During the expansion of cities, there is a lack of collaboration between municipalities and regions

Prague - The development of satellite towns lacks cooperation between municipalities and regions, and often there are insufficient schools or quality transportation services in the municipalities. Local officials should be more aware of the dangers that the expansion of cities and municipalities entails. This arises from the presentations of participants at today's conference, which dealt with so-called suburbanization, that is, the expansion of municipalities and towns.
    According to Ivana Bursíková from Agora Central Europe, which organized the meeting, the aim of the conference was to draw public attention, as well as that of mayors, to often poor planning of emerging satellite towns. For example, there is a lack of sufficient transport infrastructure, or agricultural land is unnecessarily occupied. Additionally, new houses are often not suitably integrated into the landscape. "I find it troubling that the architectural level is often terrible," noted Bursíková.
    Luděk Sýkora, the deputy dean of the Faculty of Science at Charles University in Prague, emphasized that new settlement areas are emerging randomly without sufficient concept in several thousand places in the Czech Republic. Each of these places then wants to have its own school, technical equipment, and transportation services. However, according to Sýkora, it is not possible to satisfy all their demands. According to him, the solution lies in the construction of larger centers, which are easier to connect to public transport or to equip with schools and services.
    Such coordination, however, must be ensured by the region or the state. "Each municipality decides independently, no one coordinates them. Above them is the region, but it has distanced itself from this," he said.
    Brno and the South Moravian Region are currently trying to implement change. They have commissioned a study that will identify the problems of the Brno agglomeration and help address them. "It's the first swallow," Sýkora praised their effort.
    Conversely, the participants criticized Prague and the Central Bohemian Region, whose representatives are unable to agree on mutual cooperation in addressing the issues of suburbanization. Thousands of people commute daily from the Central Bohemian Region to the capital for work and school, and some of them settle on the border of both regions.
    In addition to better collaboration and coordination between regions and municipalities, the experts present expressed support for changes to property tax, for a higher tax burden on land designated for building, and for better public awareness as well as awareness among responsible officials.
    In the so-called process of suburbanization, Sýkora also sees benefits. For example, due to the massive construction of family houses on the outskirts of Prague, property prices in the city center did not increase significantly. People also gained more options in securing housing and were able to fulfill their dreams.