Příspěvek k funkčnímu modelování investiční politiky průmyslového velkoměsta na příkladu Ostravy jako regionální metropole

Abstract

Regional (municipal) governance is a self-governing activity of regional entities and serves as a fundamental tool of decentralization from the state authorities. At the same time, regional governance is rather specific in that it is financed from public funds under the conditions mandated to generally elected politicians. For this reason, the search for instruments and methods that are applicable for both elected representatives and clerks at the self-governing entities is of such importance. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the debate about the possibility of influencing municipal government in the distribution of resources towards the development of investment, and this based on an honest evaluation of the actual state of infrastructure. By mapping out this reality from a technical point of view, certain investment risks can be avoided by the city’s municipal authorities, who might otherwise not properly consider the given state of a city’s infrastructure. At the same time, by combining theoretical knowledge with practice, weak investments made by the city can be eliminated. The main object of this work is a self-governing entity, the industrial city of Ostrava, in which the author gained practical experience by working for the municipal authority for twelve years. This thesis stresses the importance of creating a theoretical model for an industrial city, focusing on the proportional maintenance of – or, preferably, development of – the city’s level of infrastructure. It takes place during a period after deurbanization and during reurbanization of the city of Ostrava – two characteristic phenomena of metropolization in the Moravian-Silesian Region. The process of Ostrava’s reurbanization has to a certain extent been caused by the deindustrialization of the city center and the consequent retreat of its residents and job opportunities to new locations in specially created industrial zones, the city suburbs, and even villages and towns outside of the city limits. Reurbanization, on the otherhand, has resulted in a resurgence of the city center, and a return of inhabitants. Where vacant industrial lots once stood, new business offices and housing facilities are being established. This reurbanization is conditioned by the need for territorial planning and also by significant financial involvement of the public sector, namely the municipal authorities. All of this influences the way public representatives vote on the distribution of financial resources to various spheres of the city’s infrastructure, and the overall discussion of the infrastructure needed to generate incentives attractive enough to bring in high-level investment. The decisions made by self-governing organs are highly political. The ability of specialized departments of the City Hall to communicate with the elected representatives, who needn’t be (and generally are not) experts on investment development or financing, is the foundation of a successful community development policy. The goal of the following proposed sphere model is to disengage from the absolute values of the individual budget chapters of the given municipality, and to model the connection of the companies and their successive private investments, whether industrial or non-industrial, as the „core“, and the investment development of the infrastructure from public funds as the „layers“ of the proposed sphere.