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

3. The settlement structure of Slovakia

Town planning in (Czecho)Slovakia

to belong to such a development chain, a town had to strengthen its own local and central role of power. For the development of a town, power and competence had to be acquired and strengthened. Only in this way could towns acquire industries, and then housing estates and supplementary establishments, from the political and official centres above them.

Since industrial development took precedence over all other activities, mention must be made of the town-forming force of industry first, and housing and supply facilities, the actual town development, afterwards.

Figure 6. Towns in Slovakia in 1950

Source: Štatisticky úrad SR, Bratislava Edited by István Mezei, drawn by Máté Mády

According to Mariot(1988), the percentage of industry in Slovakia’s economic life increased from 39.9% to 68% between 1948 and 1985, whereas that of agriculture decreased from 32.3% to 6.6%. Going by the percentage of the employed workers, the leading industries were the machine industry (23.8%), electrical industry (15.04%), food industry (8.4%), chemical and rubber industry (8%), steel industry (5.79%) and fuel industry (3.76%). These industries employed 64.8% of the industrial working class, produced 71.4% of all industrial products, and accounted for 59.95% of the industrial means. Naturally, this does not reduce

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