Geografie 2012, 117, 266-288
Contemporary tendencies of the development of spatial pattern on the local level in Czechia: towards higher fragmentation of the spatial pattern?
The aim of this article is to contribute to the existing body of literature on regional development in two main spheres. First, due to limited availability of data, most of the existing studies dealt with regional development trends only upon regional level. However, regions can hide important intraregional differences. Therefore, the first aim of this study was to analyze the development trends of spatial pattern on local level. Secondly, the authors argue that analyses of development trends on local and regional level should not rely exclusively on various measures of variability, but these measures should be accompanied by an application of measures of spatial autocorrelation, which are able to capture the character of spatial pattern and its changes. Combination of these two types of statistics allows a more comprehensive analysis of development trends, especially at the local level. The results show that despite unclear trends of variability on local level, the spatial pattern has become much more fragmented, during the investigated 10 years period.
Keywords
spatial pattern, spatial autocorrelation, local clustering, local/municipal level, unemployment, housing construction, electoral turnout, Czechia.
