Patterns of Urban Land-Use in Eastern Europe – Exploring GMES Database Using the Location Quotient

Abstract

The location quotient shows us that in the cities from the Eastern Europe the
polycentric development policies are difficult to implement, because the spatial development of the
built areas, respectively green areas does not present a well-organized distribution, but a chaotic
development with a tendency of concentration in the centre of the city or near it, decreasing towards the
periphery. Therefore, establishing a fairly ratio between the built areas and the green areas in the cities
of Eastern Europe will be relatively difficult because the totalitarian regime imposed a territorial
development which did not take into account the importance of green areas within the built areas and
planning them, now, in the conditions of restricted areas requires a large amount of financial resources
that few countries have in this region. However, despite these difficulties, there have been several
attempts of introducing the Western European strategies for the territorial development of urban areas
which shows us that there is a possibility that the cities from Eastern Europe reach the same level of
progress as the cities from Western Europe in what concerns the polycentric development policies.