The Role of Nodal Centers in Achieving Balanced Regional Development
The Role of Nodal Centers in Achieving Balanced Regional Development

Summary/Abstract: Uneven regional development is characteristic of a large part of the society, from micro to macro regional level. One of the ways of overcoming this problem is effective spatial and functional connection of the largest nodal centers of the region, among themselves and with the settlements in the gravitational sphere. The paper analyzes the spatial and functional impact of nodal centers in the Serbian part of Banat. This region is located in Vojvodina Province, Northern Serbia. Nodal centers are presented as poles of convergence of the population and functions, from which development impacts — the main factors of socio-economic transformation of the region — are spreading out. The paper also deals with the possibilities for achieving balanced regional development presented through the prism of the functional impact of nodal centers in that process. Nodal (functional) region is a theoretical basis of the work. Also, the nodal region is a starting point of functional-process paradigm, resulting from modern processes which change the structure of space by their functional influence. Functional–process paradigm is one of the basic characteristics of modern regional geography.

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