Settlement network concentration as determinant for rural areas development

Abstract

Space planning and development play an ancillary role in relation to settlement and its geography. Residential areas were evolving over the centuries changing their shape as well as architectural forms. Observing the tendencies of the last decades, there is more scattered housing that occurs in landscapes of Polish country, which is also reflected in national spatial politics, in established planning documents, however, it does not always result from real demographic needs. Already existing buildings are less and less adapted for habitation. Together with progressive housing scattering, rural areas' functions change as well. So the question arises-is multifunctional development of rural areas the reason of decline of their agricultural function? As well as-is building concentration connected with the level of development of particular settlement units? The paper is aimed at comparing the housing concentration coefficients of the chosen settlement units and then confronting them with the calculated synthetic metha-indicators that determine the socio-economic development level. The analysis of building concentration of settlement units was performed by means of the concentration coefficient on the plane. To determine the level of socio-economic development (metha-feature), the spatial taxonomy method was used on the basis of selected diagnostic features. Cross-compliance of a qualitative nature of socioeconomic development compared to building concentration indexes was determined by means of the Pearson correlation coefficient on the basis of the Guilford's classification. Analyzing the geographic phenomenon of building concentration, mathematical and statistical methods and also a monographic method of the subject literature analysis were used. The methods of spatial taxonomy as well as the method of ranking by a synthetic feature were used to survey the socio-economic development phenomenon. The researches were performed in selected rural communes from the area of Małopolska province in Southern Poland.