Volume 36 (2017): Edizione 4 (December 2017)

Czechia lost more than 3,000,000 inhabitants as a result of the WW II. Germans displaced from the borderland formed the largest part. The newcomers after 1945 were of a different character – without any relation to their new settlements. This population formed a special social milieu familiar with the socialist way of thinking and that of a suppressed middle class. The consequences of it are seen in demographic, economic, environmental and social areas. After 1989, the factories in the borderland were mostly closed down, armies left the territory, people were not prepared to start their own businesses. Large-scale landscape protection formed a new barrier. Tourism is not able to substitute for the decrease in employment. The hope in cross-border collaboration has been overestimated.

Geographical research on French and US suburbia has concentrated in recent decades on urban sprawl and concomitant processes of devaluation and exclusion. In the case of the French banlieues, with their much-publicised urban riots, this particular analytic focus has become overwhelming, with resultant loss to other developments and perspectives. However, certain districts in the first (or inner) ring of both French and US suburbia are currently showing distinct urbanisation tendencies in planning and architecture, evident in the new usage of brownfield sites and the ongoing demolition, replacement, and rededication of the older building core. Such processes induce population changes, e.g. the displacement of lower in favour of higher income groups. Overall, they result in an architectonic, social and cultural heterogeneity that escapes the specificity of received categories and merits the term hybridisation. The article describes and compares these processes as exemplified in Greater Paris and San Diego (Southern California).

This paper deals with the ways of categorising landscapes as ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ using a physicalist approach, where these terms have special meaning. The aim of this paper is to elaborate on the question whether such a division is still meaningful with regard to anthropogenic landscapes, not least in spatial planning. The concerns raised in this paper depart from the increasingly complicated structure of geographical space, including that of anthropogenic landscapes. Our standpoint is illustrated using cases of landscape ambiguities from Poland, Germany, Romania and Greece. Leaning on frameworks of physicalist (mechanicistic) theory, this paper suggests an explanation to the outlined semantic conflicts. This is done by pointing to the relationality between the impact of centripetal and centrifugal forces, the specifics of socio-economic development, as well as the varying landscape forms that emerge from the differences within that development.

The aim of this paper is to present the genesis and the development of two models of the “leading path” to the integrated management of functional urban areas of voivodeship centres (FUA VC) in Poland in the context of the implementation of the new instrument of the EU’s Cohesion Policy – Integrated Territorial Investments (ITIs). The implementation of ITIs is presented in the light of the inter-commune cooperation in FUA VC, which has been realised variously so far. As examples of the “leading path” to the integrated management based on the ITI, two functional areas have been selected, differing in this respect, Poznań in western Poland (an example of a bottom-up model) and Lublin in its eastern part (an example of a top-down model). In the conclusion, the instrument of ITI was evaluated as a factor which initiates, deepens or complicates the cooperation of local governments in FUAs. It has been emphasised, that in spite of the creation of organisational and financial instruments (ITIs) which activate the cooperation of self-governments in functional areas, one must take into account the need for legislative changes which give a special status to metropolitan areas, income sources and specific powers.

In the following paper, the analyses of morphology of settlements were conducted using graph methods. The intention of the author was to create a quantifiable and simple measure, which, in a quantitative way, would express the degree of development of a graph (the spatial pattern of settlement). When analysing examples of graphs assigned to a set of small towns and large villages, it was noticed that the graph development index should depend on: a relative number of edges in relation to the number of nodes (β index), the number of cycles (urban blocks), which evidences the complexity of the spatial pattern of settlement, and the average rank of nodes of a graph, which expresses the degree of complexity of a street network.

The intention of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on how the factors of socio-economic disadvantage and absorption capacity influence the spatial distribution of Structural Fund (SF) payments among the Czech Republic’s micro-regions during the 2007–2013 programming period. The empirical results indicate that agglomeration economies, innovation and entrepreneurship are associated with higher SF absorption capacity and higher SF payments, challenging the tendency for socio-economically disadvantaged regions to converge. SF absorption capacity measured especially by the number of project applications submitted for SF financing and by the average SF budget per project application, is a crucial concept in order to understand the relationship between within-country regional disparities and SF interventions.

Poverty is a serious problem in Slovakia, and it is concentrated in a few regions. The aim of this paper is to capture the spatial differences in poverty in order to identify the poorest districts and to point to the change in the development of poverty in regions during one decade (2001–2011). It was an important period, because it was when Slovakia joined the EU (2004) and the euro zone (2009), that the financial crisis appeared. Our approach to the topic of poverty is based on an aggregated poverty indicator. The indicator reflects three kinds of risks and a broad spectrum of poverty aspects.

The paper focuses on the implementation of innovations and networking in the sector of tourism in two Slovak mountain destinations of international significance. The main objective of the paper is to identify and evaluate how innovations and networking contribute to tourist destination development in Slovakia. The implementation of institutional innovation resulted in the establishment of formal and informal networks. The developed networks consist of representatives of all sectors co-ordinating all relevant stakeholders. Formal and informal networks and the collaboration among stakeholders have launched other types of innovations in the tourism sector. The interactions and intensity of relations among stakeholders are analysed by network analysis. Destinations are compared with the network of the same size and density through quantitative network characteristics. Based on empirical research we investigate the impact of networks and innovations on tourist destination development. Due to the synergy effect of networking and implementation of multiple innovations, tourist destination development is observed.

Especially since the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe (2011), Germany has expanded its renewably sourced energies. Nuclear power is to be phased out by 2022. What is central to federal policy is the expansion of wind-generated energy. Plans for new wind farms have, however, faced opposition. And the transportation of electricity from the windy north to the high-use south entails an expansion of the existing power grid, which also provokes conflict. The article scrutinises dominant patterns of discourse on these issues. Based on current discourse theory, the research sheds light on the argumentative power of citizens’ initiatives with respect to nature conservation, landscape, health and economics.

Human communities have always taken actions to create a healthier environment for living and working. Those efforts are best documented in the architectural structure everywhere, starting from ancient history to the present. It is assumed that the town of Ulcinj is one of the earliest cities on the Adriatic coast. The building morphology and urban structure of Ulcinj is 2,500 years old and is continued by multi-ethnical society. Hence, the urban structure of Ulcinj developed harmonically across the rock hills which encompass the city beach, forming the urban structure which is perceived as the unity of land and sea. The study investigates the Ulcinj urban structure, urban management, sustainable development, focusing on human comfort, and environmental actions with a view to accomplish better and more natural life. Bioclimatic passive design principles are associated with an environmental sustainable design, interrelated to the microclimate of the region, connected to the thermal, spatial, visual, acoustic, and air quality. The research method consists of empirical observation through the city and riviera. According to the conceptual findings of this paper, with a proper implementation of bioclimatic passive principles, the work seeks to indicate that it is possible to achieve a higher level than the current one. Hence, the huge number of tourists and overnight stays can make a difference in eco-tourism, and sustainable development if we can achieve energy efficiency, and preserve the natural resources in accordance with passive bioclimatic principles.

This study aims to analyse food sovereignty strategies in an effort to eradicate poverty in a micro-scale region by strengthening its food security status. The research was conducted in the Kutai Kartanegara District East Kalimantan Province in Indonesia. Food insecurity status in the study area was determined based on nine food security indicators. The 237 villages in the Kutai Kartanegara District were ranked based on four classifications of vulnerability to food insecurity. The results showed that 3.80% of the villages were highly vulnerable, 5.06% were vulnerable, 8.86% were slightly vulnerable and 82.28% were food secure. While Kutai Kartanegara was a food secure district, in order to maintain its food security status and enhance the performance of the villages that are still vulnerable to food insecurity, local government, and related stakeholders must work together to develop strategies to improve agricultural productivity, increase the region’s human resources capability and strengthen its infrastructure so food can be more readily accessed.

This article provides the results of classroom research involving university students training to be secondary school teachers of geography and history. The research is based on the analysis of a word association test on Europe and the European Union. The results constitute an approach to the geographical and historical representations these students have of their own European continent. This is a fundamental question considering that this collective group is training to teach the contents and values of European geography in secondary school education. From here on, our intention is no other than to carry out an exercise of synthesis and overall reflection on the test results and introduce issues which could generate some debate in the educational community.