ABSTRACT
This section looks at the significance of regions and the prospects for development in the different states across ECE, bearing in mind that potentials do not just vary between countries but also between smaller units characterised by unique combinations of human and physical resources. Under socialism, regional development existed only at the level of ideological proclamations. ‘Urban and regional planning – like other state socialist policies – was the preserve of politicians, bureaucrats and experts, involving dialogues from which the general public were excluded’ (Harloe 1996: 14). According to Enyedi (1990) regional development was essentially the haphazard outcome of various sectoral decisions taken by ministries. Capital allocation was obviously based on surveys of resources which planners exploited as they saw them, but the regions were largely passive and had little opportunity to initiate programmes on an autonomous basis. Dostal and Hampl (1994: 204) refer to ‘the policy of nivelization of interregional disparities in living standards based on the industrialization campaign’. This ‘implied an extraordinary suppression of any important selective tendencies at the interregional level’ (ibid.).
