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Spatial Differences in the Transformation Processes Taking Place in Rural Areas of East-Central Europe

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Three Decades of Transformation in the East-Central European Countryside

Abstract

The collapse of the communist system in East-Central Europe was followed by dynamic processes of change in rural areas. The result has been transformation in all sectors of the economy, and also in public and cultural life. While the first decade of that transformation brought intensifying spatial polarisation, that process grew weaker thanks to preparations for, and finally accession to, the European Union. The main goal of the work detailed here has been to identify and assess selected socio-economic processes ongoing in the countryside. In this, special attention has been paid to changes in the spatial and functional structuring of rural areas in the selected CEECs. The Czech Republic and Slovakia are found to show the greatest stability where the situation in rural areas is concerned. In contrast, transformation processes in Poland and Hungary have been more dynamic, giving rise to increasing socioeconomic disparities between rural areas; while it is rural areas in Romania that have been hit hardest by change.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On January 1st 1993, the place of Czechoslovakia was taken by the two new states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

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Acknowledgements

Publication prepared under the research projects of the National Science Centre (Poland), nb. UMO-2016/23/B/HS4/00421, Models of agriculture transformation in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Eastern Bloc—review of achievements, determinants and development scenarios.

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  1. Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland

    Jerzy Bański

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  1. Jerzy Bański
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Correspondence to Jerzy Bański .

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  1. Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Warsaw, Poland

    Jerzy Bański

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Bański, J. (2019). Spatial Differences in the Transformation Processes Taking Place in Rural Areas of East-Central Europe. In: Bański, J. (eds) Three Decades of Transformation in the East-Central European Countryside. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21237-7_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21237-7_1

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