Regional Disparities in Sustainable Development of Slovenia—Cohesion or Marginalization?

Abstract

In the past decades, balancing regional development and guiding it towards sustainability goals has proven to be a difficult challenge in Slovenia. Since sustainable development strives to eliminate any kind of marginalization, this chapter investigates social, economic and environmental regional disparities in the country, proceeding from the assumption that regions failing to follow the sustainability requirements will over time become marginalized. In order to measure the progress towards sustainability goals, a set of thirty-two indicators was selected for the period 1996-2000 and the indicators were later on calculated also for the period 2010–2014. A comparison of the results of these two studies is presented as well as their comparison with the findings of other development evaluations used by Slovenian government (i.e. development risk index for statistical regions and coefficient of the development for municipalities). In both periods studied the analysis showed that interregional disparities are the greatest in the economic sphere and the smallest in the environmental sphere. According to the value of the synthetic indicator of sustainable regional development the six westernmost regions have maintained above average (positive) values and the other six regions have below average (negative) values. This dividing line between the eastern and western part of the country is mainly the consequence of greater development disparities in the social and economic spheres. In general, it is impossible to claim that the disparities among Slovenian regions are growing or declining, since very diverse trends are recorded in different areas. However, the prevailing development model in the country is still unsustainable, especially when taking into account the growing ecological footprint, the extent of the use of natural resources as well as the consequent pressures on the environment’s carrying capacity.