engleski

Typology of rural and urbanized settlements in Croatia and its role in spatial planning

Rural Croatia underwent tremendous changes in the second half of the 20th century. The transformation has primarily resulted from demographic and socio-economic processes with spatial effects, such as intensive urbanization, industrialization and litoralization. Non-urban areas have become diversified and we pose a question whether it is still possible to explore and plan them using predominantly dichotomic and continual models, e.g. urban-mixed–rural division. Numerous international studies point out that the use of more complex typologies based on multivariate analysis enables an integral, multidimensional overview of spatial structures and processes and their mutual relations. Eventually, this leads to efficient spatial planning sensitive to areal characteristics and differences. Having that in mind, we present a typology of all rural and urbanized settlements in Croatia. It has been developed using 59 variables in 11 categories: location characteristic ; size, distribution, and population structure, demographic dynamics ; employment and commuting ; socio-economic structure of settlements ; importance and structure of agriculture as a source of income ; land use ; functions and shape of housing ; household equipment, settlement centrality and connections to settlements of higher centrality. The principal component and factor analysis has resulted in 8 factors, which have been used in a cluster analysis. Finally, 7 different types of rural and urbanized settlements have been recognized. As regional inequalities in Croatia are more than evident and pose a serious threat to its development, the planning policy and its sensitivity to different spatial realities could be improved using more evidence-informed decision making in which typologies could play an important role.

: spatial planning; regional development; rural development; typology; Croatia

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