Metropolization and regional development in Czechia during the transformation period

Abstract

Roughly 60% of the population of the state and almost 70% of its economy are concentrated in metropolitan areas. Fundamental social changes after 1989 encouraged an increase in their development dynamism, but also deepened the differences in it. Significant polarity of the growth dynamism between the Prague metropolitan area on the one hand, and four metropolitan areas with a dominance of heavy industry (metropolitan areas of Ostrava, Ústí nad Labem, Most and Karlovy Vary) on the other, were typical of the first transformation decade (1991–2001). In the second decennium (2001–2011), the regional differentiation of development was smaller, but the total dynamism of territorial concentration of both the population and economy kept growing. The Prague area may have retained the fastest development, but not on such an extreme level as in the first decade. The main development polarisation shifted to the level “metropolitan areas – other non-metropolitan areas”.