Regional Disparities during the Transition: The New Spatial Structure in Hungary

If not in the regional differentiation process of the last one-and-a-half decades then definitely in the area of decisive processes can we can talk about a change. This change generated a new spatial structure, which also indicates a new economic and social spatial structure and a regional restructuring of settlements. Individual regional development paths determining the new spatial structure display a high degree of regional differentiation in terms of development indicators in individual regions. Growth and decline at macro level determined by economic cycles diverge regionally to a substantial degree, and in some cases these divergences are extreme. Certain regions react more promptly than others to circumstances changed by economic cycles. This is not just due to the different regional dynamics but also to the ‘inherited’ sectoral structure and the government’s development policies. Based on experience in the 1970s and 1980s we come to the conclusion that the mono-cultural production structure shaped by a mono-sectoral development policy implies several risks at regional level, as does supporting investments taking no heed of the amounts or nature of the assistance.