NEW INTEGRATION PERIOD? CHANGING TENDENCIES OF THE URBAN NETWORK IN SOUTH EAST EUROPE

The past two decades have brought basic changes in the whole Balkan Peninsula, where spatial structures and settlement network were not devoid of changes either. Due to the change of the economic, political and social regime and the new borders spatial structures became differentiated along new factors. Cooperation programs of the Euro-Atlantic integration hold many new challenges and opportunities. Historical and political literature studying the single countries’ transformation is large and far reaching, however, a settlement network and spatial structure focused overview has been, so far, missing from the range of researches. The aim of this study is to examine the urban features and the spatial transition of the Balkan states. INTRODUCTION – SPATIAL CONCEPTS OF THE BALKANS The concept of South East Europe as a separate region appeared in the middle of the 18 century on the maps, however, holding a different spatial content. In 1808 Zeune, a German geographer designated the peninsulas of Europe, including the Balkan Peninsula (Zeune, 1808). The physical geographical designation of the Balkan Peninsula was a problem already for Zeune (Carter, 1977), physical geography has been struggling ever since to make a spatial designation acceptable for most of the academics (Todorova, 2009). There is no consensus on the designation of the Balkan Peninsula, because this peninsula is linked to the main body of the continent with a wide “neck”. The neck does not separate the peninsula from the continent; in fact, it opens it up to the Alpine, Carpathian areas. Designation of the Carpathian (Pannonian) Basin has been a similarly difficult task also, partly due to the basin-mountain dichotomy. The Balkan Peninsula is one of the largest physical geographical regions in Europe, whose northern borders are defined in different ways, Trieste-Odessa line, Sava and Danube Rivers etc. The region is heterogeneous from a physical geographical aspect; all geographical features of Europe appear here. Nevertheless it is not geography from which aspect the region is most complicated. On the peninsula there has always coexisted a complicated mosaic of peoples, cultures, religions etc., therefore the intensity of historical events has always been high in this region.


INTRODUCTION -SPATIAL CONCEPTS OF THE BALKANS
The concept of South East Europe as a separate region appeared in the middle of the 18 th century on the maps, however, holding a different spatial content. In 1808 Zeune, a German geographer designated the peninsulas of Europe, including the Balkan Peninsula (Zeune, 1808). The physical geographical designation of the Balkan Peninsula was a problem already for Zeune (Carter, 1977), physical geography has been struggling ever since to make a spatial designation acceptable for most of the academics (Todorova, 2009).
There is no consensus on the designation of the Balkan Peninsula, because this peninsula is linked to the main body of the continent with a wide "neck". The neck does not separate the peninsula from the continent; in fact, it opens it up to the Alpine, Carpathian areas.
Designation of the Carpathian (Pannonian) Basin has been a similarly difficult task also, partly due to the basin-mountain dichotomy.
The Balkan Peninsula is one of the largest physical geographical regions in Europe, whose northern borders are defined in different ways, Trieste-Odessa line, Sava and Danube Rivers etc. The region is heterogeneous from a physical geographical aspect; all geographical features of Europe appear here. Nevertheless it is not geography from which aspect the region is most complicated. On the peninsula there has always coexisted a complicated mosaic of peoples, cultures, religions etc., therefore the intensity of historical events has always been high in this region. Rácz, S. In a European macroregional view, several spatial categories appeared in the 20 th century besides Southeast Europe, the Balkan Peninsula and the Balkans. With some territorial overlaps but also with different meanings were defined the concepts Carpathian-Balkans Europe, Danubian Europe etc., involving considerable territories in the Balkan Peninsula.
The transnational cooperation spaces of the European Union are interesting inasmuch as the development and cooperation relations were formed around and within the Balkan Peninsula. Programming areas are only made for program periods, so they do not influence the long-term development of the structures (Gál, 2009). The program area of the EU strategy for the Danube Region covers a large part of the Peninsula. This may also mean at the level of spatial view that the dominant geographical and political element of the Balkan Peninsula is not the seas around it but the Danube River.
The above-mentioned spatial categories themselves are components of a historically conflict-laden process and the designated areas have specific meanings for almost everyone. Inner acceptance of the specifically defined territories was and still is problematic in most cases. After the regime changes new spatial categories were born. The concept post-socialist covered the major part of the Peninsula excluded Greece and the European part of Turkey. The concept post-Yugoslav includes the countries gaining sovereignty in the territory of the Former Yugoslavia. The Western Balkans already appeared formerly as a topographical category but it is a new formation as a political category created by the European Union in 1998. A decisive element in the birth of this political spatial concept was to differentiate the post-Yugoslavian countries along with Albania from Bulgaria and Romania (Eastern Balkans), the two states that were given an accession chance. Slovenia was considered as part of the Western Balkans, after its EU accession it was only exceptionally mentioned as a country of this spatial category. It became more and more understood that the Western Balkans concept was made for the extra-EU countries. The content of this spatial category has been modified several times since then and presumably it will not last for long.

SYSTEMIC CHANGES IN THE BALKAN PENINSULA
From the end of the 1980s in Southern and Eastern Europe the unfolding processes may also be considered colourful. An ethnic element appeared, stated or not. The Balkan Peninsula both at the time of Cold War Era and at the time of the later co-existence of the bipolar world represented the whole of Europe in miniature. Prior to the radical transition in 1990, the Socialist and Western state systems existed over a relatively small territory. As well as the conservatively communist Bulgaria, the presence of non-aligned Yugoslavia, and the nationally communist Albania, there were two NATO members (Greece, Turkey), one of which was a European Community member (Greece). Systemic changes of the socialist states of the Balkan Peninsula are in line with the major tendencies.
Countries of the Balkan Peninsula experienced historical development processes that were similar in several aspects, but also very complicated and very much different and in some other ways. By the end of the cold war period it was rather heterogeneity than homogeneity that became a typical development characteristic and result in the countries of the Balkans. The respective countries of the region arrived at the starting line of the "new world order" with a variety of historical heritages and specific economic, social and political experience. The large-scale rearrangement of national territories taking place in this region was thus not a "Balkan feature", not a peculiar and unique phenomenon in this period, but in civil war circumstances it did possess had individual and unique characteristics (Hajdú-Rácz, 2011). The social, economic and political systemic changes occurring in the Balkan Peninsula necessarily and fundamentally concerned the issue of Yugoslavia and related to Yugoslavia and almost all neighbouring countries in some way.
The crisis of Yugoslavia, a country with large territory and population, a country that was actually a regional power with a leading role among the non-aligned countries, generated spillover effects (Hajdú, 2010, Jovic, 2001, Trbovich, 2008. There were also considerable differences across the respective states as regards whether radical transformation took place within the "old national frameworks" (Albania, Bulgaria, Romania), whether new states were born. In the newly created states (which make up the majority in the region in question) the issues coming from the disintegration of the old state structures and the problems of the new arrangements of the state had to be handled simultaneously. During the state formation, new nation and state concepts were made, new capital cities were designated and the relation of the new elites to the territory of the state also changed.
In the Yugoslav area, systemic change coincided with the strengthening of nationalism, as both the old and the new political elite expected to find their "real" roots in this nationalism, which became a political "calling" for a while. The need for handling the issue of multi-ethnicity arose during the working out of the new constitutional arrangement and also with the creation of the administrative systems and spatial divisions. The new state majorities were usually unwilling to offer territorial autonomy to ethnic minority areas. The approach to the ethnic minority areas has become a significant and peculiar issue of decentralisation and regionalisation (Hajdú, 2010).
The collapse of SFRY and the formation of the new states affected not only the citizens of former Yugoslavia, but also all the states on the Balkan Peninsula. It is no accident that Greece had serious concerns over the establishment of the Republic of Macedonia, since it saw the latter's mere existence as a historical, political and national security threat. The breakup of SFRY also fundamentally affected Albanians living in former Yugoslavia and Albania. It was evident that with the collapse of SFRY, in some Yugoslav successor states the significance of the proportion of Albanian inhabitants and their economic and political importance would grow. The Albanian settlement area -in part in its homogenous coverage -embraced a number of national border regions, especially in Macedonia, Serbia but in also Greece (Hajdú-Rácz, 2011).
New state borders were erected in place of the old internal administrative borders.
Some of the new state borders turned into closed ones, practically giving the appearance of classical military borders. International borders and crossing facilities divided special state units in the former unitary political geographical space. The second question within the "separation process" was: "Who has the right to self-determination?" Within the complicated political situations (between 1991-1995, and in 2008) the ambition manifested itself that the "peoples", the "nations", the republics, "the majority settlement areas" all had a right to and opportunity for self-determination. Others considered that such ambitions only related to those areas which had previously also had their own constitutional mandate (republic level).

DEVELOPMENT OF THE URBAN NETWORK
The past two decades have brought basic changes in the whole Balkan Peninsula, especially on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, where spatial structures and settlement network were not devoid of changes either (Petrakos-Economou, 2002;Dimou-Schaffar, affected the transformation of regions and towns just like changes of demographical, migration and ethnic circumstances (Hammel, 1993;Ramet, 2005Ramet, , 2006Đurđev et al., 2009). Due to the change of the economic, political and social regime and the new borders spatial structures became differentiated along new factors (Koči-Pavlaković-Pejnović, 2005;Zeković, 2009). Cooperation programs of the Euro-Atlantic integration hold many new challenges and opportunities (BBR 2006;ÖIR 2006;RePUS 2007;Papadaskalopoulos-Karaganis-Christofakis, 2005;Hardi, 2012).
To be able to understand the present town network and feature potential development directions we need to get acquainted with its genesis. Three main factor groups have influenced the formation of the town system: physical geographical conditions, prevalent changes of state borders and ethnical-cultural divergences.

Figure 1 Urban network of the Balkans, 2011
Source: Author's own construction based on census and statistical yearbook dates.

Natural features have facilitated, or in other cases blocked, inter-settlement interaction. The
Dinaric Alps hampers links between the coast and the northern territories, whilst the Adriatic has almost pre-ordained relationships among the coastal settlements and maritime trade. Mountain valleys, safe harbours along the coast are, necessarily, meeting points of socio-economic relationships, and this meant advantageous local conditions for town development. However, those coastal settlements, which were located on a road or on a railway saw their networks maintain their good development potential. Among the towns on the mainland located in valleys, it was mainly those situated at the junction of several roads which were able to maintain their positions over time. The Danube and its tributaries, as well as the roads running parallel with these, had facilitated the formation of towns.
Securing access to the sea and the development of a national port was a crucial consideration in the new Yugoslavian states.
The Balkans has been a periphery throughout the centuries; it has never been in the developmental centre of a major region. The ever-changing political structure is a special feature of the city network. Once there were independent countries, whilst at other times the territory formed part of a major empire. Political instability led to rapid demographic, economic and administrative changes, and the urban network was constantly forced to adapt to these, whilst the settlements had to adjust their own functions to their changing roles. From these constant changes, it follows that not even one town in the Balkans area had the opportunity for uninterrupted development: there was no dominant city formed and the actors changed -even at the different levels of the urban hierarchy.
Changes of regime, the influence of other cultures, as well as their diverse usage of space impacted on towns and their relationships in different ways. As is widely known, the Balkans' ethnic and regional composition is very diverse; its level of multiculturalism is unique in Europe. Different types of towns were formed in the different cultural zones of the Balkans.

URBANIZATION AND CITY GROWTH IN THE BALKANS
Urbanization was late on the Balkans and it has leeway even in comparison with Central Europe, the Balkan's town network was less dense. Urbanization level of the Western Balkans is still under the European average; it is related to the general underdevelopment based on historic reasons. The fact, that no such city was formed, that could have had durable and significant influence on the whole region is another specificity of the region.
Socialist industrialization, establishment of new factories and other projects linked to these accelerated migration. Population growth and change of the settlements' character were followed by the change of administrative classifications.
The development of Belgrade, the capital, was not disproportionate in multi-ethnic Yugoslavia. The centres of other regions (Zagreb, Ljubljana etc.) were also developing, and so the urban network was relatively in proportion. Every part of the country or region had its own centre. This was true of both the proportion of small, medium and large towns as well as for the network's geographical location. Belgrade's growth declined by virtue of the fact that the country's government was decentralised in several respects.
Migration stopped in the 90s, and in some places, its direction changed as well.
Industrial jobs disappeared and so many who had found themselves in a hostile ethnic environment moved back to their former homes which ensured both ethnic security and a livelihood. Not only was internal migration significant, but many town-dwellers left the area and moved abroad.
In spite of perpetual urbanization Yugoslavia was lagging behind the European average urbanization level even before its breakup, and its different parts, later on, the different

ROLE OF CAPITAL CITIES AND THEIR REGIONS
The economic and political changes opened new possibilities for the post-socialist states.
The region has a very dynamic period in the last two decades, which continue today. In these countries foreign direct investment was unknown before. In these years, investors discovered these countries as profitable fields of investment (Illés, 2002;Lux-Mezei, 2012). Not all counties were simultaneously discovered. It was, however general that the foreigners invested first in capital cities, in ports and in regions bordering EU member states (Rácz, 2011). It means that investments were concentrated in a few cities and regions, most regions remained without FDI for several years, in many cases until now (Gál-Sass, 2009). Consequently, economic growth also concentrated to capital regions (Hardi-Hajdú-Mezei, 2009). In some cases, the capital city region was the only carrier of economic growth. This result can be interpreted also in a wider context. In the period 1995-2000, peripheral countries and especially the capital cities of peripheral countries grew more rapidly than other regions and cities of the EU.
With the global financial and economic crisis somewhat changed this trend but the long term trends did not changed, regional disparities are showing an increase between centres and peripheries. Capital city regions have lower unemployment; the decrease of the growth rate is less than in the other regions. The main driving force of economic growth continues to be the service sector which is concentrated in the capital cities (Faragó-Rácz, 2011). At the same time, however, national and EU policies have a strong influence on the territorial development of countries, cities and regions. The unambiguous winners of the process are capital regions, exploiting their role as metropolitan growth areas. All of these regions have improved their relative positions, some substantially (Bucurest-Ilfov) while a decline in relative development level has taken place in a number of non-central regions (Lux. 2011). No region outside capital regions has experienced a significant improvement in development ranking (Hajdú-Rácz, 2011). This process highlights the heavily metropolitan character of high-technology manufacturing and knowledge-intensive hightechnology services, as well as the functions of economic, financial and political control, where the higher tiers of the globally organised urban network predominate, and the competitive positions of functional urban areas lacking a critical mass are much less advantageous. The concentration of advanced business services corresponds to the urban network: it exceeds 50% in the capital regions of Slovenia, Bulgaria and Croatia, is below 40% in Romania, where a more polycentric urban network is present (Erdősi et al., 2013).
It is a general phenomenon in the Balkan states that the vast majority of economic activities are concentrated in the capital cities; they are services, finance, banking, trading, research, higher education etc. in large part. The capital cities are by far the most important centres of transport; the other cities are much more difficult and more slowly can be accessed by means of transport. There are determinant differences between the capital city and the second largest city. Source: Author's own construction based on last dates of statistical yearbooks.

SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BALKANS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE DANUBE REGION
The region is gradually being integrated into the European Economic Area. The eastern enlargement of the European Union and the fact that, since the re-unification of Germany, the European urban core area has been shifted eastwards does benefit the Danube Region.
At the same time, due to the quickening pace of (belated) modernisation, the circle of areas and settlements which are starting to fall behind is growing, with certain rural areas facing a loss of functions, the outward migration of their population and general impoverishment.
The urban system of South East Europe will, most likely, be characterised by a number of specific features during the coming decades: a polycentric macroregional urban system constituted by monocentric national urban systems and a fragmented rural network, the border to an empire, and, consequently, its territory has remained a periphery. Socialist urban development was also unable to foster any significant changes here, due to the weakness of cross-national connections on one hand, and the fact that the population and Rácz, S. 57 the economy were traditionally concentrated in ports on the Lower Danube. This is graphically shown by a development slope to be observed along the length of the river. The varying levels of development of the individual sectors will also generate different demands in development terms in the future, and the greatest, the most significant effective of these may occur precisely in the more backward territory of the Lower Danube.
In terms of the rate of urbanisation, a North-West to South-East slope can also be discerned, even if socialist development and the fever to gain 'city' status significantly reduced the existing disparities. In reality, the urbanisation of towns or small cities was far from effective, and in several cases the settlements acquiring 'city' status lacked serious urban functions. European growth region is as yet unclear.

CONCLUSIONS
The Balkan Peninsula is one of the largest physical geographical regions in Europe, whose northern borders are defined in different ways. The region is heterogeneous from a physical geographical aspect; all geographical features of Europe appear here.
Nevertheless it is not geography from which aspect the region is most complicated. On the peninsula there has always coexisted a complicated mosaic of peoples, cultures, religions etc., therefore the intensity of historical events has always been high in this region. The different spatial categories (Balkans, Western Balkans, Southeast Europe etc.) themselves are components of a historically conflict-laden process and the designated areas have Rácz, S. specific meanings for almost everyone. Inner acceptance of the specifically defined territories was and still is problematic in most cases.
One of the most significant characteristics of the urban network of the Danube Region is that the capital cities (excluding Bosnia-Herzegovina with its special status) concentrate the heart of the economy and of the population not only within national borders, but also compared to the second level of the urban network (the regional centres).
We can discern the strengthening of the integrated state territory and autonomous urban networks in those states which have won sovereignty during the past two decades. The development of the new capital cities is most remarkable in the newly established states from every perspective. Macro regional centres are relatively weak, or cannot even be counted as real counterpoles, due to the small size of the countries and the scarcity of the area is currently a system of monocentric (capital-city centred) clusters separated on a national (ethnic) basis.
Certain processes (e.g. national sovereignty, mass emigration, the loss of population from rural areas) would have emerged without the intervention of war, albeit at a much slower pace and to a more moderate degree. With the collapse of Yugoslavia the internal relations of the area were radically transformed. The war and the building of nation states resulted in the termination or the deliberate neglect of former relations. Cross-border cooperation has intensified in certain, mainly ethnic respects, but outside the borders of the region Great Power relations have gained significance, showing varying orientations from nation to nation.
With the end of conflicts and the drawing of new, long-term paths a new era of integration seems to be about to commence. Individual countries do not merely participate as partners, but the competition for attracting foreign capital will become more intensive at both national and settlement level. Integration into the global and European blood-stream can be achieved successfully only by certain countries and a very few cities. For the rest, this remains only a remote possibility. A transition similar to that of the Visegrád Countries is likely to occur: modernisation (integration) will be fulfilled in a top-down direction ar points within the settlement hierarchy, and along European corridors in a North West-South East direction. Hence, capital cities with their established connections will become the primary beneficiaries, further increasing their relative weight. Among the winners in the process will be gateway cities and large cities in general. Among the losers will be settlements and areas 'squeezed' along ethnic borders and facing a peripheral situation due to the change of orientation. The new (urban) network relations will not necessarily rely on former structures, since Europe's interests and scales differ totally from what they were during the Yugoslav era.