Elsevier

Cities

Volume 127, August 2022, 103742
Cities

Functional types of suburban settlements around two differently sized Czech cities

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2022.103742Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Semi-suburbs, suburbs, small suburban towns, and exurbs were first distinguished.

  • Besides to the residential function, small suburban cities have a service function.

  • New centres of suburban commuting were created by the commercial suburbanisation.

  • Some suburbs and semi-suburbs have a recreational function thanks to holiday cabins.

  • Suburban settlements around the regional city have less functional diversity.

Abstract

While the suburban landscape around the North American cities is typical with a large functional diversity of settlements, around the Czech cities this diversity is still small. Recently, some Czech suburban settlements have gained new functions. Their suburban-residential function was step-by-step supplemented by service, commercial, working or leisure-time functions. The paper describes and explains the current functional differentiation of suburban settlements around two different-sized Czech cities – the capital city of Prague (transect south of Prague) and the regional capital city of České Budějovice (hinterland of city). Suburbs and semi-suburbs only with suburban residential function predominate in both case study areas. But in the transect south of Prague, new small suburban towns with services for surrounding settlements have evolved. In addition, new hypermarkets, retail centres and warehouses were created alongside the highways as a consequence of commercial suburbanisation. Residential suburbanisation there also encounters recreation in second-home cabins. Settlements in the suburban zone of České Budějovice have even smaller functional diversity. This regional capital city provides them with services and job opportunities.

Introduction

The process of suburbanisation in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) was largely interrupted during the socialist period 1948–1989 (Bertaud & Renaud, 1997; Kok & Kovács, 1999; Musil & Ryšavý, 1983; Tammaru, 2001; Tammaru, 2005).1 Instead, the intensive development of large pre-fab housing estates on the edges of socialist cities had characteristics of urbanisation, especially to the extent that new apartments were mostly offered to a labour force living generally in the countryside, and only a few people resettled to these estates from the cities (Ouředníček et al., 2018). However, since the late 1990s, and following a fundamental transformation of the political, economic, and social system, residential suburbanisation in the form of migration from cities to settlements around cities has become the dominant process in changes to settlement systems within CEE countries, accompanied by the construction of new housing (Borén & Gentile, 2007; Sýkora & Stanilov, 2014 and others). People in the newly formed middle and upper classes of post-socialist cities, especially younger, educated, and high-earning couples with children, sought better and quieter living in suburban zones, in moving to family houses with gardens. However, since the economic crisis of 2008, suburbanisation has slowed down, as seen in the case of Czechia (Kubeš & Chvojková, 2020; Sýkora & Mulíček, 2014). Nonetheless, suburbanisation around the largest Czech cities remains strong (Ouředníček et al., 2020).

We argue that during the process of post-socialist residential suburbanisation, the villages around cities have gradually transformed from rural settlements to semi-suburbs (settlements with partial suburbanisation – Kubeš, 2015) and then to suburbs. The original farmsteads and other older houses, where the villages' inhabitants live, are located in the core, while new, mostly detached family houses, where the suburbanites live, are located on the edges. In this way, the suburbs have a partially polarised social and demographic structure (Špačková & Ouředníček, 2012). Suburbanisation has also affected some small towns near the cities to varying degrees. Near large cities and along major roads and highways, new areas of commercial suburbanisation are growing (Nuissl & Rink, 2005; Ptáček & Szczyrba, 2007; Sýkora & Ouředníček, 2007).

Our main objective herein is to describe and explain the causes of functional differentiation of suburban settlements in the settlement system of Czechia through analyses of two case study areas – the hinterlands of Prague, the capital city of Czechia, and the regional capital city of České Budějovice. Scholars have not yet studied comprehensively the functional differentiation of suburban settlements in post-socialist CEE countries. Post-socialist suburbanisation changed the originally rural character of the areas that surround Czech cities considerably, and brought new functions to former villages. Changes in the form and functions of settlements around Czech cities are crucial in the transformation of the Czech settlement system. Consequently, we aim to answer the following research questions:

  • (i)

    What are the basic types of suburban settlements in the case study areas, given their sizes, locations, and the importance of suburban-residential function?

  • (ii)

    Which functions and functional types of suburban settlements within the settlement system does the literature distinguish, and which are useful for functional classification of Czech suburban settlements?

  • (iii)

    What functions do suburban settlements in the case study areas fulfil in addition to their suburban-residential (bedroom) function – for example, do they have a service or industrial function?

  • (iv)

    Which functional types of settlements occur around the case study areas, what is the cause of their occurrence, and how are they distributed in the suburban hinterlands of the two case study cities?

We agree with Mikelbank that defining the types of settlements in suburban zones “serves as a springboard from which the behaviour of complex and diverse (suburban) phenomena can be more clearly understood” (Mikelbank, 2004, p. 936). Moreover, typologies of suburban settlements and landscapes help practitioners to plan and develop these settlements (see Forsyth, 2012; Šveda & Pazúr, 2018; or Mantey & Sudra, 2019). We believe these statements apply to both basic and functional types of suburban settlements.

Section snippets

Functions and functional types of suburban settlements

Although some relatively autonomous suburbs were established near English cities during the eighteenth century, the intensive development of suburbs associated with commuting to cities by car was first observed in the United States during the 1930s (Harris, 2010). These US residential (bedroom) suburbs were designed for car-equipped, middle-class migrants from cities, who daily commuted to work and for services localised in the city (Cohen, 1996; Harris, 1943). They took the form of areas of

Case study areas

The continuously built-up area of Prague has 1.25 million inhabitants (2021). According to Ouředníček et al. (2020), approximately 820,000 people live in the suburban zone of Prague. At the turn of the millennium, in addition to strong residential suburbanisation, commercial suburbanisation developed along several highways leading out of the city. The Prague study area (transect) is located in the southern part of Prague hinterland (Fig. 1). The landscape of the northern part of the area is a

Methodology

For the purpose of our analyses, we defined residential suburbanisation as migration of suburbanites from the city to the settlements around the city as supplemented by the construction of new suburban houses for suburbanites. Suburbanites and the original inhabitants mostly commute to the city to work. Thus, suburban settlements are characterised by large population growth, a significant proportion of suburbanites and newly built suburban houses, and a link to the city through commuting (

Basic and functional types of suburban settlements in the case study areas

The evolution of a settlement towards a semi-suburb and subsequently to village-core suburb is influenced not only by the settlement's distance from the city and its location along key roads, but also by additional conditions, such as the availability and price of building plots, activities of suburban developers, preferences and strategies of municipal representatives on suburban development, restrictions resulting from spatial planning, and attractiveness of the landscape near the settlement (

Discussion

In the Prague study area, distant suburbs and semi-suburbs have formed up to 30 km from the continuously built-up area of Prague. In the case of the hinterland of České Budějovice with a population of less than 100,000 inhabitants, semi-suburbs and distant suburbs have formed up to 13 km. In the USA, suburbs near highways can be found up to 80 km from large cities (Rae & Nelson, 2017), in Germany up to 60 km (Volgmann & Rusche, 2020), and in Poland up to 40 km (Lityński, 2021). The interface

Conclusions

Strong suburbanisation developed around the capital city of Prague since the mid-1990s, while it was nearly non-existent under socialism. It spread through spatial hierarchical diffusion. In the late 1990s, suburbanisation occurred around the Czech regional capital cities and, at the turn of the millennium, around other larger towns. Suburban settlements (semi-suburbs, suburbs, semi-suburban and suburban small towns) grew out of villages. Suburban residents mostly maintain links to the city

Declaration of competing interest

I don't know what to write there. The article is fine, we wrote it, we do not know of any conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The article was created within the project of the Czech Science Foundation – grant number 18-14510S ‘Contemporary changes of social milieu within the Czech suburbs’.

References (95)

  • R. Argenbright et al.

    Directed suburbanization in a changing context: “New Moscow” today

    Eurasian Geography and Economics

    (2020)
  • C. Atkinson-Palombo

    New housing construction in Phoenix: Evidence of “new suburbanism”?

    Cities

    (2010)
  • B. Baccaini

    Types and causes of recent growth in the suburban districts of Ile-de-France

    Population

    (1997)
  • A. Bajerski

    Organizacja przestrzenna i funkcjonowanie uslug edukacyjnych w aglomeracji poznańskiej

    (2011)
  • D. Balizs et al.

    Cross-border suburbanisation around Bratislava – changing social, ethnic and architectural character of the “Hungarian suburb” of the slovak capital

    Geografický Časopis

    (2019)
  • H. Balzer

    Routinization of the new Russians?

    The Russian Review

    (2003)
  • A. Bertaud et al.

    Socialist cities without land markets

    Journal of Urban Economics

    (1997)
  • A. Berube et al.

    Finding Exurbia: America's Fast-growing Communities at the Metropolitan Fringe

    (2006)
  • M. Bontje et al.

    Edge cities, European-style: Examples from Paris and the Randstad

    Cities

    (2005)
  • T. Borén et al.

    Metropolitan processes in post-communist states: An introduction

    Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography

    (2007)
  • L.S. Bourne

    Reinventing the suburbs: Old myths and new realities

    Progress in Planning

    (1996)
  • T. Brabec et al.

    The role of developers in the formation of gated communities in Prague

    AUC Geographica

    (2015)
  • D.L. Brown et al.

    Population deconcentration in Hungary during the post-socialist transformation

    Journal of Rural Studies

    (2002)
  • T. Chuman et al.

    Spatial pattern of suburbanization in the Czech Republic

  • L. Cohen

    From town center to shopping center: the reconfiguration of community marketplaces in postwar America

    The American Historical Review

    (1996)
  • T. Cooke et al.

    The changing intrametropolitan location of high-poverty neighbourhoods in the US, 1990–2000

    Urban Studies

    (2006)
  • J.S. Davis et al.

    The new burbs: The exurbs and their implications for planning policy

    Journal of the American Planning Association

    (1994)
  • D. Fialová

    Regional differentiation of second housing transformation in Czechia

    Acta Universitatis Carolinae Geographica

    (2003)
  • R. Fishman

    Bourgeois utopias: The rise and fall of suburbia

    (1987)
  • A. Forsyth

    Defining suburbs

    Journal of Planning Literature

    (2012)
  • M. Fujita et al.

    The Spatial Economy – Cities, Regions and Inter-national Trade

    (2000)
  • J. Garreau

    Edge City: Life on the New Frontier

    (1992)
  • A. Haase et al.

    Reurbanisation in postsocialist Europe - A comparative view of eastern Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic

    Comparative Population Studies

    (2017)
  • M. Halás et al.

    Urbánní a suburbánní prostor olomouce: teoretické přístupy, vymezení, typologie (Urban and suburban space of Olomouc: Theoretical approaches, definition, typology)

    Geografický Časopis

    (2012)
  • M. Hall et al.

    How diverse are US suburbs?

    Urban Studies

    (2010)
  • P. Hall

    Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design Since 1880

    (2014)
  • M. Hampl et al.

    Socio-geographic regionalization of czechia

    Geografie

    (2015)
  • B. Hanlon et al.

    The new metropolitan reality in the US: Rethinking the traditional model

    Urban Studies

    (2006)
  • C.D. Harris

    Suburbs

    American Journal of Sociology

    (1943)
  • R. Harris

    Meaningful types in a world of suburbs

  • A. Kährik et al.

    Population composition in new suburban settlements of the Tallinn metropolitan area

    Urban Studies

    (2008)
  • K. Kajdanek

    Is suburban housing in Wrocław gated and why?

  • V. Kataure et al.

    The good, the bad, and the suburban tracing North American theoretical debates about ethnic enclaves, ethnic suburbs, and housing preference

  • R. Keil

    Suburban planet

    (2018)
  • H. Kok et al.

    The process of suburbanisation in the agglomeration of Budapest

    Netherlands Journal of Housing and the Built Environment

    (1999)
  • T. Kostelecký

    Political behavior in metropolitan areas in the Czech Republic between 1990 and 2002 – Patterns, trends, and the relation to suburbanization and its socio-spatial patterns

    (2005)
  • Z. Krisjane et al.

    Who are the typical commuters in the post-socialist metropolis? The case of RigaLatvia

    Cities

    (2012)
  • J. Kubeš

    Analysis of regulation of residential suburbanisation in hinterland of post-socialist ‘one hundred thousand’ city of České Budějovice

    Bulletin of Geography, Socio-economic Series

    (2015)
  • J. Kubeš

    Gentrifikace a fyzická modernizace vnitroměstských čtvrtí Českých Budějovic (Gentrification and physical upgrading of inner-city neighbourhoods in the city of České Budějovice)

    Geographia Cassoviensis

    (2017)
  • J. Kubeš et al.

    Back to peripheries based on remoteness. Human capital in the peripheral municipalities of South Bohemia

    Journal of Rural Studies

    (2020)
  • J. Kubeš et al.

    Strategies and measures for preserving rural and increasing suburban primary schools in the district of České BudějoviceCzechia

    Geographia Cassoviensis

    (2019)
  • S. Kurek et al.

    Reurbanisation in a post-socialist city: Spatial differentiation of the population in the Kraków area (Poland)

    Geographia Polonica

    (2018)
  • K. Leetmaa et al.

    Socialist summer-home settlements in post-socialist suburbanisation

    Urban Studies

    (2012)
  • K. Leetmaa et al.

    Suburbanization in countries in transition: Destination of suburubanizers in the Tallinn metropolitan area

    Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography

    (2007)
  • P. Lityński

    The intensity of urban sprawl in Poland

    ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information

    (2021)
  • A. Majewska et al.

    The development of small towns and towns of well-being: Current trends, 30 years after the change in the political system, based on the Warsaw suburban area

    Land Use Policy

    (2022)
  • D. Mantey et al.

    Types of suburbs in post-socialist Poland and their potential for creating public spaces

    Cities

    (2019)
  • View full text