The dimensions of peripherization from the viewpoint of the development policy through the example of a Hungarian periphery, the Encs district

Abstract

During the last decades many financial and other typed supports were spent for the rise of the peripheries by both the interna-tional (European) and the state development policies. However, these efforts actually are often unable to reverse the backwardness of the most disadvantaged districts. Thus the issue of peripherization is an appreciating subject of also the contemporary geographic studies. In this article we aim to analyse the different faces of the peripherization (the spatial marginalization). It is a key question what kind of factors hide behind the reproduction of the peripheries. According to some critical, neo-Marxist approaches, the peripheral existence is not a predestined situation, ‘periphery as des-tiny’ (Kühn, M. 2014), but a resultant of dynamic processes, the peripherization, which is reversible. The peripheries should not re-main necessarily as peripheries. According to our experiences based on the example of a real Hungarian periphery, the Encs district with a typical pathway development, we would like to call the attention for the area- and dimension-specific character of the pe-ripherization. It is argued that there are two types of peripherization; processes originated from spatial (potential) and local causes. The previous one is inevitable due to its geographic frames, the development policy can hardly do anything with it, only trying to reduce, compensate the initial handicaps through e.g. infrastructural investments, which have huge social costs. Nevertheless, the regional policy can do something with the latter, the local causes! Even a relative small district could be heterogeneous at intrare-gional level from the viewpoint of the peripherization. Furthermore, the lagging behind varies in different dimensions too. The suc-cess of the de-peripherization depends on some local factors (e.g. creative utilization of the supports and systematic settlement policy by the local mayors). However, the structural mismatches (e.g. not an adequate development policy for the ability for absorption of the supports) plays also a crucial role result in the reproduction of the peripheries.

Keywords

• peripherization
• periphery
• regional inequalities
• development policy
• Encs district