Metropolitan Transition in East-Central Europe

The article examines and evaluates the recent course of metropolitan development in East-Central Europe by identifying its signs that appear at various levels of spatial scale. It looks into on-going transformation of selected large urban centres into metropolitan cities, the development of metropolitan areas as well as the evolving city-region and inter-urban relations. Changes in settlement patterns and urban hierarchy, which are observed at a national level, are discussed in somewhat greater detail with a focus put on the growing role performed by the capital cities. These trends are presented against a conceptual background and are also confronted with some earlier forecasts concerning the path of metropolitan transition. Finally, selected, in particular demographic factors that are likely to bear on future urban development in the region are briefly referred to.