RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL SETTLEMENTS IN NORTHERN PART OF BELGRADE PERIURBAN SPACE

Fringe areas of urban regions increasingly occupy the attention of contemporary urban-geographic research. The focus of this paper are rural settlements of suburban space, from the aspect of their demographic and functional transformations. One of the scientific goals is to point - through populational and demo-social indicators - to the impact and spread of urban transition from the periurban to the rural zone, which means spreading of (Belgrade) urban region as well. The first part of the paper defines the rural-urban belt as a complex physical space with complementary social, economical and spatial elements. The second part of the paper is a case study of villages in the northern part of Belgrade metropolitan area (on administrative territory of Vojvodina province), which will point to demo-functional indicators of recent urban transition. Transition of periurban space can be spatially reflected as changes in land use, e.g. transformation into periurban agricultural area. Methods for estimation of the level of urban and functional development of the mentioned rural settlements will be applied in the paper. The results will show that the group of the studied rural settlements demo- functionally fits into Belgrade urban region. Closeness of big city is, undoubtedly, starting device of great transformations. Each settlement which exists in its vicinity succumbs to its influences, and area between the city and village is the area of intense inter-actions and transformations. City effect onto surrounding area singled out zones which were differentiated depending on closeness to central settlement. So, the zones within periurbia can be mutually recognized according to degree of functional relations' development, character of changes in population's profesional structure, intensity of daily migrations, degree of agrarian soil transformation, etc. Area in which there are no urban influences or in which they are in the scope that doesn't disturb neither agrarian landscape nor agrarian function, is in scientific terminology known as rural continum. It is not static area because "urban tissue springs up, spreads and bites into remains of agrarian life" by penetration of urban elements (Lefevr, 1974). Agrarian zone is being shaped under urban influences, gets heterogeneous spatial structure and modifies itself into rural-