The Regional Relationship Between Quality of Business and Social Environment: Harmony or Disharmony?

The paper assesses the relationships between the quality of business and social environments on
the example of micro-regions (districts of municipalities with extended powers) and meso-regions
(NUTS 3) of the Czech Republic. The applied approach develops the concept of the quality of life
including the identification of system links to regional competitiveness and sustainability of
development. In this context, the assessment of the business component of the regional
environment that has been already carried out was supplemented with the assessment of the
social component, when the regions were divided into progressive, standard and regressive. In
both cases, it has been proved (in correspondence with core-periphery theories) that there is
a tendency towards a decrease in the environment quality in the direction to regional borders.
Subsequently, we evaluated the balance of the classification of regions (districts) within the
individual components and based on this, the districts of municipalities with extended powers were
divided into three types: business-oriented (type A), complex (B) and socially oriented (C). The
proportion of the “balanced” type B is slightly lower than that of the two remaining “unbalanced”
types. Naturally, the results of NUTS 3 evaluation correspond with this. A similar result was
obtained in the case of the evaluation of regional harmony, which is understood as a qualitatively
higher level of balance meeting socially desirable development standards. In correspondence, its
level is defined by the proportion of type B regions (excluding the regions with business as well as
social environment quality below average and also regions that are environmentally devastated)
and type A regions (excluding the regions with social environment quality below average). The
results show that from the perspective of the distribution of inhabitants, relatively harmonic
relationship prevails, while from the purely territorial perspective, the prevailing relationship is
disharmonic. The obtained knowledge corresponds with the hypothesis about a positive effect of
the regional harmony of the business and social environments on the long-term sustainability of
development (a bad quality of social environment significantly reduces not only residential but also
investment attractiveness of regions).
The paper assesses the relationships between the quality of business and social environments on the example of micro-regions (districts of municipalities with extended powers) and meso-regions (NUTS 3) of the Czech Republic. The applied approach develops the concept of the quality of life including the identification of system links to regional competitiveness and sustainability of development. In this context, the assessment of the business component of the regional environment that has been already carried out was supplemented with the assessment of the social component, when the regions were divided into progressive, standard and regressive. In both cases, it has been proved (in correspondence with core-periphery theories) that there is a tendency towards a decrease in the environment quality in the direction to regional borders. Subsequently, we evaluated the balance of the classification of regions (districts) within the individual components and based on this, the districts of municipalities with extended powers were divided into three types: business-oriented (type A), complex (B) and socially oriented (C). The proportion of the “balanced” type B is slightly lower than that of the two remaining “unbalanced” types. Naturally, the results of NUTS 3 evaluation correspond with this. A similar result was obtained in the case of the evaluation of regional harmony, which is understood as a qualitatively higher level of balance meeting socially desirable development standards. In correspondence, its level is defined by the proportion of type B regions (excluding the regions with business as well as social environment quality below average and also regions that are environmentally devastated) and type A regions (excluding the regions with social environment quality below average). The results show that from the perspective of the distribution of inhabitants, relatively harmonic relationship prevails, while from the purely territorial perspective, the prevailing relationship is disharmonic. The obtained knowledge corresponds with the hypothesis about a positive effect of the regional harmony of the business and social environments on the long-term sustainability of development (a bad quality of social environment significantly reduces not only residential but also investment attractiveness of regions).