Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
3. The settlement structure of Slovakia
Town planning in (Czecho)Slovakia tlements without any central functions. Even this settlement group was subdivided into two further groups, one of non-central settlements of special importance and the other of non-central settlements of ordinary importance. The settlements belonging to the latter group were restricted in their development, because they were not allowed to mark out new areas for building housing estates but could only restore the existing ones. Institutions and service-providing facilities in such settlements could only be established in accordance with party directives. It is obvious that the 1977 and 1982 plans complement rather than cancel out each other. The plans of 1977 defined broader frames, those of 1982 focused on improvement, on the medium and lower levels. This also was in accordance with the attempts to solve the political crisis of 1968. The issue of large cities can also be approached from another aspect. In a historically fairly short period of time, the towns in Slovakia underwent rapid and significant changes as far as both the number of inhabitants and functions are concerned. In 1910 there were only three towns with more than 20,000 inhabitants: Bratislava, Košice and Komárno. In 1950 there were ten such towns, but Komárno was not one of them. At the time of the 1991 census there were 38 towns with a population of over 20,000 people, and in 2001 there were 40. Mention must be made of the fact that comparison of the particular censuses is rather difficult as the statistical office has modified the census results of the particular year retrospectively. Present-day statistical publications also calculate the population number of the individual settlements retrospectively, according to the present administrative boundaries. Consequently, they add the population numbers concerning villages in the past to that of the towns they were attached to later. The zigzag curve of population increase was mostly due to whether the surrounding settlements had been attached to or detached from the town, according to the current political interest. This method also had its influence on the emergence of gravitation areas, since this method of population increase was so common in the Czechoslovakia of the time that the new areas, i.e. enlarged towns and cities, concealed the new demographic situation. The increase of the urban population by administrative means only made easier rather than visible the population increase of former villages and, actually, this took place within the boundaries of the town. Most people continued commuting from the villages not far from the town. Before the large housing estates of pre-fabricated blocks had been built, the people arriving from 83
