Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
4. Towns in Slovakia after 1993
Towns in Slovakia after 1993 innovation and the introduction of individual products. These steps would have ensured the possibility of competetiveness for a small country like Slovakia. It was also emphasized that Slovak economy, which had insufficient capital, would need foreign investment. On the other hand, the abuse of privatization and the influence of politics on business led to distrust in Slovak business life. Due to the Russian orientation of Slovak foreign affairs, the ultra-nationalism of internal policy and privatization abuse, Slovak accession to the EU seemed to be in danger, which would have made the country even more isolated. 4. 2 Administration as a means of organizing the town network When analyzing administration, we should first emphasize that, at the time of the establishment of the country in 1918, the Slovak section of the country did not have an outstanding and obvious centre, and it had no capital town. This was because contemporary Felvidék did not have a centre of its own or a town organizing the life of the Slovaks, exerting a gravitation effect on other areas, or giving an example to follow. Neither Bratislava, nor Košice, which later underwent striking development, were towns that could function as gravitation centres for the population of the new state. The controversial process of Bratislava becoming the capital and the repeated debates show that the new state, which became independent in 1993, had to have even its capital city accepted. For Bitusiková (2002) it is a fact that Bratislava does not play an important part in Slovak identity. The glorious past of the city was in the 16th-19th centuries, after that it gradually became a grey, insignificant small town for transit traffic along the Danube to Vienna. After the 1918 establishment of Czechoslovakia it was the only city where there were a sufficient number of large hotels for the representatives of the new power. After Slovakia, which had become ‘independent’ in World War II, had been attached to Czechoslovakia in 1945 again, it became a mediator for the instructions of the central government in the decades of communism, which destroyed, rather than increased, the authority of the city. The urban network of present-day Slovakia is largely influenced by the fact that it was the new Czechoslovak state that appointed Bratislava a centre for the eastern section of the country inhabited by Slovak people, for political purposes. 100
