Regional Inequalities on Different Scales in the Information Age: The Case of Hungary

The achievements of information technology are usually attributed to the seemingly equalizing processes of globalization by making every places and everything accessible. However, it is only a theoretical and macro-scale phenomenon. Lower scales (regional and local patterns) reflect on the other hand real (empirical) inequalities in the information age, and different answers for countries, regions and localities. The paper deals with possible ways of exploring inequalities in the context of the information and communication technologies on different (global, regional and local) scales, while concentrating on selected problems of the spatial levels. It also explores how national and regional strategies influenced the development of society in this globalized network context. According to the opinion of the professionals of regional development agencies the effectiveness of strategies are questionable. However, there were some good examples (e.g. the network of telecottages) of regional (local) information society development, which had on the other hand not much connection with the aforementioned strategies. As a result of the not always perfect development solutions, inequalities still exist both when we look at Hungary as a global participant and within Hungary as a set of regions and localities competing for better information society performance.