This article discusses the state-of-the-art conception of the peri-urban area and aims at making the clarification of the term. While exploring the historical origins and features of suburban development, it appears that the extensive urban development processes and resulting formation of an intermediate space between the city and countryside is not a conceptually new phenomenon typical of the developed countries. The current interest in this spatial phenomenon (suburbs) is determined by the consistently growing importance of this territorial-organizational unit: recently increased suburban population, greatly expanded areas etc. If the previously used concept of the peri-urban area was closely linked to the city as a central analytical discourse, most recently, in the context of radical decentralization processes, there has been a tendency to defining this urban peripheral area as unique functional and territorial space – the peri-urban landscape. Although scientific and popular literature on suburbs and peri-urban areas is extensive, yet the subject always seems to be elusive. The peri-urban areas are still described as the integral parts of the regular suburban transformation processes taking place in the context of changing social, economic and ecological conditions. The latter holistic approach is a fundamental attribute of a contemporary knowledge of peri-urban space and the key element of the current debate on sustainable urban and regional development.

Article in Lithuanian