Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
5. Regional organization in Slovakia
5. Regional organization in Slovakia With an area of 50,000 km2, Slovakia is one of the smallest countries of Europe, but due to geographical, historical and social factors, it is rather uneven. This variedness manifests itself not only in geographical diversification, but also in a social sense. According to statistics, the most obvious difference is in ethnic and religious composition, which also has some regional aspects. The social structure that had emerged in the area of present-day Slovakia as a result of a centuries-long process began to change after the 1918 establishment of the Czechoslovak state and has been changing ever since. Since the arising regional differences were mostly due to state and political control in the past, as they are in the present, this is intentional regionalization. The previous chapters show how strongly the conquering Slovak will sought to establish a new country. Due to this, Slovakia has been changing its administration continuously and intentionally, so as to set up new regional units. The decades-long practice of urban development also shows that, regardless of the political system, Slovakia has always sought to develop a network that can guarantee the maintenance of the new country intentionally, with different means of centralization. After 1990, in the new bourgeois era, central control was replaced by the market economy. Consequently, municipality intentions and market interests have been revaluated. Controlled (external) regionalization was accompanied by voluntary (internal) regionalization. Its special, combined forms can be seen in the development of the capital city and in the changing functions of borderland areas. 5. 1 Bratislava as a macroregional centre In the beginning, the independent Slovakia completely subordinated the regionalization required by the European Union to domestic political conflicts. Privatization made it possible for Trnava and Košice to influence the economic activities of the other regions in such a way that they, as centres of power, could benefit from them. This was directed against the 121
