THE SETTLEMENT SYSTEM AND FUNCTIONAL URBAN REGIONS IN THE GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
3 DELINEATION OF FUNCTIONAL URBAN REGIONS
From the foregoing discussion on city-hinterland regions in the GDR it is apparent that the regions in question belong to different hierarchical levels. The same is true in the case of FURS. A clear distinction should be made between the following hierarchical levels: (a) regions of district (Bezirk) centers and regions of higher-rank centers, with zones 1 , 2 , and 3 included: (b) regions of subdistrict (Kreis) centers and regions of higher- rank centers, with zones 1 and 2 included; (c) regions of local centers and of higher-rank centers with only zone 1 included.
Regions of major centers, of subregional centers, and of partial Kreis centers may be considered as transitional spatial forms. According to observed development tendencies, it is possible to assign them to the three basic forms of regions, (a), (b), and (c), listed above.
TABLE 2 Selected indries for city--1linterland regions (up to zone 2) arranged by type oi centera. ?'y[)e of cen~er Nunlber Value lnhab~tants (1971) (thousands) I'oyuhtiun density (km-') EW/GEL Mean radius (knl) of towns T T+l l't1+2 T Ttl T+1+2 T T+l+2 T+l T+lt? (I) Cipital Berlin 1 Mean value 1086 1299 1523 2696 (2a) Major 2 Mzan value 543 676 824 3182 cenrers (Lb) Uezirk 8 Mean value 189 262 345 1459 ceuters Standard 84 107 167 432 viuiation Minimum 83 133 173 749 hlaximum 299 383 612 2042 (3a) Subrcgional 29 Mean value 58 96 132 1397 centers Standard 27 28 54 702 variation Minimum 26 48 78 527 Maximum 127 204 338 3365 (3 b) Kreis 15 hlran value 47 74 103 1448 centers Stmdard 6 15 24 600 (i 40,000 variation inhabitants) Minimum (34) 47 60 659 Maxinlunl -- 57
--
96 155 2232 a. Clle following abbreviations are used ill the t:thle: T, town; T+
I, town+
zone I, T -: u~g in the tzrriturial unit to people gainfully employed and living in the territorial amit. I + 2, town+
zone I+
zone 2; EWICEL, ratio of en~plo~ees work-TABLE 3 Indexes of city-hinterland regions (up to zone 2) of regional and Kreis centers arranged by type of regiona - - Type of center Number Value Inhabitants (1971) (thousands) Population density em-') EW/CEL Mean radius (km) of towns T T+l T+1+2 T T+l T+1+2 T T+1+2 T+l T+1+2 Subregional and Leis centers (> 40,000 inhabitants), agglomerations Southern part (without aglomerations) Nortl~ern part
11 Mean value Standard variation Minilnun1 Maximum 2 2 Mean value Standard variation Minimum Maximuni 11 Mean value Standard variation Minimum Maximum a See footnote to Table 2
3.1 Functional Urban Regions of Medium Hierarchical Level
Figure 1 shows that the regions (with zone 3, included) of subregional and higher- rank centers as well as Kreis centers with a population of over 40,000 do not by any means cover the entire national territory. Therefore, as a next step in the regionalization procedure one can consider those Kreis centers which constitute urban places of medium herarchical level. On this level a total of 125 cities form relatively independent city- hinterland regions, i.e. regions (with zone 2 included) which do not, or only slightly, over- lap with each other. These cities are able t o supply the whole national territory with goods, services, and workplaces. As a rule, all the centers identified can be reached by people living in their hinterlands (i.e. zones 1 and 2) by public transport in less than 6 0 minutes (Bezirk towns) or less than 4 0 minutes (Kreis towns). Daily commuting is possible for certain population groups not only from zone 1 but also from zone 2. The average 3rea of such a region is 865 km2. Thus regions of this level cannot be compared with the FURs determined by Sherill (1976, 1977) for Austria (6,500km2), the Federal Republic uf Germany (3.18 1 km2), and Switzerland (3,176 krn2).
3.2 Functional Urban Regions of Higher Hierarchical Level
A study was undertaken to check whether the criteria used by Shed1 (1977) were applicable to conditions in the CDR. The 55 medium and large cities referred to earlier (see Table 4) served as a basis for the selection of cores. The results are as follows.
If we take a population of 50,000, a labor force of 20,000, and a positive com- muter balance as a base we obtain a total of 25 cores. However, if the delineation criteria are defined as a labor force of 20,000 and a positive commuter balance only, then (according to data for 197 1) 4 9 cities can be classified as cores. In both cases allocation of all subdistricts to individual cores is possible by using the data on the direction and extent of commuting beyond Kreis boundaries, and by applying the principle of domi- nance. However, the results are unsatisfactory in both cases inasmuch as spatial units are obtained which are incongruent with the hierarchical structure of city-hterland regions ithe nonhierarchical characteristics of the settlement structure are not in general con- sidered here). The regions obtained are essentially as follows.
(1) District (Bezirk) and subregional centers fulfilling Bezirk-town functions with zones 1 and 2 and parts of zones 3. The parts of zones 3 identified are those in which medium-level FURs are formed by cores with a population of under 50,000 and a labor force of 20,000.
(2) Subregional and large Kreis centers with zones 1 and 2 and, in some cases, areas that are not functionally related to the central city. These regons also constitute parts of Lones 3 of district centers, a fact which is totally ignored by the set of criteria applied.
As a consequence the regional division consists in this case of units of unequal levels and different natures. It must therefore be regarded as unsatisfactory.
An alternative approacn was to choose Berlin and the district (Bezirk) towns. both large and small (1.e. Gera, Frankfurt/Oder, Neubrandenburg, and Suhl), as cores of FURS.
I! should be noted that the s m d Bezirk towns fulfill both the same political and adminis- t~ative functions and the same leading economic functions as do the large Bezirk towns.
TABLE 4 Regional and higher-rank centers and Kreis centers with more than 40,000 inhabitants Center Population Population Center (January 1, 1971) trend 1971-1975"
Population Population (January 1, 1971) trend 1971-1975'' Berlin Bezirk of Rostock Rostock Stralsund Wismar Creifswald tlezirk of Schwerin Schwerin ~uestrow~
Bezirk of Erfurt Erfurt Weinla Cotha Eisenach M uehlhausen Nordhausen Bezirk of Cera Cera Bezirk of Neubrandenburg Neubr: -1denburg Bezirk of ; otsdam Potsdam
Jena Bezirk of Suhl Suhl Meiningen Bezirk of Dresden Brandenburg Bezirk of Frankfurt/Oder Frankfurr/Oder Eberswalde Eisenhuettenstadt Schwedt/Oder Bezirk of Cottbus Cottbus ~o~erswerda~s~ ~enftenber~~.~ Bezirk of Magdeburg Magdeburg Halberstadt Dresden Coerlitz Riesa Pirna Meissen Bautzen Zittau Treital Bezirk of Leipzig Leipzig Altenburg Schoenebeck Stendal
GDH settlement system and FURS: II
84 R. Kronert
Also, the smaller Bezirk towns had relatively rapid rates of growth during the early 1970s (see Table 5), with industrialization proceeding at a great pace and social infrastructure facdities being completed. There are numerous economic interrelations within the administrative regions, e.g., between agriculture, the food-processing industry, and the food wholesale and retail trades. Also closely interconnected are buildmg enterprises within a region. Hence these regions represent spatial economic units with a considerable degree of closure.
This
fact is reflected in the structure of commuting t o work. The commuter zones of Bezirk towns correspond quite closely t o Bezirk boundaries (see Figure 2).It can be shown that over a period of more than 25 years (the division into districts was implemented in 1952) a balance has been achieved between political and adminis- trative regions and higher-rank economic regions. Notable exceptions are found in the hstricts of Frankfurt/Oder and Potsdam, and Schwerin and Neubrandenburg, some sub- districts of which are oriented towards either Berlin and Rostock, respectively. Berlin, in spite of its close functional interconnections with the hinterland, has no Bezirk of its own and thus necessarily interacts with adjoining districts. The district of Rostock extends for only a relatively small distance in the north-south direction and its functional relations extend southward beyond the Bezirk border.
Therefore, for the purposes of the IIASA Human Settlement Systems Task, it is justifiable t o consider the districts of the GDR as FURs. For the Berlin area two spatial aggregations can be used for further analysis: (a) Berlin, Potsdarn Bezirk, and Frankfurt/
Oder Bezirk as independent units; (b) Berlin, Potsdam Bezirk, and Frankfurt/Oder Bezirk as one region.
The use of Bezirks has the advantage that some harmony is achieved between FURs and actual planning regions. One can claim that in the present state of development of productive forces relatively large regional units are required as a spatial framework for the efficient organization of the national economy and the provision of proper workmg and living conditions for the population in all parts of the country. The new administrative division of Poland, which became effective in 1975, introduced voivodships of a size roughly equal t o that of Bezirks in the GDR. Korcelli (1981) pointed out the similarities of FURS with the new voivodships. In the USSR, where there are no administrative units of the dimension discussed here, proposals have been made t o establish group settlement systems as planning regions, the centers of which should be accessible from
all
other settlements in about 2 hours' traveling time (Kochetkov et al., 1977). Thls corre- sponds to the accessibility of Bezirk centers in the GDR. Chorev (1975) considers the development of centers for regions of approximately equal size t o be of extremeimportance to the development of a uniform settlement system in the USSR, and recom- mends that a correspondence be established between the economic region, the regional settlement system, and the planning region.
4 DEVELOPMENT OF THE DISTRICTS