CÍMLAP
Mezei István
Urban development in Slovakia
CONTENTS, FOREWORD
Contents
List of tables
List of figures
Foreword
1. Introduction
2. Towns in Felvidék (Upper Hungary) before1918
2.1. The towns of Felvidék (Upper Hungary) according to their population
2.2. Ethnic composition of towns in Felvidék (Upper Hungary)
2.3. Occupational composition of towns in Felvidék (Upper Hungary)
3. The settlements tructure of Slovakia
3.1. Factors forming settlements in Slovakia
3.2. The settlement system of Slovakia
3.3. Urban structure in Slovakia
3.4. The most important steps in the (Czecho)Slovak conquest
3.4.1. Census as a means of statistical Slovakization
3.4.2. Towns as the centres of Slovakization
3.4.3. Subordination of the economy to Czech interests
3.5. The role of the first independent Slovak state in town planning
3.5.1. Bratislava, the old-new capital city
3.6. Town planning in (Czecho)Slovakia
3.6.1. Towns as industrial centres
3.6.2. Towns as the symbols of Slovak grandeur
4. Towns in Slovakia after 1993
4.1. The effect of geopolitics on the urban network
4.2. Administration as a means of organizing the town network
4.3. The connection between transportation and the town system
4.4. The urban development role of the economy
4.5. Education as a new factor of urban development
5. Regional organization in Slovakia
5.1. Bratislava as a macroregional centre
5.2. The administrative region as a development unit
5.3. Regional development role of towns
6. Towns along the Hungarian and Slovak border
6.1. The line of Hungarian and Slovak towns
6.2. Cross-border relations
6.3. The organizational forms of cooperation
6.3.1. Twin-town relations
6.3.2. Relations of euroregions
6.3.3. European Grouping for territorial Cooperation (EGTC)
6.4. Types of cooperation
6.4.1. Project-based cooperation
6.4.2. Plans for the joint organization of services
6.5. Actors of administration
6.5.1. County municipalities
6.5.2. Local governments of settlements
7. Appendix List of Slovak towns in the Hungarian and Slovak languages
8. References
Foreword
There are areas which somehow seem to be familiar. Is it because the
landscape is so spectacular: wooded ranges of mountains, valleys, hilly
landscapes, meadows with meandering rivers or plains with ripening wheat?
However, the Hungarian visitor can also enjoy the towns. The romantic
beauty of the main squares, the size and ornaments of buildings and
churches of different religions are all familiar. They may really evoke
romantic memories, since what Hungarian visitors can see in the different
towns of Felvidék ('Upper Hungary', today Slovakia) are the scenes they
read about in the books of their youth. Wherever they go in the Carpathian
Basin, they have the impression of familiarity, they feel that they have
already seen or read about something similar. The long, common past is
indelibly printed on their memories. It would be great to be able to
read about similar experiences of Slovak, Ruthenian, Romanian, Serbian,
Croatian, Austrian, German, and other travellers in their writings about
the towns of the Carpathian Basin, too. After all, common experiences rest
upon mutuality. This experience could also be mutual; it could be shared
with others, too.
A paper on towns should be objective, because it examines the events and
changes of the present age. Nevertheless, the emerging questions inevitably
raise some aspects of the past. The most important question rooted in the
past is how the original social, linguistic, cultural, religious and human
diversity has survived so many stormy decades. It is a fact that, in the
case of Slovakia, we have witnessed a successful conquest, in so far as
Felvidék, the annexed area, has become a completely new state and, in
accordance with the original Slovak ambition of conquest, a new urban
structure and new regional units have emerged, mostly intentionally, within
the borders of the new state. First, the present account compares the old
and the new, describes the changed conditions and then gives an account of
the new fields of reviving cooperation.
My plan to write about towns along the border taking the whole of
the Slovak urban structure as a starting point is not new. With long
interruptions, I have been writing it for a year. Thanks are due to my
sponsors, who have made it possible for me to write the present book, to
my family and my colleagues for their patience.
An increasing number of books, articles, papers and writings have been
published on Slovakia. Hopefully, the present publication will have its
place among them.
Summer, 2008, Miskolc