Resilience of metropolitan, urban and rural regions: a Central European perspective

In this article, we examine a relationship between population/economic size and resilience of Czech regions. More specifically, we ask if there are any significant differences among metropolitan cores and hinterlands, urban regions and rural regions in (post)crisis economic development in the period 2009–2013. Three aspects of resilience were considered: volatility of unemployment, renewal (increase in economic performance compared to other regions) and reorientation (measured by the intensity of structural changes in total employment). We found relatively small differences among particular types of regions and high intra-group heterogeneity. Specialized industrial urban regions exhibited the fastest economic growth in the (post)crisis period. Metropolitan cores lagged slightly behind, but experienced relatively stable economic development. Although rural regions exhibited the highest unemployment volatility, they did not lag behind in terms of value added growth. Regional resilience in a small open economy like Czechia seems to be predominantly driven by extraregional factors such as the position in global production networks and economic performance in particular industries or large transnational corporations.