Przestrzenne zróżnicowanie poziomu rozwoju społeczno-gospodarczego Niemiec

Abstract

On 3 October 1990, two German states, the socialist German Democratic Republic and the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany, unified after almost 50 years of separation. In the Länder re-established in the former GDR a market economy started to be implemented and the government of the new German state launched initiatives to eliminate the huge gaps between the levels of socio-economic development in eastern and western Germany. This article analyzes and evaluates the Federal Republic of Germany with respect to spatial variations in its socio-economic development that still persisted in 2010, i.e. 20 years after official unification. The conclusion arising from the research is that the German-German border still divides the territory of the unified state and that basically the whole of the former GDR is at a lower level of socio-economic development. The highlighted differences between the best and the least developed administrative units in the country can be interpreted as an expression of polarization in its development. At the same time, though, the period of 20 years is too short to expect the differences to be small.