A Situation of Disadvantage Turned into an Advantage? Convergence Opportunities for Backward Small Regions in the Region of Northern Hungary
A Situation of Disadvantage Turned into an Advantage? Convergence Opportunities for Backward Small Regions in the Region of Northern Hungary

Summary/Abstract: Regional backwardness is a complex phenomenon that can be easily studied in the region of Northern Hungary and that covers approximately one third of the settlements of the region. It can only be managed by a multi-front approach, by integrated development exerting a combined impact on the factors of deprivation. The local development efforts arising from the wish for convergence and aimed at constructing the fundamental infrastructure and creating a mass of concentrated jobs may be fortunately combined with innovative development ensuring a new development path that is considerably encouraged from outside in the scenario built on strengthening the social economy. One of the fundamental objectives of regional development is to decrease the regional differences prevailing in a given area and to bring the areas lagging behind in development up to the more developed ones. The first chain of questions to be clarified in interpreting the objective and then in planning the path of achieving it is what regions qualify as backward, what their backwardness manifests itself in, and the most exciting one: what they are to be brought up to. The last question becomes interesting when the interpretation of regional development is undergoing changes. And today we are witnessing such a change in paradigm. Being developed means something different in the post-industrial age than in industrial societies just as the range of human needs becoming emphatic changes [10] [14].

• Details
• Contents