Programme: VEGA

Principal investigator: PhDr. Peter Gajdoš, CSc.
Duration: 01/2011 – 12/2013
Co-investigator: PhDr. Katarína Moravanská, PhD.
Project VEGA no 2/0102/11

Project summary:
The aim of the project is to identify the specific character and the major impacts of settlement development in Slovakia with an emphasis on social potential and settlement conditions, on the changes in the socio-spatial situation of Slovak society at the settlement level. Drawing on the methodological elaboration of typological analysis (for application on the settlement level), we would like to employ the typological analysis in our effort to determine relevant social settlement types for all settlements in Slovakia. Using both qualitative and quantitative data as well as findings of other sociological research and taking specific regional particularities (i.e. regional embeddedness) into account, we hope to identify development disponibilities as well as barriers to development for each of the identified settlement types. We will identify the primary settlement tendencies which characterise settlement development in Slovakia at various stages of the transformation process (1991-2011). Furthermore, we will try to identify their social and socio-spatial context and impacts on the social environment of settlements and their communities. We would also like to contribute to the elaboration of methodological aspects of typological analysis at the settlement level. We plan to present the research findings in a publication and various presentations. The typology of settlements in Slovakia and related findings will be available to institutions dealing with regional and settlement development and in those making related decisions in the political sphere.