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housing and recreation. And this, up to a certain point, causes the disappearance of
an original, specifically agricultural character of most local settlements. Green veg-
etation has been planted recently in continuously built up areas of municipalities,
and so today's village centres make a clean and pleasant impression.
7.5 Interpreting the Driving Forces of Changes
The most dynamic changes in northwestern Bohemia occurred after the Second
World War. The majority of the landscape in this region lost its agricultural func-
tion. The reason for that was loss of landholders (especially family farms). There
was a drastic experiment in the
Sudeten
area. Original inhabitants were replaced
with newcomers who didn't have any knowledge of tradition and links, and had
a completely different attitude to their new possession. The experiment confronts
landscape and its memory with newcomers (Balej & Andel, 2008). At the same
time, inhabitants/landlords were replaced by inhabitants/consumers. As a result, the
Sudeten
region became a memento, which shows what could happen on a much
larger scale if it comes to a significant disruption of natural development of land-
scape (Lipský, 1994). The
Sudeten
region was strongly disrupted. Firm points in the
landscape, cart tracks, thousands of stone statues, wayside shrines, tiny chapels and
memorable trees disappeared (Lipský, 1996). Collectivisation meant, as a result, the
change of a charming landscape into an anonymous expanse of fields. How should
the landscape in northwest Czechia develop and in which direction should it go?
There are several possibilities: to use existing settlement structure intensively, which
should be unambiguously defined to a clear, non-built up landscape. To emphasize
natural dominants of settlements (suppress chaos), to restore spatial and meaning-
ful hierarchy of settlements in the landscape. To restore a network of historical
footways, and connect those to whatever valuables in the landscape are still left.
Footways should serve for journeys with some destination. A responsible landlord,
who will work on and with the land, not only exploit it, should be found for each
landscape site.
On the basis of elementary developmental trends in combination with geoposi-
tional factors, very simplified typology can be done (Table 7.1): the 1st type, “Coal
basin”, lies in a very exposed location in the basin under Krušné Hory Mts. During
the totalitarian period, a dynamic change of landscape is characteristic for this type,
connected to liquidation of settlements, and concentration of population to core
areas. Also, a completely dominant transformation of elementary landscape func-
tions, gradually from an agricultural to industry-agricultural, and in the totalitarian
era to an urban and mining one is apparent. Regionally exposed areas, where mining
and urban functions of landscape predominate, are distinguished by dynamic land-
use changes, extremely high concentration of population, and huge interference with
the environment of inhabitants.
The 2nd type, “Mountain semiperiphery”, was distinguished in the totalitar-
ian era by strongly peripheral features. This type remained underpopulated after
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