THE EFFECT OF ADMINISTRATIVE REGIONAL STRUCTURING ON THE SPATIAL CON-NECTION OF SETTLEMENTS IS SOMOGY COUNTY
Abstract
The spatial connections of settlements develop fundamentally in two ways. The first is the organic and autonomous development based on the social division of labour changing historically, as well as on the relevance surplus and local energy different in each locus. In addition to the natural conditions, this process is mainly regulated by the bottom-up social and economic factors. The second way of development is the administrative act, which divides through political and authority decisions. Consequently, it is the prevailing power that has the opportunity to develop the regional structuring structure which it deems the most suitable to enforce the central will.
During the second half of the 20th century, there was no county or intra-county regional structuring unit in Hungary which had not been changed. This change occurred on the intra-county level several times. As the first step of a study planned to be more extensive, and after the examination of Borsod-Abaúj County - which underwent the most changes and bears numerous anomalies - I analysed the “less problematic” Somogy County in two respects:
– the changes in administrative regional structuring and their effects from 1948 to today,
– the network of each settlement and the classic administrative, law enforcement administration, criminal enforcement and justice institutions, as well as the land registry district institutions (as the most common venue of administration for citizens) in the present district structure.
The results of the research showed that the current 246 settlements of Somogy County underwent multiple changes over the period examined. During this period, 47.9% of the settlements belonged to the same administrative centre, while 38.2% of the settlements belonged to two, 6.5% to three, 6.9% to four, while 0.5% belonged to five different administrative centres.
Currently, the residents of five districts (Barcsi, Kaposvári, Marcali, Nagyatádi, Siófoki) can administer their affairs at the same centre. In the case of two such centers (Csurgói, Tabi), this possibility is restricted to conventional public administration affairs (there are no police quarters, prosecutor’s office, court, or land registry in these districts), whereas in the Fonyód district, one has no other choice but to seek out two district centres (as the land registry operates in Balatonboglár).
