The Demographic, Social, and Economic Regions of Greater Prague

A Contribution to Urban Geography

Bibliographic Data

ID4490599
AuthorsJulie Moscheles
Year1937
Volume27
Issue3
Pages414
Publication date1937-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7428 • E-ISSN: 1931-0846
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/210327
OpenAlexW2317326298
LanguageEN
Citations received12

U tRBAN geography is mostly concerned with the geographical interpretation of the origin, character, and development of towns. A town is considered as an organism obeying certain laws of an economic or historical order, promoted or stunted in its development by the general currents of traffic, by the market conditions for its goods, by its rise or fall as a merely local or as a regional center making its influence felt over a smaller or larger area. Viewing a town from this angle we are apt to forget that it is a composite organism, that it comprises that may and almost invariably do differ widely in economic function as well as in demographic and social character, even when the several are truly urban. In the opinion of the writer the village is characterized by the predominance of either agriculture-the rural village in the accepted sense of the word-or manufacture, in which latter case, for lack of a better expression, the term industrial village will be used. The percentage of people actively employed in commerce, transportation, public service, and the liberal professions will in both cases be small. A rural village may be industrialized without changing its essential village character, without developing the functions of economic and social organization. Or else an industrial village may spring up, as for example in coal fields, without having had an agricultural predecessor. In an urban area the economic (trade and transportation) and social (public service, liberal professions, etc.) services will be more or less developed in each part. No investigations are so far available to tell where the line is to be drawn between town and village. Provisionally it may be assumed that economic and social services absorbing at least 25 per cent of the gainfully employed indicate an indubitably urban character. When the Statistical Service of Czechoslovakia decided to publish the main results of the census taken on December I, I930, not only for Prague as a whole but also for its different and even for those parts of districts exceeding 20,000 in population, the opportunity was welcomed of analyzing the character of the different regions within the agglomeration of Greater Prague. By the law of February 6, I920, the agglomeration of Greater Prague had been recognized as one administrative commune including all the settlements that in the course of time had grown up around the old town and formed with it an economic entity. It is true that

Biology · Economic geography · Geography · Human geography · Social geography · Urban geography · Urban planning · Ecology · Urbanization and City Planning

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