RURAL RENEWAL OR DEPOPULATION? RURAL MIGRATION TRENDS OF THE VISEGRÁD COUNTRIES WITH AN EMPHASIS ON THE CENTRE-PERIPHERY RELATIONS

Abstract

The nineteen-seventies marked a turnaround in the rural migration patterns and the beginning of counterurbanisation in the United States and many Western European countries. The destination area of the counterurban migrants is outside of the metropolitan areas and functional urban areas. Although the changing rural migration patterns can be partially explained with the new spatial division of labour, a large part of the movements are motivated by lifestyle strategies, pursuing natural amenities. In the countries of the Visegrád Group, because of their lagging development and the interventions of the socialist regimes, preceding stages of the urbanisation process dominated till the political and economic transition. After the transition, not counterurbanisation, but suburbanisation emerged as the most noticeable rural migration process. Moreover, remote rural areas not only became a possible destination for migrants seeking natural amenities but also for low-class people losing their livelihood in the urban areas after the economic transition.

The aim of my research is to examine the extent of migration turnaround in the rural areas of the Visegrád countries, with a focus on the differences between central and peripheral areas. Firstly I selected the local administrative units (Lau-2) of the Visegrád Group which can be considered rural. The overall migration balance of the distinguished rural units turned to positive after the economic transition.

I used the temporal distance of large and middle-sized cities to describe the central or peripheral location of the rural municipalities. I analysed the correlation between migration balance and temporal distance of large and middle-sized cities in five categories: capital cities, cities with more than 400000 inhabitants (only in Poland), cities with more than 100000 inhabitants, cities with more than 50000 inhabitants and cites with more than 30000 inhabitants. The results showed that distance from the urban centres still play a key role in the ability of the rural settlements to attract and sustain population. In Hungary and Slovakia, the temporal distance of the capital showed the strongest correlation with the migration balance. In Poland, the temporal distance of cities with more than 100000 inhabitants, while in the Czech Republic, the temporal distance from cities with more than 50000 inhabitants proved to be the most significant.