Function equilibrium in the medium and large urban settlements of Serbia

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze and assess direction and intensity of changes in structure of activities in urban settlements in Serbia with more than 20,000 inhabitants, to determine the tendencies of that process, as well as the moment or the period of achieving their equilibrium structure of development activities. In addition, this paper defines the regularities of functional urban areas changes depending on their demographic size, on one hand, and depending on the period of exercising their convergent - uniform structure, on the other hand. Results of the analysis were used for testing the hypotheses put forward in the context of previous research related to the period of most intense industrialization - 60s and 70s of the last century. While in this paper, for comparison, that period of time was covered, the focus of the research refers to the period 1981-2011.