Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
5. Regional organization in Slovakia
The administrative region as a development unit The extraordinary character of Slovakia is obvious, as also shown by Table 36. All of its neighbouring countries are larger than it. As for the population, even Austria, which is the most similar in area has a population almost one and a half times larger than that of Slovakia. The population of Poland is more than seven times as large, and Germany, its most important commercial partner, is 15 times as populous. Therefore, also regarding the population of the capitals, differences are large. Compared with Bratislava, there are nearly three times as many people living in the capitals of all its neighbouring countries. On the other hand, the Slovak capital city has attracted fewer than 8% of the population of the country, compared with Vienna with nearly 20% and Budapest 17.43%. The economic performance as displayed in Table 37 shows the peculiar feature that the present-day economic advantage of the capital cities of Bratislava, Prague, and Warsaw (and also of Budapest) is still the consequence of the communist era, when these countries had one centre, so that the GDP per capita is more than two times as high in the capital cities as in the country as a whole. In countries with unbroken development, such as Austria and Germany, economic performance is more even, so economic performance in their capitals is also more proportional. Table 37. The economic performance of some capital cities, 2001 Capital city Bratislava Vienna Prague Budapest*Berlin Warsaw GDP per capita 9,86536,844 14,860 6,600 22,159 13159 Country Slovakia Austria Czech Republic HungaryGermany Poland GDP per capita 4,31626,166 6,219 3,447 25,209 5,290 Percentage of the capital within the whole of the country 228.56140.80 238.94 191.47 87.90 248.75 * 1996 figure Source: Eurostat, http://www.urbanaudit.org/CityProfiles 5. 2 The administrative region as a development unit By reorganizing administration in 1996 (regional division) and in 2002 (setting up municipalities), the state intended to produce an administrative framework that, by itself and by applying the legal means ensured by self-governance, would be able to have an effect on the social and economic development of an area. Administrative regionalization always means intended regionalization. Therefore, we have to examine briefly what regions the regional system established in this way resulted in. 125
