAW-MICHNIEWSKA, PIOTR TRZEPACZ—Silicon Saxony – processes of transformation in the last fifteen years .......................................... 103 VIDMANTAS DAUGIRDAS, DONATAS BURNEIKA—Patterns and problems of peripherality in Lithuania – borderland of the EU ........................................ 119 ROMAN SZUL—Surviving in a peripheral periphery – case studies from eastern Poland ......................................................................................................... 135 TADEUSZ SIWEK—Czech Silesia: A periphery of the Czech State .......................... 145 BIANCA DUMITRESCU, NICOLETA DAMIAN—Disadvantaged zones in Romania at the periphery of socio-economic development ............................................... 151 FRANTIŠEK PETROVIČ, PETER BEZÁK—Poloniny – the marginal region in Slovakia ............................................................................................................... 161 MILAN JEŘÁBEK—Research into peripheral areas in the Czech Republic – changes in the landscape and land use in the model regions ............................ 171 ZBIGNIEW DŁUGOSZ, SŁAWOMIR KUREK—Demographic ageing in European Union countries ...................................................................................................... 185 MONIKA BENKOVIČ-KRAŠOVEC—Evaluation of demographic potential in selected peripheral regions of Slovenia ........................................................... 199 CHAVDAR MLADENOV—Demographic problems of the peripheral regions in Bulgaria case study area – the northwestern planning region ...................... 213 MIROSŁAW BICZKOWSKI, ROMAN RUDNICKI—Factors determining the spatial diversification of the SAPARD funds absorption level in Kujawsko-Pomorskie voivodship ..................................................................... 221 http://rcin.org.pl http://rcin.org.pl EDITORIAL SPATIAL STRUCTURE – SOME PROBLEMS OF THE CORE AND PERIPHERAL REGIONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE In the methodological way, space is very often recognized, as a geographical method of interpretation of facts and relations among them, or as the basic theory in geography. It is one of the main objectives of the geographical studies. Different forms of social and economical human activities and their conditions, which during the time of historical de- velopment shaped the specific structure, occur in the space. Socio-economical processes that took place in the space undoubtedly affected its polarization, which was, and still nowadays is, characterized with regions that are highly and poorly developed, rich and poor, core and peripheral. Analyses of the cause-effect relationships between social and economical processes and spatial structure have been the research interest of geographers, as well as sociolo- gists, economists and planners for many years. They inspired the researchers to formulate general theories referring to the spatial development of the regions such as Weber’s least cost theory of industrial location, Christaller’s theory of central places or Alexandersson’s theory of economic base in the development of the settlement units. The analysis of the influence of exogenous factors on the space structure as well as the recognition of the relationships among regional units is a special issue of the space research. We hand out to the Readers the present volume of the Europa XXI series which is a collection of the articles that deal with above-mentioned problems in the context of functioning core-periphery model in Central and Eastern Europe and conditions that decide about their spatial diversity. Issues brought up in this book allude to the subject of the II Warsaw Regional Forum that was The core and peripheral regions in Central and Eastern Europe. This already cyclic scientific event takes place in Warsaw every second year and is organized by Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization of Polish Acad- emy of Sciences and Academic Division of Polish Geographical Society. The following book contains 20 articles that, as far as their subjects are concerned, can be divided into six unequal numerically parts. The first one that includes two papers (Vaishar and Rohring, Gailing) presents theoretical assumptions of research on core- peripheries schemes as well as the verification of basic definitions utilized in studies on the spatial structure of geographical environment and cultural landscape. Subsequent four articles show the results of researches on transport availability of peripheral areas in Central European countries. They present, among other things, recognition of regions characterized with marginalisation because of the quality of the transport in Slovakia http://rcin.org.pl 6 Marek Degórski (Hornak and Michniak) or assessment of the transport availability of peripheral regions of Czech Republic (Marada, Chromý, Jančák, Havlíček and Marada, Hudeček). The next four articles deal with the problems that are very important as far as one con- cerns the course of the socio-economical processes and phenomena in polarized space as well as the attempts of their measuring and defining. Among other things, the attention was paid to historical and present causes of the cross-border relations in the Slovak-Czech borderland (Halas), definitions and measures in the analysis of rural areas of success (Czapiewski), relationships within urban and rural municipalities in the context of liv- ing conditions (Szekely) as well as dependences between demographical and economical processes in Saxony (Więcław-Michniewska, Trzepacz). The greatest number of papers substantially refers to the perception of the process of regions becoming peripheral. This group consists of six articles, in which authors present this problem in individual countries of Central and Eastern Europe: Lithuania (Dau- girdas, Burneika), Poland (Szul), Czech Republic (Siwek and Jerabek), Romania (Du- mitrescu, Damian) and Slovakia (Petrovic, Bezak). Despite regional differences result- ing from the specific socio-economical conditions in individual countries, the way the authors percept the peripheral regions is very similar. The following three articles allude to the demographical problems that are the re- sults of the region’s marginalisation. The spatial range covers the whole European Un- ion (Długosz, Kurek) and two countries: Slovenia (Benkovič-Krašovec) and Bulgaria (Mladenov). The assessment of the demographical potential was done in the research carried out in some peripheral regions of Slovenia, whereas basic demographical prob- lems were defined for the north-western planning region in Bulgaria. In the article that concludes the book, Biczkowski and Rudnicki depict on the example of Kujawsko-pomor- skie voivodeship in Poland exogenous factors (structural funds) that affect functioning of the peripheral areas. Wide range of issues related to the problems of the functioning of cores and periph- eries in the space that is presented in this book shows constantly actual character of the studies on socio-economical