Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
3. The settlement structure of Slovakia
The settlement structure of Slovakia population of more than 10 % belong to this category; 17 belong to the category of much less significant towns with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. Although these are the towns in which most urban Hungarians live, and besides, they are the towns of the southern zone, which is mostly populated by the Hungarian ethnic minority, the proportion of Slovak ethnicity there is 63.46%, compared with the 42.59% proportion of Hungarian ethnicity. In these towns the percentage of people with ‘other’ ethnicities is also rather high, the highest of them being the Gypsy population (6,032 people), followed by those of Czech (2,841) and Ukrainian (296) ethnicity. The number of the people refusing to answer is high in these towns, too. Tables 20 and 21 are of utmost importance because they prove that the Slovak conquest has been accomplished successfully. The most significant towns of the new country and those of Felvidék in the Hungary of former times show a completely different pattern. The geographical deviation covers deviation of content: the towns that play a central role in the new state can be found in the middle and northern valleys of the rivers flowing southwards. The towns that were subject to intended development after 1918 make up the new town structure of the new country. In the first period (1918-1945), the towns to be developed were selected according to political points of view, in the second period (1945-1989) for the purposes of industrial development. In the current period (1989-), towns with a high number of professionals have been established by setting up service-providing offices and plants representing modernization, by planned development. This new kind of town network exerts gravitation on the much less developed, more remote towns with much less important economic weight, mostly along the long southern border, and also on the settlements in the backward central and eastern parts of the country. This geographical separation and this town structural separation are proof of regional separation. Developed and backward regions have appeared in the country, and these regional differences have emerged in the new country, on the basis of the new town structure. The most important towns of the present exert gravitation and determine the direction of the migration of people, labour force and capital. Bratislava and Košice, the two largest cities, can be found at either end of this new town-structural arch. They are not only the initiators, organizers and gravitation centres of the new town structure; they also have their own gravitation towards other countries. The country has successfully been developed into a region. 60
