The Post-Socialist Metropolis: From Mono to Poly-Centricity
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| Year of publication | 2008 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The socialist cities were characterized by strong compactness and monocentricity. City centers accommodated large share of administration and retail and hierarchically organized secondary centers dwarfed in their shadow. Suburbanization has not developed and suburban areas accounted for only small share of population and negligible share on jobs. This situation rapidly changed with the transformation towards market economy. Under capitalist condition, suburbanization developed rapidly. Importantly, non residential decentralization got strong impetus with foreign firms expanding on new markets. Shopping parks, warehousing, distribution and industries and even first signs of offices started to form new suburban nuclei. These new suburban areas act as job centers that are reshaping the internal organization of post-socialist metropolitan areas. These job centers are new commuting to work destinations. Importantly, the character of low-paid jobs located in areas of residential suburbanization of wealthy generates socio-spatially reverse commuting flows signaling the development of spatial mismatch between the development of places of work and housing. Furthermore, shopping and entertainment centers offer services to population having major impact on the time-space allocation of activities and mobility in metropolitan spaces. For instance, the direction of travel for shopping has completely reversed in past 15 years. The paper is using data on population, jobs and commuting in detail spatial breakdown to document transformations in the spatial organization of pot-socialist metropolis in the period 1991-2001. Empirically, it analyses Prague and Brno, two metropolitan areas in the Czech Republic. The purpose of the paper is to show the ongoing transformation from mono to polycentric structure. Furthermore, the paper argues that the ways of the spatial integration of metropolitan areas is changing substantially with hierarchical centripetal ties to city centre being supplemented with centrifugal relations to new suburban job and service centers. A more complex spatial integration of metropolitan areas is developed with a plurality of hierarchical and reciprocal relations between the city and settlements in its suburban zone. Despite this transformation is rather in its initial phase, we can already document the major ongoing trends and attempt to assess the anticipated future developments. |
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