Introduction
The purpose of this study is to describe the developmental changes in Slovakia’s socio-spatial situation in a wider historical context. We wish to focus on prof iling differentiating and polaris-ing tendencies in the Slovak society and their socio-spatial impact in terms of settlements and regions.
Slovakia’s current socio-spatial situation is the product of a whole range of social changes which Slovak society and its spatial organisation have undergone. These were stages whose changes were of a short-term or long-term nature, as was the extent of their impact on the spatial organisation of society (at various spatial le -vels). The historically most important changes undoubtedly include the changes from an agrarian to an industrial society, and from a rural to an urban society. This was related to changes in housing, in the settled environment and its physical and spatial structures, changes in the settlements themselves, in their social structure and social environment, their way of life, environment etc.
The results of these changes were reflected in the society’s socio-spatial situation, which is a process of constant change in which both people’s everyday activities and the influences of a macro-social and supranational (now global) level are also apparent.
The socio-spatial situation is characterised by a set of specif ic components (social and non-social) which are part of the soci-ety’s living situation. Its contents are bounded in the f irst instance
The study has been realised within the conf ines of the research entitled “Social Polarisation in the Hungarian and Eastern-Central European ‘New Town’
Regions: Impacts of Transition and Globalisation” (K 106169), funded by the National Research, Development and Innovation Off ice.
by the historical dimension/ development. Slovakia’s current sociospatial situation is the result of continuing historical deve -lopment and ref lects a whole range of factors which are active in the long term and whose change is gradual.
Fundamental changes have taken place in Slovakia’s socio-spa-tial situation in several periods, stages when the specif ic impacts of processes appeared, changing the social, demographic, cultu -ral, settlement and infrastructure components of society’s socio-spatial situation. In our work, we wish to focus, in particular, on two main stages in the development of Slovakia’s socio-spatial situation.
In the course of the 20thcentury and its period of pre-transfor-mation (1930/50 – 1989), however, several central stages can be defined, differing in terms of their dynamics, the range of changes and their impact on society and its socio-spatial situation. The most important and widestranging changes took place in the se -cond half of the 20thcentury and are associated with the significant effects of the processes of industrialisation and urbanisation. Their consequences were reflected in the fundamental change in the socio-spatial organisation of the life of society and they also have had important modernising effects on the society. The timeline of the central changes suggest that the majority of these changes took place during the period of Socialism, which was characterised by directive management, centralisation and state paternalism.
As a result of the series of changes from 1950 to 1990, the whole of society and the regional structure of built-up areas went through some massive changes. Slovakia entered this period as a very rural country with over 70% of its population living in rural municipalities, with a positive yearly growth rate in the rural po pu -lation in all age categories, and ended as a country with over 56%
of its population living in towns and with an average yearly fall in the population of rural villages in all age categories by the begin-ning of the 1990s.
During the second – transformational – period from 1990, asso-ciated with complex changes in Slovak society, the dominant fac-tor became globalism and the growth of world economy, affecting all spatial levels and social segments of society. During this period, new factors and actors at a global level entered into the formation and development of society’s socio-spatial situation, without any direct links to a particular territory or settlement. The impact of
globally-active political, social, cultural and economic processes which no longer have an immediate relationship with the systems of settlement of the socialist past is increasing. The sources and Map 2: Territorial and administrative organisation of Slovakia (regions, districts)
Source: The author’s own edition
consequences of differentiating and polarising processes taking place both in the vertical and horizontal structure of society are also partially changing.
In our study we seek to point out the developmental changes in the socio-spatial situation in Slovakia. Emphasis will be placed mainly on the period after 1989, when fundamental changes took place in the nature of Slovak society, although since the aim is to present the historical development of Slovakia’s socio-spatial situ ation, I consider it necessary to describe the pre-transforma-tion period, when fundamental processes of differentiapre-transforma-tion took place, some of the aftermath of which also has an impact on development in the period of transformation and on the conse-quences of globalisation. Particular emphasis will be placed on presenting mainly the social impact of differentiating processes at a regional level, as well as at the level of urban-rural relations. We wish to pay particular attention to developmental changes in towns, as well as in centres of innovation and in the economic and social centres of regions.1