Geographia Polonica (1975) vol. 30

Gerhard Mohs, Martin-Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg

Stanisław Leszczycki, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland
Piotr Eberhardt [p.ebe@twarda.pan.pl], Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland
Stanisław Herman, Institute of Geography- Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw

Abstract

Investigations on the interactions of cities and their hinterlands have been carried on at the Geographical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in the last few years. The following report gives an introduction to some as-sumptions and evaluations at the beginning of this research work. The report is limited to one important type of centres: regional centres, because the hin-terland relations of these centres (including those of higher rank) are of main interest for the territorial planners in our country.The concentrated effort of the economic geographical team in Leipzig since the Szymbark meeting has led to many new results. In the meantime a new level of knowledge on the interactions of centres with their hinterlands in the GDR and of the hinterland has been achieved. The main results of these investigations since the Szymbark meeting are as follows:

• analyses of the existing interactions between all towns in the GDR above 5000 inhabitants and their hinterlands;
• classification of all towns above 5000 inhabitants according to the importance for their hinterland;
• determination and modelling of the different zones of influence within the hinterlands, considering mainly traffic facilities, commuting, administra-tive boundaries.

Some of these new results have been already published in German, other publications have been prepared. They are listed at the end of the article.

Frankdieter Grimm, Institute of Geography. Academy of Sciences of the GDR. Leipzig. GDR

Dieter Scholz, Martin-Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg

Abstract

The aim is to find and work out ways and alternatives within the propor-tional development of the national economy on the whole, to contribute to the planned development of optimum conditions for working and life.

Helga Schmidt, Martin-Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg

Jan Rajman, Department of Socio-Economic Geography College of Pedagogy Krakow

W. E. Bruno Tauche, Martin-Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg

Joachim Heinzmann, Geographical Institute, Academy of Sciences of the GDR, Leipzig

Hans Richter, Humboldt University, Berlin

Heinz Spitzer, Humboldt University, Berlin

Bronisław Kortus, Jagiellonian University, Cracow. Poland

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to give an account to the problem of commune categories. To achieve this the following points have to be clarified:

• demonstration of a method of evaluating the commune categories accord-ing to differential factors in the field of spatial structure;
• definition of spatial differences within communal categories on the basis of structural type of an agglomeration;
• presentation of long-term development tendencies for the parts of agglom-erations corresponding with spatial differentiation of commune categories.

This research has been conducted in the District of Halle which constitutes a major part of the Halle-Leipzig agglomeration. Possessing nearly all spatial types it is a good object of research in the framework of given themes.

Christa Rosenkranz, Martin-Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg

Abstract

During the last several years living conditions of a large part of our pop-ulation have undergone many changes. This was caused by rapid growth of industrialization, which in turn induced the migration of rural population to towns and industrial settlements, in other words urbanization.Such rapid development of industry and the creation of new urban centers transformed the physical and biological environment in many areas. Those trans-formations were not restricted only to regions where the actual urban centers and industrial plants were located but in many cases they spread to neighbour-ing areas.Those changes and transformations — often quite unintended — are very diverse and it is therefore difficult to generalize them.Nevertheless there exists a number of common features, occurring every-where where we have to do with the processes of industrialization and urbani-zation, as well as many other common regularities governing the transforma-tions of environment which are connected with these processes.Those rules allow of a very general definition of urban and industrial en-vironments.

Janusz Paszyński [j.pasz@twarda.pan.pl], Institut de Géographie et d'Amenagement du Territoire. Académie Polonaise des Sciences. Varsovie

Abstract

The trend observed today towards a steadily growing spatial concentration of industrial production favours the agglomeration of production and popula-tion. This necessitates an increased utilization of both economic and natural resources within such areas.

The resulting "exchange" with nature (geotechnischer Metabolismus, acc. to E. Neef, 1967, p. 31) occurs in our era of scientific-and-technological revolu-tion on an enormous scale, whereas the individual geo-factors or elements of the landscape (i.e., water, soil, air, area, woods, minerals) assume the character of resources. They are being partially displaced in the process from their nat-ural structure, processed, re-shaped and altered according to the purpose of their utilization. In course of the above process, man not only removes mate-rial or energy out of the natural milieu, but also returns such materials and energy. The natural milieu is, however, frequently, not in the position to absorb such recovered materials and energy, or to accumulate them safely. This requi-res basically new economic-expenditure.

The above scope of man-environment problems, or in other words questions arising within the system of the socialist land management are in my opinion too heterogeneous for geography to deal with them. They are rather involved in the ever more intense utilization of territory, the phenomena and processes in space, the changed material and energy management, i.e. the geo-ecology of intensely utilized geo-systems within the agglomerations. Since only individual preliminary geographical studies are available on the subject, we shall point in the further course of this paper merely to particularly intensely claimed nat-ural resources which in addition to the complex problems will require in fu-ture a greater attention.

Konrad Billwitz, Martin-Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg