In my thesis I would like to concentrate on suburban zones of Pardubice and their relation to resident centre. The town of Pardubice, where I live, contains a positive attitude towards expansion of housing development and expandation of suburban zones. The objective of my work is the investigation of this sphere from several points. I would concentrate on inland and abroad investors, who situate their business subjects into these zones. Also I would study flowing of inhabitants structure, migration trends and their relation to resident centre. Main influence on territory expansion plays Army airport (it turns into civil airport), presence of railway speed corridor and completion of speedway D11 from Hradec Králové to Prague. Policy of territorial development talks about building up river port on the river Elbe in Pardubice. Not least I would solve an influence of territorial enlarging of the town on original municipalitites and effects which this activity brings. The main direction of my work will be focusing on suburban zones, their positive and negative consequences for the town of Pardubice.

The aim of the thesis is to describe, analyse and discuss the development of spatial population dynamics in the Czech Republic between 1989 and 2007. Demographic structure and migration, the two components of spatial population dynamics, are analysed using two spatial dimensions, the urban-suburban-rural gradient and the core-periphery region distinction, using quantitative analyses, including gravity regression modelling of migration. The analysis primarily focuses on domestic migration as the main vehicle of spatial population dynamics. It discusses the structure, determinants, and temporal evolution of migration and its consequences on the population structure in different spatial categories. The thesis indicates that suburbanisation has recently become the main factor influencing Czech spatial population dynamics. The key factor determining migration destination is the social status of migrants, whereas age has only secondary importance. However, since Czechs are not very mobile, population dispersal is less large-scale than in Western-Europe. This explains why recent domestic migration patterns have had only a small measurable influence on the social or demographic structures of the population across spatial categories.

Charles University in Prague Faculty of Science Department of Social Geography and Regional Development URBANIZATION AND SUBURBANIZATION IN URBAN REGIONS OF PRAGUE AND VIENNA Summary of the PhD Thesis Mgr. Darina Posová Praha 2010 Supervisor: doc. RNDr. Luděk Sýkora, Ph.D. Supervisor - consultant: Ass.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Walter Matznetter, M.Sc. INTRODUCTION This PhD thesis is focused on study of urbanization and urbanization processes in urban regions of Prague and Vienna. The thesis has two major parts. In the first part, general approaches to urbanization and suburbanization research are introduced and results of an analysis of Prague and Vienna urban regions are summarized. The second part consists of six publisher or submitted papers analyzing spatial distribution of population, housing, new housing construction in Prague urban region as well as comparing urbanization in Prague and Vienna urban regions in 1980s and 1990s. In the introductory chapter, I focus of the thesis and development of my approach to research on suburbanization within the post-socialist urban development context. Chapter on general perspectives summarizes the state of art in the field and shows the application of such approaches on the case of Prague and Vienna. The last chapter focuses on comparison between Prague and Vienna,...

This master thesis deals with the question, whether the town Říčany performs functions of the local centre for its residents. Part of the text is devoted to the transformation taking place around the Czech capital. The paper uses the theoretical framework of Time geography. Using a qualitative questionnaire survey targeted at families with children, the work is trying to identify, where the residents localize their activities. The thesis also attempts to recognize the activity localisation mechanisms. Another goal was to find differences between various categories of the respondents. Children and adults working in Říčany usually localize their activities close to their home. Adults working in Prague have an elliptic activity space, in which home is however main station. One of the contributions of this work is the typology of four groups of households. In addition to long-term residents and two types of suburbanites, the group of "grounded residents" was defined. Although they have moved to the town rather recently, they usually live in the older parts of the town and localize there most of their life.

The Influence of Railways on Residential Suburbanization in the hinterland of Prague: the example of Černošice The target of the diploma thesis is to explain the long term influence of railway on the feature and development of residential suburbanization within the hinterland of Prague. The influence was assessed on the set of information found in the literature and 3 main factors which the thesis deal with. The first factor is the influence of railway on the development of population in relation to residential suburbanization. The second factor is the verification of the existence of railway suburb in the hinterland of Prague in the case of Černošice. The third factor is the influence of railway on the decision making of chosen mode of transport used for commuting. Qualitative and quantitative data were used in the thesis. Statistical data analysis was used as well as the information found in the archives. Keywords: railway, residential suburbanization, Černošice, the hinterland of Prague

This diploma thesis deals with the relationship between the city and its surroundings. In the theoretical part of the thesis are at first clarified basic terms which are needed for a good understanding of the problematic together with theoretical approaches dealing with the urban form and development. Specifically - the revolutions according to Vere Gordon Childe and The life-cycle theory by Leo van den Berg. Further the thesis includes a description of the two approaches of the Keynesian theories: The theory of growth poles in the concept of Francois Perroux and The theory of cumulative causation in the concept of Gunnar Myrdal and Albert Otto Hirschman. These approaches are then compared. The practical part examines the relationship between the city and its surroundings on the basis of statistical analysis on several cases. Specifically cities Copenhagen, London, Budapest and Prague are analyzed.

This diploma thesis focuses upon mobility which structures time and space of Prague's hinterland. The time-space regions are conceptualised and serve to explore the structure of suburban space. The positioning data from mobile phones are used to investigate tangential mobility throughout suburban municipalities. It happened in two time-sections which distinguish the working and the service commute. The method of the time-space regionalisation was introduced for this purpose. In total, 45 local centres were found. Moreover, their regions were delimited and two regions without cores were delimited as well. The resulting time-space regions are distinguished into three types: small inner regions, large outer regions and river regions. The case study in Dolní Břežany municipality seeks causes and consequences of centrality in local scale. The significance of the thesis lies in partial, but highly interconnected contributions in all three dimensions: theory, methodology and empirics. Key words: mobility, suburbanisation, structuration, regionalisation, mobile data, Prague, Dolní Břežany

This Diploma thesis focuses on new housing development. The aim is to evaluate housing development in Prague and Central Bohemia region and point out factors that affect housing development. This work is seen on demographic, social, economic and political factors. The first part defines basic concepts and put into the real estate market and housing market. The following section analyses the various factors that affect housing, such as the demographic situation and its trends, economic and social environment, legal environment and government policy and prices. Another part of the work evaluates housing development in Prague and Central Bohemia by using empirical data from the Czech Statistical Office. The last part of the work deals with problems of suburbanisation in terms of migration flows and the impact reflecting in living and socio-economic environment, territorial planning, transport and economy.

The objective of the diploma thesis was to find out how an athletic club in Radotín functioned and was transformed mainly over the period from 1963 to 2010. The diploma thesis provides deeper findings about the relationship of local and all-national trends in sport as well as the institutional framework of sport in ČSSR and ČR. Nine research questions were defined to restrict the otherwise very wide problem area: Is there any similarity in the development of athletics at the local and all-national level? How does the performance of athletes change in an athletic club? How does the content of data registered in training diaries change? How does the catchment area for an athletic club change? How does the competition of an athletic club represented by other sports clubs or leisure time interest groups change? How does the hinterland and the equipment of an athletic club change? How does the approach of schools in the catchment area of an athletic club change? How has the institutional framework of approach to sport (athletics) changed after 1989? The questions were answered using quantitative and qualitative data. It was found out that the athletic club in Radotín was affected by a mix of macro and micro factors, such as the construction of a new stadium, the volunteers willing to work in the role of...

Official planning documents and strategies often look at cities from above neglecting people’s experiences and practices. Meanwhile cities as meaningful places are constructed though citizens’ practices, memories and ties with their surroundings. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to discover people’s bonds with their urban allotment gardens – dachas – in the Russian city of Kaliningrad and to explore the significance of these bonds for city development. The phenomenon of the dacha has a long history in Russia. Similar to urban allotment gardens in other countries, dachas are an essential part of the city landscape in many post-socialist countries but differ by their large scale. Recent decades have brought diversity into the urban dacha areas of Russia and express a shift away from their primary function of recreational horticulture towards a greater variety in usage, including housing. Due to multiple legal frameworks these areas have become special enclaves with haphazard development, inadequate levels of infrastructure and low quality of self-build houses. Urban dachas can be examined as an example of both post-socialist suburbanization and informal settlement. In this thesis the concept of place attachment, derived from the works of human geographers and environmental psychologists, is used as both the theoretical and methodological lens to look at people-place relations in urban dacha areas. The empirical evidence for this study was gathered through interviews and observations in Kaliningrad where urban dachas comprise 11% of the city’s territory. To capture the different aspects of place attachment in these areas the data was categorised according to common themes.The findings of this study show the complexity of the bonds between people and their urban allotment gardens. Despite all the hardships, these places provide their residents an opportunity for independence and self-realization. The respondents demonstrated an energy and aspiration to achieve increased well-being for themselves and their families, however the lack of resources and institutions hinders the development of place attachment in urban dacha areas. The identified features of people’s bonds with their dachas should not only be preconditions for urban planning but also an integral part of the planning and development process. This study also tests the application of the concept of place attachment for urban studies.