Volume 29 (2021): Edizione 4 (December 2021)

Very few researchers have focused on the question of: if and to what extent, regional economic disparities affect military base closures. In this paper, we aim to explain regional patterns of military base closures in the Czech Republic, a country that has experienced a sharp decline in military employment and expenditures since the beginning of 1990s. Three groups of predictors of closure were considered: local (size, age, location and hierarchical position of the military base); regional (wages, unemployment, city size, the initial level of militarisation of the district); and national-level predictors (geostrategic priorities and restructuring of the Czech Armed Forces). Our research is informed by the theory of public choice and its application to the decision-making processes concerning military base closures and realignments. We employed a combination of regression models to determine which group of the above-mentioned factors affected the spatial distribution of military bases in the period 1994–2005. While geostrategic factors (such as distance from the border with West Germany) and restructuring of the army (type of a military base) were the most important, regional economic disparities showed no significant correlation with the intensity of military base closures/downsizing. We did not demonstrate that military bases in economically lagging regions had been systematically protected in the Czech Republic.

Research on spatial history can be enriched by using approaches from quantitative geography. We analyse an historical regional system and highlight three basic assumptions, building upon Christaller’s central place theory: cities do not stand alone in space, they interact with their hinterlands, and they are hierarchically organised. We investigate the relative position of central places in space and define their hinterlands using a spatial interaction modelling approach. We present the example of functional regional taxonomy in past environments, which therefore has a higher degree of uncertainty in the results and in their interpretation. We use a variant of Reilly’s model to define the functional regions in Austria-Hungary at the beginning and at the end of the 20^th century. We present a possible interpretation of the model results based on the identification of the major factors responsible for developments in the urban and regional systems of Austria-Hungary over 100 years. We conclude that the development of urban and regional systems in the territory of the former Austria-Hungary was not considerably affected by the role of political-economic systems, the administrative organisation of states, nor by the different stages in economic development of its formerly constituent territories.

Understanding tourist spatial behaviours is essential for strategic planning and sustainable development. Especially at the city-level, data provide implications for spatial planning and transport governance. Intraregional tourist flows to cities contributed significantly to the total volume of tourists within the Central European region before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Given the challenges that urban tourism is currently facing, intraregional tourist flows could be a strategic opportunity for future growth. As a comprehensive assessment of the tourist flows at this spatial level is lacking, the paper aims to evaluate the structure of these flows and discuss the factors that influence their spatial distribution. Statistical data analysis of tourist flows to selected cities in Central Europe is evaluated by multiple linear regression. The results show that the main factors affecting the distribution of tourist flows are air connection, the attractiveness of the destination, and the size of the source market. Tourist flows within Central Europe are fundamentally affected by Germany. This market can be considered the most important source of demand for inbound tourism. Germany's national ties with Austria and Switzerland generated 47% of all trips examined. In this case, the influences of historical ties and the broader socio-economic context are evident.

The Barrier Index is presented in this contribution. The index shows the extent to which spatial units of different sizes are closed off by barriers, influencing society by the different “thickness” and “thinness” of boundaries. The article defines the Index and compares land units with barriers in various details. The calculations were made for spatial units from the scale of parcels to one-hectare areas in selected types of regions, selected geographic regions, and border barriers in selected countries. The Index is useful for crossscale analysis and for identifying the underlying causes and relationships within different cultural, social, and geographical contexts. The example of spatially persistent family structures was used to highlight the underpinning influencing factors that connect the building of barriers at different scales.