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Authors

Name: Zdenek Silhan,  Ph.D. candidate and instructor at Department of Regional Economics and Administration, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Brno, the Czech Republic.

z.silhan@mail.muni.cz

Topic: Inequalities in access to commercial services and retail in rural area within South Moravian Region (the Czech Republic)

Keywords: territorial inequalities, access to commercial services and retail, service functions, rural area, South Moravian Region

Abstracts

Inequalities in access to commercial services and retail and their changes significantly influence stability and social status of rural area and quality of life of rural inhabitants. These service functions are reciprocally connected with state policies, spatial planning, rural and regional development and municipality policies and programmes. Nevertheless, data related to services and retail and its analysis are not usually available, which makes it more difficult to investigate factors influencing inequalities in access to commercial services and retail and to create public policies.

The aim of the paper is to introduce inequalities in access to commercial services and retail within South Moravian Region (the Czech Republic) and to present their changes.

To meet the goal, a questionnaire survey concerning commercial services and retail in South Moravian Region municipalities was conducted in 2018. Results are compared with survey conducted by regional authority in 2002 and 2012. Data are classified into clusters according to size category of municipalities and further analysed within these clusters. According to particular service functions index of change is computed. Territorial location of municipalities is also considered.

The paper will be used as analytical base for next qualitative and quantitative research dealing with finding factors influencing inequalities in access to commercial services and retail and their changes. Further research will be aimed at finding a correlation between the changes of inequalities in access to commercial services and retail and selected socio-economic data. In addition, interviews with selected participants from the area of ​​service functions will be conducted.

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