Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)

5. Regional organization in Slovakia

The administrative region as a development unit

potential traffic junction, because, although it has been involved in the plans of motorway construction, it is the destination rather than a starting point. The exception is a short, 20-km-long section, which has already been built between Košice and Prešov. Regarding its infrastructure and the number of flights, its airport lags behind that of Bratislava. It has no navigable river. Not only the motorway construction plan to connect the town with the western part of the country, but also the plans of the motorway to Uzshorod are still on the drawing board. It is only the broad-gauge railway line that connects the town with Ukraine. The raw material needs of the iron works of national importance are met in this way. The city has three universities (the University of Technology, P.J. Šafárik University and the Veterinary University) to train young professionals, which will be all the more necessary because an information technological park is being built in the outskirts of Košice. But the young professionals trained at these universities are also employed in the large auto manufacturing plants. Around 40% of the professionals working there were trained at one of the universities of Košice. There is no doubt, however, that Košice was converted from a small rural town into an industrial centre of national significance by its iron works, which were built in the 1960s (Eastern Slovak Iron Works). After that people started to flow into the city, and as a consequence, large housing estates and service-providing units had to be built. This was all the more necessary because in the golden age of the factory there were 24,000 people working there. The crisis of the iron works, a typically communist industrial establishment, was overcome by the Pittsburg-based US Steel, which bought it in 2000 for 500 million dollars and granted a promissory note of 700 million dollars for modernization. This was how the new name of the factory became US Steel Košice. As a result of modernization, it contributes to the boom of Slovak auto manufacturing by plate rolling. At present, there are about 16,000 people working there, making it the largest industrial plant of the country.

Of all the districts of the region, the Gelnica and Sobrance districts can be regarded as the most rural. Of the mixed (industrial and agricultural) districts, the Spišská Nová Ves district is the least developed, whereas the Michalovce, Trebišov and Rožňava districts are considered comparatively well-developed. In this environment Košice stands out sharply. Around Michalovce there are brown and black coal mines and natural gas sites. In the environs of Rožňava, Gelnica, Krompachy and Rudňany

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