Impact of Polycentric Urban Systems on Intra-regional Disparities: A Micro-regional Approach

Abstract

From the normative perspective of EU regional policy, polycentric spatial development has been seen as an effective tool to overcome regional disparities since the adoption of the European Spatial Development Perspective. However, the impact of a polycentric spatial structure on equal spatial development is ambiguous and still waits for its clarification. This paper examines the relationship by focusing on the local scale, where medium-sized towns play a crucial role as local centres in everyday human lives. Using functional regions of the Czech Republic, this paper defines polycentric urban systems at the micro-regional scale. Subsequently, the level of mono/polycentricity is compared with intra-regional disparities. Based on the results of the analysis, it can be argued that the connection of polycentricity with balanced spatial development is strongly determined by selected indicators. However, the findings do not provide evidence about the strictly positive impact of polycentricity on intra-regional disparities. In a light of these results, the conclusion is rather sceptical about the unique role of polycentricity in spatial development and due to the lack of similar studies, further research is recommended.

Keywords:

• spatial development
• polycentricity
• intra-regional disparities
• Czech Republic

Notes

1 The ambiguity of spatial planning concepts sometimes becomes an advantage. Davoudi (2005) connects such positive political perception of polycentricity to the projection of positive perspective. She claims that “people of different convictions can sign up to them (i.e. ambiguous concepts) without committing themselves to any particular interpretation or any particular application” (Davoudi, 2005, p. 433).

2 According to the ESDP, the European central economic area (so-called Pentagon) is defined by the metropolises of London, Paris, Milan, Munich and Hamburg (CEC, 1999).

3 Green (2007, p. 2084) has conceptualized network density as “the ratio of actual connections to total potential connections”.

4 Traditional deductive approach determines the centres first and then gradually other settlements that are integrated to the centre by strength ties. A limitation of this approach is the assumption of nodal character of a region and the ignorance of alternative functional and spatial arrangement of urban systems (see e.g. Nystuen & Dacey, 1961; Holmes & Haggett, 1977).

5 Number of jobs = economically active population + in-commuters – out-commuters (data collected from Czech Statistical Office, 2014a).

6 Balanced spatial distribution of cities has not been taken into account as a considerable number of regions are small spatial units where distribution of cities across the territory is not a significant factor. Presumption of mutual daily commute distances between centres is established by functional regionalization. Moreover, when assessing polycentricity at the micro-regional scale, the clustering of cities is a more important factor than balanced spatial distribution of cities (Parr, 2004).

7 The POLYREG project aimed at research on polycentric regional development in the Czech Republic, supported by the Ministry of Regional Development (under programme “Research into Solutions to Regional Disparities”)

8 The Gini coefficient normalization by Raffinetti et al. (2014) has been used for measuring the crude net migration rate. In contrast to the standard Gini coefficient, the normalized Gini coefficient is also defined for negative values and negative average. Thus, in the case of net migration (where distribution involves also negative values) the normalization is necessary.

Additional information

Funding

This paper has been written within the scope of long-term institutional support of the Institute of Geonics AS CR, ID no. 68145535.