The Changing Meaning of Core-Periphery Relations in a Non-Metropolitan "Urban Region" at the Hungarian-Romanian Border

The multiplicity and fluidity of the roles and functions of Gyula, a small town in a non-metropolitan turban region along the I Hungarian Romanian border, both as part of a core and part. of a periphery is unquestionable. In studying this multiplicity and fluidity in a relational approach and in the context. of geographical scale, place and space, this paper has two main arguments: 1. As a result of the geopolitical and political-economic transformations of differing modes of production at. a national scale, Gyula, in an everyday fight for power at. an turban scale, was gaining and losing both its core position and hinterland. 2. The uneven development of "new capitalism" has made Gyula's hinterland a "red-lined" periphery, where even the issue of dependence on the core loses its relevance, as it. is an area completely shunned by flows of capital, labor and goods. As far as the temporal dimension of the analysis is concerned, local agents' responses will he put in the context of the major shifts awl turns of socio-economic structures from the early much:Ill period (17 18th c.) to recent times. The changing meaning of core periphery relations in the non-metropolitan region, which, is being peripheralized as part of a macro-region, will be interpreted in relationship to the uneven development of I Hungarian regions and to die national discourse on uneven development. The results of the research summarized in the paper are based on a qualitative analysis of a series or interviews with local stakeholders and a review of historical sources and literature, as well as urban/regional development documents.