5.5 Conclusions
The real political change in 1989 was replaced by 1990 in the analysis since the
most important economical changes occurred in 1990. It was a year when a lot of
private enterprises and companies came into being. It substantially changed the
relation between people and production, and people and the service sector. It was
also the starting year of activities of international organizations in Czechoslovakia –
previous country of the Czech and Slovak Republics. Higher economical power of a
certain part of the society appeared. Impacts of the change in cities were analyzed
using land use and other indicators. One of them was even visually detectable –
road traffic.
To determine the differences between two political and therefore also economical periods, three approaches were applied. Fourteen attributes were analyzed –
land use, number of inhabitants and its growth, ratios calculated from number of
inhabitants and land use areas, and road traffic intensity – are processed in this
chapter.
The first method shows development of individual indicators in discrete years –
in this chapter in 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2005 for two given periods: 1970–
1990 (communist regime) and 1990–2005 (democratic regime). These graphs were
processed for selected 14 indicators (each indicator in an individual graph for one
city group) show clearly how different the two political regimes are (see Table 5.3).
The development of residential areas in all city groups was relatively unchanged.
They grew in both periods, however, the growth gradients were different – higher in
the democratic regime. The higher growth started shortly after 1990. A similar
situation occurred in production areas. Distinctive differences can be found in
recreational areas where different behavior suggests in small cities than in medium
and big cities.
More distinctive values presented in the graph system were the ratios of the
number of inhabitants and individual land use areas. All these ratios had an
increasing trend in the first period and a decreasing trend in the second period
even though most land use areas increased since 1970s. The values in an objective
way describe the differences between the regimes in land use connected to the
number of inhabitants. These calculated indicators are more useful for determining
differences.
It is a quick evaluation when all necessary data are available. To make the result
clearer, the gradient of growth and decline can be calculated. The advantage of the
first method is its simplicity, easy visualization, calculation of trends individually
for individual indicators. The disadvantage of the method is the missing information on mutual dependencies among indicators. It should be taken into account if we
would like to understand the changes in the land use indicators under different
political regimes.
Road traffic intensity is an indicator which clearly shows the differences
between both regimes. Therefore this indicator was used as a dependent variable
to find which indicators of urban areas influence the intensity.
106
L. Halounova ´ and V. Holubec
The real political change in 1989 was replaced by 1990 in the analysis since the
most important economical changes occurred in 1990. It was a year when a lot of
private enterprises and companies came into being. It substantially changed the
relation between people and production, and people and the service sector. It was
also the starting year of activities of international organizations in Czechoslovakia –
previous country of the Czech and Slovak Republics. Higher economical power of a
certain part of the society appeared. Impacts of the change in cities were analyzed
using land use and other indicators. One of them was even visually detectable –
road traffic.
To determine the differences between two political and therefore also economical periods, three approaches were applied. Fourteen attributes were analyzed –
land use, number of inhabitants and its growth, ratios calculated from number of
inhabitants and land use areas, and road traffic intensity – are processed in this
chapter.
The first method shows development of individual indicators in discrete years –
in this chapter in 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2005 for two given periods: 1970–
1990 (communist regime) and 1990–2005 (democratic regime). These graphs were
processed for selected 14 indicators (each indicator in an individual graph for one
city group) show clearly how different the two political regimes are (see Table 5.3).
The development of residential areas in all city groups was relatively unchanged.
They grew in both periods, however, the growth gradients were different – higher in
the democratic regime. The higher growth started shortly after 1990. A similar
situation occurred in production areas. Distinctive differences can be found in
recreational areas where different behavior suggests in small cities than in medium
and big cities.
More distinctive values presented in the graph system were the ratios of the
number of inhabitants and individual land use areas. All these ratios had an
increasing trend in the first period and a decreasing trend in the second period
even though most land use areas increased since 1970s. The values in an objective
way describe the differences between the regimes in land use connected to the
number of inhabitants. These calculated indicators are more useful for determining
differences.
It is a quick evaluation when all necessary data are available. To make the result
clearer, the gradient of growth and decline can be calculated. The advantage of the
first method is its simplicity, easy visualization, calculation of trends individually
for individual indicators. The disadvantage of the method is the missing information on mutual dependencies among indicators. It should be taken into account if we
would like to understand the changes in the land use indicators under different
political regimes.
Road traffic intensity is an indicator which clearly shows the differences
between both regimes. Therefore this indicator was used as a dependent variable
to find which indicators of urban areas influence the intensity.
106
L. Halounova ´ and V. Holubec