Evaluating the Social Infrastructure of Municipalities

Abstract

The present paper sets out to examine the nature and composition of the concept of social infrastructure, to assess the spatial accessibility of public goods that comprise the social infrastructure of urban areas and to formulate hypotheses to account for the influence of a number of different factors on social infrastructural development. The selection of primary research methods is determined by the specific character of studies aimed at assessing the degree of public satisfaction with the spatial accessibility of social benefits, i.e. an empirical survey of respondents combined with statistical analysis. The following results were produced in this investigation. The level of development of the local public sector is proportional to the level of social satisfaction of the population and there are significant differences between territories in terms of the allocation of infrastructural facilities. In addition it was shown that the population of the territory determines the financial capacity for the provision of public goods and that the level of economic development influences the extent of the bureaucratic burden, the transparency of government and the level of public satisfaction with the work of executive authorities. The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of using the results to develop recommendations to representatives of public authorities regarding the social infrastructural development of municipalities at the same time as increasing the social attractiveness of the territories.