The relationship of economy, transport and social development – presence and history

Abstract

The paper observes the mutual relationships of the economy – i.e. the natural need of people to barter goods - and the transport and the following impacts of these linkages on the development of society and area complexes. This is shown partly by the historical contexts of the development of medieval Prague to the present form along with the analyses of present statistical data concerning particularly the national economy, environment and life quality. The economy with high level of division of labour would not be productive enough without efficient transport systems. However, they require increasing transport capacity and have impact on the environment and power supply. It is a proved fact, that countries with more liberal economy are economically stronger (the relation between the index of economic freedom and the gross domestic product). But the question is, what are the consequences for other human activities and whether in the transportation we can use the so called Kuznets curve, which predicates that the environmental impacts decrease with the increasing wealth.