Luděk Sýkora

• PhD
• Professor at Charles University in Prague

This article identifies a set of practices through which multiple actors, from the European Commission to local governments, perform the concept of the metropolitan region. It specifically investigates the practices and actions which brought this concept into being in the Prague metropolitan region of Czechia. We uncover how the meanings associated...

The paper aims to understand the relations between segregation, integration, and interaction of Russian immigrants in the city of Prague. Focusing on localities with a high-level concentration of Russians, the paper discusses the choice of residential area and its assessment, future migration plans, and local relations and the nature of everyday so...

This paper investigates differences in population development in the European Union and the United States. The population projections recently published by the United Nations forecast expected a slowdown in growth and a shrinking of the EU population and a continued growth in the US. Therefore, the paper aims to find out which components of populat...

This contribution applies a functional-spatial perspective to the study of small and medium-sized towns. A methodology for functional analysis is developed and tested to identify towns, distinguish towns from cities, and detect town positionality within urban territorial arrangements, focusing on whether they are autonomous, networked with other to...

This paper uses the experience of post-socialist district heating reforms to tell a broader story about the continued and shared challenges that central and eastern European cities face as they grapple with the legacies of the recent and more distant past. We argue that the restructuring of this infrastructural domain has been contingent upon geogr...

This article contributes to the discussion of everyday interactions between a settled majority population and new immigrants in an urban neighbourhood with recent experience of immigration. It analyses daily interactions between the majority population and Vietnamese immigrants in one Prague neighbourhood in an effort to identify both tensions and...

This contribution critically assesses the use of the term " socially excluded (Roma) locality " in politics and in the practice of the Czech public policy towards the situation of the Roma minority. The paper first offers an overview of the genesis of the term within the development of Czech public policy towards Roma. In its conceptual part, it di...

In postsocialist cities, urban environments formed under socialist regimes are being adapted to new conditions shaped by the transition to capitalism. With the establishment of market rules and pluralistic democracy, social practices of individuals, firms, and governments became imprinted in urban landscapes. Urban change has been especially influe...

This chapter summarizes the main features of postsocialist suburbanization on the basis of the evidence presented in our seven cases studies. It highlights the commonalities of the phenomenon as they relate to its historical evolution, growth dynamics and trends, and spatial patterns. The chapter discusses further the presence of intraregional vari...

This chapter lays out theoretical argument, linking suburbanization to key structural forces and factors that underlies the transition of the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe to a capitalist socioeconomic order. It highlights the decisive influence of neoliberal ideology in this process of societal transformation and the imp...

Post-socialist cities have been omitted from disputes on global urbanism. However, the insights gained from the study of their dramatic transformations can provide important suggestions for the international urban studies. The paper first introduces the key features of post-socialist urban transformations placing them within the context of contempo...

Postsocialistická města charakterizuje adaptace zděděných struktur na nově nastolené tržní podmínky. Zavedení tržních principů stimulovalo změnu sociálních praktik a společenské procesy jako jsou internacionalizace, ekonomická restrukturalizace a sociální diferenciace, které se odrážejí v prostorové reorganizaci měst, zejména komercializaci center,...

Symboly a kontrasty postsocialistických měst

This chapter provides a comprehensive discussion of suburbanization in Prague's city region since the collapse of communism. It presents a general historical overview of urbanization processes and patterns. The chapter also discusses the problems of suburbanization and sprawl in metropolitan Prague in four parts. First it describes the initial peri...

This chapter discusses the impact of public policies and planning at national, regional, and local levels of governance on the spread of postsocialist suburbanization. Using the evidence presented in the case studies, it highlights similarities and differences in the ways in which the patterns of urban growth have been influenced by the policy choi...

The discursive and representational aspects of the multiple political, economic and cultural challenges associated with low carbon urban transitions remain insufficiently explored in the academic literature. This is particularly true in the post-communist states of eastern and central Europe, which have been undergoing an additional transition of t...

In the context of globalization processes and their uneven impact on urban and regional restructuring, cities have promoted various strategies to enhance their competitiveness. Specific cases are cities and towns located on sea and river waterfronts. The decline of port related economies, on the one hand, and attempts to use waterfront potential fo...

This paper analyzes the patterns of urban growth and land-use change in metropolitan Prague since the collapse of the socialist regime in 1989. The discussion is focused on the growth and dispersal of single-family development as the most clearly pronounced shift in the spatial evolution of the Czech capital in the last two decades. The observed pr...

This paper develops a conceptual framework for interpreting the process of urban change in post-communist cities. The departure from the legacies of the communist past has been effected through multiple transformation dynamics of institutional, social and urban change. While institutional reforms have been largely accomplished, the adjustment of ur...

Based on an assessment of population allocation the article analyzes changes in urban and regional system of Czechia in 1991-2011. First, population growth and decline is studied in 260 labor micro-regions and functional urban regions. The second part of the article is devoted to trajectories of internal development within micro-regions. The articl...

The article critically examines the model of stages of urban development and its operationalization for empirical research. We identify and display shortcomings in the model through an analysis of changes in the spatial distribution of the population and dwellings in Prague and Vienna urban regions from 1980 to 2001. We therefore suggest an alterna...

In this paper, we discuss environmental injustice in relation to residential segregation in Czechia. First, we pay attention to the concepts of environmental justice, social justice and residential segregation and their mutual relations. The core of our argument revolves around the case study of a segregated Roma community that was resettled by the...

This article compares urbanization and suburbanization in the urban regions of Prague and Vienna, during the final decade of communism and the early years of transition to a capitalist society. In the 1980s, patterns of urbanization in the two cities differed radically with urbanization occurring in Prague and suburbanization developing in Vienna....

Governing the Post-Communist City: Institutions and Democratic Development in Prague. By Horak. Martin Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. xii, 270 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Figures. Tables. Maps. $55.00, hard bound. - Volume 69 Issue 2 - Luděk Sýkora

Post-socialist cities are cities in transition. Urban environments formed under socialist regimes are being adapted and remodeled to new conditions shaped by the political, economic, and cultural transition to capitalist society. In the first instance, systemic government-controlled transformations established basic rules for democratic policymakin...

This special issue of Urban Research and Practice presents contributions discussing three closely interrelated themes of polycentricity, city regions and territorial disparities. The focus on polycentric settlement systems is framed by the normative goal of sustainable spatially balanced territorial development declared in the European Spatial Deve...

This article argues that any conceptualization and delimitation of functional urban areas must reflect their formation on the micro-scale and detect the smallest complete, complex, organic territorial units where the daily life of the population is organized. This is often neglected when a top-down approach is applied, leading to incomplete represe...

The paper investigates places of residential segregation and separation in Czech cities and discusses them in the context of new socio-spatial divisions that are emerging in the context of post-socialist transformations in the Czech Republic. It is argued that in post-socialist countries, where patterns shaped in previous decades still apply and ne...

This article attempts to identify some trends in the recent urban restructuring of the city of Prague within the framework of the rent gap theory. As the contemporary development is considerably influenced by structures inherited from the past, this article starts with a brief outline of the development in Prague's city structure. Basic features of...

The paper reacts to recent contributions of Czech and Slovak geographers to the debate about the role of idiographic and nomothetic conceptions in geographic inquiry and understanding. This kind of debate has been overcome in Western geography. The idiographic and nomothetic conceptions deal with the nature of description of geographical facts and...

In this chapter, we review the development of suburbanization in Prague and Brno metropolitan areas in the Czech Republic with particular attention paid to specific features of suburbanization in post-communist cities. Residential deconcentration brought about the spatial redistribution of the population within metropolitan areas while the overall...

This contribution attempts to reveal the relations between new suburban areas and other parts of the Prague metropolitan area by investigating the time-space activity and mobility patterns of the inhabitants of newly built suburban districts. The focus on some aspects of the everyday life of people in new suburbs helps us to identify the impact of...

The paper presents an overview of main themes and concepts that have shaped debates about urban growth and decline since 1920s. It begins with the growth of cities and metropolitan areas and their internal differentiation. In the further part, uneven development, deindustrialization, spatial divisions of labor and globalization are linked to social...

The article analyses residential suburbanisation in Prague metropolitan region using data about new housing construction in the period of 1997-2005. Findings show that despite suburban areas account for large share of newly constructed housing, its majority is built within the compact city. Large share of new housing construction in the compact cit...

The article argues that suburbanisation is going to become an important part of research and the social agenda. First, suburbanisation is the most important process of urban change in the metropolitan regions of post-communist cities. Second, some forms of suburbanisation, specifically, sprawl-like developments, introduce certain negative economic,...

The first part of this article investigates city competition, sustainable development and civil society as three major challenges to urban planning and policy-making in the age of globalisation. The complexity of these challenges requires new modes of urban planning and policy-making based on the use of plurality of approaches and tools. The genera...

Miasto postkomunistyczne jest zjawiskiem, które charakteryzują ciągłe zmiany związane z przystosowaniem się struktur przestrzennych do nowych warunków. Nowe wyrunku determinują dwa podstawowe czynniki: 1) polityczna, ekonomiczna oraz społeczna tranformacja zapoczątkowana upadkiem ustroju komunistycznego, 2) globalizacja. Struktury przestrzenne mias...

The article overviews the most important changes in the spatial structure of the two largest Czech cities, Prague and Brno, in the last decade of 20th century. It focuses on (1) the reinvention, commercialisation and expansion of city centres, (2) islands of dynamic revitalisation within the overall stagnation in inner cities, (3) potential problem...

The article overviews the most important changes in the internal urban structure of Prague since 1989. Post-communist urban development has been influenced by government-directed reforms of political and economic system, internationalisation and globalisation, public policies favouring unregulated market development, economic restructuring in terms...

This paper analyses processes which transform the socio-spatial pattern of post-communist Prague and describes major changes in the city's social geography. It begins with a brief introduction about the socio-spatial pattern of a socialist city and a discussion of methods and concepts of investigation of processes of socio-spatial change in contemp...

The process of globalization is increasing competition between urban areas for the attraction of investment. Within this context the paper initially highlights the impact of global change on city economies linking this to international investment within the real estate market. Factors influencing diversification strategies and international investm...

This article presents the role of migration in the development of the Prague agglomeration from the end of the nineteenth centuryup to the recent past. With the collapse of Communism, the nature of migratory movement has been modified. By designatingthree concentric rings named «city centre,» «Communist Prague,» and «peri-urban ring,» one can obser...

Croissance urbaine et modèles migratoires à Prague au temps du communisme et dans la période de transition Cet article présente le rôle des migrations dans le développement de l'agglomération pragoise depuis la fin du XIXe siècle en insistant sur la période récente. Avec la chute du communisme, la nature des mouvements migratoires s'est modifiée....

This paper describes the development of the commercial property market and outlines its impact on urban development in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic is one of the Central and East European Countries experiencing substantial changes in its societal system. Since 1989, the country has been in a period of transition cha...

This paper argues that Prague is rapidly becoming a standard Western city considerably shaped by forces of contemporary global capitalism. The impact of global forces on local urban restructuring in Prague is enabled by system transformations, which form the backbone of a government-directed transition to market economy. The system transformations,...

This chapter provides a comprehensive discussion of suburbanization in Prague's city region since the collapse of communism. It presents a general historical overview of urbanization processes and patterns. The chapter also discusses the problems of suburbanization and sprawl in metropolitan Prague in four parts. First it describes the initial peri...

Rethinking of the government's role in social and economic development has influenced the development of a modern urban policy in the last decade. The departure from welfare state and steps towards the new post-welfare paradigm are generally characterized by changing balance between governmental and market resource allocation. These trends can be i...

The paper deals with the appraisal of the space and time suffrage stability of four traditional political parties - the People's Party, the Socialist Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party. The evaluation demonstrates connections between voting patterns in 1920-1946 and the spatial differentiation of 1990 election results.

Univerzita Karlova, Přírodovědecká fakulta, katedra sociální geografie a regionálního rozvoje, Praha, Česká republika sykora@natur.cuni.cz, matouse4@natur.cuni.cz Klíčová slova: sociální kapitál, sociální sítě, lokální a regionální rozvoj Key words: social capital, social nettworks, local and regional development Abstrakt: Teritoriálně zakořeněný s...

POSOVÁ, D. (2011): Forms of urbanization: critical evaluation of the model of stages of urban development and alternative method of classification of forms of urbanization. Geografie, 116, No. 1, pp. 1–22. – The article critically examines the model of stages of urban development and its operationalization for empirical research. We identify and di...

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