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The JESSICA initiative was set up to provide a more sustainable and efficient response to the needs of urban areas, as compared to non-repayable grants. Anchored in the literature on place-based policy and territorial cohesion, this paper addresses the question how the JESSICA funds were allocated among Polish cities – whether, intuitively, only to key urban centres, or to smaller cities as well. The results illustrate that the repayable assistance of JESSICA was dispersed throughout the regions, although the degree of dispersion remains mixed across them. Almost half of the JESSICA funds was transferred to small and medium-sized cities. It was also found that the bulk of the assistance went to the projects that were implemented in cities situated within metropolitan areas of the regional capital cities.

Several theories of regional development (e.g. new economic geography) claim positive relationship between administrative status of capital cities and their economic and population growth. Availability of capital goods as well as direct and indirect demand generated by administrative institutions are among factors which accelerate development. However, most of empirical studies so far have concentrated either on national capitals or on federal states. In our article we conduct empirical tests comparing the impact of reforms implemented in 1975 and 1999 in Poland on the development of cities gaining or losing their regional capital functions. On the basis of those results the article indicates differences in impacts of both reforms and attempts to explain those differences.

Whose is the city? This question only superficially refers to the past when at least some cities were in fact law-making, autonomous communities of their citizens. Unlike in the past, the contemporary city is a random collection of individuals gathered in a space with no clear boundaries, who in their majority have a weak sense of identification with the place of their residence, whether longer or shorter. The residents of such a city are not citizens but merely users of space which has become a commodity. Taking Warsaw as an example, the paper shows the process of selling out the city space, which is driven by globalisation and metropolisation processes. The consequence of this is privatisation and fragmentation of space, leading to the evaporation of public space in the city.

A socialist city is mainly associated with the imperial architecture of Minsk or East Berlin, the functional division into districts, monumental public buildings, or housing developments. This article aims at restructuring the prospect of city development in the first post-war period, i.e. 1945-1949. Based on the example of Łódź – Poland’s biggest city in view of the demolished Warsaw as well as the working-class capital of textiles – I reconstruct modernisation discourses in press, showing that in the first period of the reconstruction, modest suggestions as to the city development were made, ones adjusted to the needs of its inhabitants and the comfort of everyday life. It was only with the aggravation of the political course after the year 1948 when these were replaced with more daring prospects of a socialist city, gigantic investments, and the construction of new districts for the working-class masses.

The paper proposes a model in which centre-periphery relations defined at a high level of generality (from the global level down to regional structures) can be analysed from a perspective of a number of disciplines, including political science (e.g. Rokkan’s theory of peripheries and centre-periphery cleavages), sociology (e.g. Bourdieu’s theory of the forms of capital) and linguistics (discourse analysis including code switching and politeness theories). It focuses on the nature of the discourse of peripheral elites which, as it is argued, live in a two or more dimensional social space and communicate in at least two separate codes (particularly languages): peripheral and central. Using the above mentioned theoretical concepts, the paper offers an attempt at theorisation of the mechanism of mutual perception of the centre and the periphery.

Civil servants are frequently described as being separate from politicians in good local governance. Regrettably, civil servants are urged to assist in the maintenance of power through the use of social capital. In Indonesia, decentralisation facilitates the accumulation of social capital. However, a body of literature has established that social capital is a predictor of the bureaucracy’s quality. This study delves into something else by examining how social capital fosters a mutually beneficial relationship between the State Civil Apparatus (ASN) and the incumbent, resulting in the ASN’s non-neutrality in Regional Head Elections (Pilkada). We used a qualitative case study approach, within which we interviewed members of the civil apparatus about social capital and its relationship to the performance of the State Civil Apparatus. The findings indicated that the ASN’s lack of neutrality in the Pilkada occurred as a result of the establishment of social capital relations between superiors and the ASN in the form of information channel relationships (paternalism and/or nepotism culture), obligations and expectations (the ASN’s contribution to the incumbent), norms and effective sanctions (superiors’ invitation), as well as adjusted community organisations (weak community control).

The article aims to present and assess educational migration as a driver of human capital redistribution across regions. The unique research on academic careers of 8.5 thousand secondary school-leavers in Lublin (Poland) allowed to gather microdata on the mobility of young people along with the school-leaving examination results being a proxy of human capital. The results indicate that the ratio of youth out-migration from their home region amounts to roughly 20%, which seems a low figure against comparative studies. However, the distribution of migration rate along with the logit regression proved high propensity of the most talented youth to move out. Hence, strong positive migration selectivity is regarded as an important driver of human capital redistribution across regions, which might negatively affect human capital accumulation in the sending area.

In the past twenty years, research on the measurement of social capital has been among the leading areas of interest in social sciences. The impact of ethnic diversity on the level of social capital is an interesting aspect of this research. According to Robert Putnam, in the U.S. context, ethnic diversity has a negative influence on the level of social capital. Various research initiatives implemented in Europe indicate, however, that ethnic diversity does not have a significantly negative correlation with social capital, and, that examples of its positive impact on social capital can be found. The article presents a quantitative analysis conducted in 20 municipalities of the Opolskie Voivodship (10 of them ethnically homogeneous, and 10 – ethnically diversified) in order to analyse this relationship. On the basis of the data collected in the analysis, it can be stated that in the surveyed region, ethnic diversity is not a factor with a negative impact on the level of social capital, and it is also highly probable that it is a factor that enhances social capital, at least its bonding dimension.

Social councils (SCs) are local collegial actors formally created by local authorities as consultative bodies for different policy issues. The main objective of this article is to define the role of SCs in collaborative governance (CG). The paper is based on the quantitative research conducted in 65 Polish cities. The research is focused on the members of youth, senior citizen councils, and councils for residents with disabilities. The research results indicate that SCs meet many of the prerequisites of CG, however their potential to influence decisions and consensus seeking has not been entirely proven.

The article was published in Polish in "Studia Regionalne i Lokalne", 1/2005

Metropolisation is one of the most dynamic processes of contemporary world, changing the existing settlement patterns and creating new relations between large cities. In the recent years, metropolisation has also come to include Central and Eastern European countries. The paper looks at the role of these countries in the European metropolitan network, and describes the process of the emergence of Polish metropolises, in addition to their social and spatial transformation.

This paper explores the interrelationships between religious attitudes, ethnic and linguistic identities, and geopolitical preferences in three geopolitical fault-line cities in Eastern Ukraine – Mariupol, Kharkiv, and Dnipro. The research is based on data taken from a survey and the associated descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. The findings suggest that the religious divide in Eastern Ukraine does not generate additional division but instead strengthens the existing divide, which is known to be formulated in terms of geopolitical as opposed to language or ethnicity-based categories, although language and ethnicity do have an influence on geopolitical preferences. Moreover, civic-national identity appears to be more relevant than ethnic-national identity to understanding the religious fault-line in Eastern Ukraine.

The paper provides a comparative analysis of so-called land management and spatial development studies of the biggest Polish cities regarding the scope of functional and morphological delimitation and zoning. Due to the lack of detailed regulations, individual cities developed their own zoning methodologies. The authors of such studies take into account three factors: functional, morphological and administrative aspects. The zoning in the analysed cities is determined by individual factors which vary from city to city.

Sustainability of municipal finance implies steady revenue generation. Pinpointing their determinants creates the necessary background in their management and policy creation. Great municipal dependence on central government finance remains a serious challenge in the process of fiscal decentralisation. So far, studies have been focusing on the expenditure side, while revenues were treated mostly marginally. A random-effects Generalized Least Squares (GLS) panel regression for the period of 2015–2019 is estimated for targeting revenue determinants of municipalities in North Macedonia. Own and total tax revenues are modelled separately through the impact of capital expenditures, salary expenditures, active transparency index, municipality type, and local government’s ideology. The general results indicate that capital expenditure, municipal transparency, and the level of development are significant determinants of municipal revenues in both estimated models. Using such knowledge on municipal revenue reactions can help governments formulate policies that provide sustainable and effective fiscal decentralisation, lowering the pressure on central governments in developing economies.

A city is a reflection of the society and flows its fate. The situation of Warsaw is therefore related to the situation of the whole of Poland – a country relatively big, but still poorly developed country, located at the peripheries of Europe. Due to these general conditions Warsaw has not become one of the most important European metropolises. However, a massive inflow of FDI and location of several offices of TNCs in the city has begun a process of metropolisation of this city – severely damaged during the war and later badly reconstructed according to the principles of real socialism. Juxtaposition of the “old” and the “new” leads to emergence of contrasts and imbalances – in a similar way as it happens in the cities of the so-called Third World. An important question arises – do these contrasts have a tendency to diminish, or are they persistent or even growing? This article aims at providing an answer to this question.

Postindustrial agglomerations struggling with image deficits and environmental problems are looking for new development paths to take. One of these paths can bring about the development of business tourism, including the industry of the organisation of meetings and events. The unique and attractive character of the place can favour taking such a direction. The business tourism sector can therefore become an instrument contributing to the sustainable metropolisation of the city by building up its position in the global network of flows. The development of the meetings and events sector allows, therefore, for a change of image, for a re-evaluation of endogenous resources, including those relating to the industrial past, and for tapping into the unlimited resources of the global network. Increased attention in this network may lead to an influx of more events, and of investors as well. Replacing heavy industry with an enlarged service sector and modern industry based on flexible and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises fosters sustainable development. The meetings and events industry can become a tool for sustainable development and the promotion of its ideas, related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The trajectory outlined above seems very promising. However, to some extent, it is just a hypothesis. The author undertakes to test it on the example of Katowice, a former industrial city which has decided to follow the route outlined above to become a city that hosts many events, including the COP24 summit in 2018. In the article, the author presents empirical research studies whose authors tried to determine whether the path the city has chosen has a real impact on its image and development. The author also deals with the question of the sustainability of such a development path and the conditions for its self-support in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

The work has two goals: 1) to identify the dominant charges in complaints to administrative courts regarding land use plans for municipalities (gminy), to assess their legitimacy and effectiveness, and to classify the complainants; 2) to show that the court rulings are related to the diversity of municipalities, i.e., their character (morphology, social and economic functions, etc.) and characteristics of socio-economic development. All the judgments of voivodship (regional) administrative courts issued in 2010–2019 concerning complaints about municipal plans were analysed (531). The problem turns out to be the undefined scope of such plans, which, however, does not affect the extent to which these instruments are challenged by property owners. A high concentration of complaints in the regional capitals and their suburban areas is also demonstrated.

The notion of a network is one of the key terms used to describe the contemporary world. The role of cooperation networks is also stressed in the context of innovation and its spatial aspects. In this particular case, most attention is given to metropolises as major networks of flows not only of people, capital or goods, but also of information and knowledge. The paper discusses selected spatial aspects of collaborative networks in Polish science. The discussion of examples is preceded by a theoretical introduction intended to outline various aspects of innovation networks at national and regional levels, with particular emphasis on the role of metropolises in collaborative networks.

The article shows how the Four Capitals Model was applied to evaluate the region development strategy document and its implementation in terms of sustainable development. Firstly, it defines these types of capitals that could be used to analyse the sustainability of regional development. Then the authors describe the results of the exercise carried out together with representatives of the regional authorities, intended to assess the impact of the strategy implementation in the context of the four capitals. The results were confronted with the opinions of local governments and SME owners. This helped to identify the weaknesses of the strategy and potential trade-offs between different types of capital. Finally, the recommendations related to the updating of the strategy were formulated.

If architectural heritage in cities is recognisable for the masses, it does not raise doubts as to its value. However, if the architecture is controversial, relatively young, or can be associated with a problematic legacy and difficult past, its valuation raises ambiguities. Unconventional valuation methods can help resolve these uncertainties, making it easier for local decision-makers to make sounder decisions. This paper presents a proposal for valuing Warsaw’s modernist WKD Ochota train station, using a combination of cost-benefit analysis and a Delphi panel. The study carried out for the purposes of this article revealed that such architecture, although ambiguous, is treated by the local community as valuable not only in economic terms, but also in social and cultural terms.

The aim of the article is to analyse the strategies undertaken by urban movements in the process of advocacy promoting the interests of the inhabitants of Polish cities. The strength of urban movements in the first years of their activity in Poland was their grassroots nature, lack of connections with the public policy system, and therefore independence and being able to put forth uncompromising postulates. Over time, urban movements began to undergo transformations, and the strategies of representing the interests of the residents they implemented evolved as well. When starting research on this text, the author assumed that the results of the analyses would be the observation of a clear trend from bottom-up activities to professionalisation. However, an in-depth analysis of the issue showed that there is no uniform trend in the development of urban movements nor in the strategies of advocacy for the interests applied by them. The study was based on desk research analysis; additionally several individual in-depth interviews were conducted.

The aim of the article is to present the communication by public transport of the towns located within the boundaries of the Municipal Functional Area of Słupsk–Ustka (MOF S–U) with the core cities (Słupsk and Ustka) and to indicate the areas where the phenomenon of transport exclusion may occur. The public transportation network in the area does not meet the needs directed by the residents to local authority decision-makers, which may limit their ability to get around, especially on weekends. During the study, the literature on the subject, documents at local and regional levels, and data contained in timetables were analysed as well as the GIS visualisations were used. Insufficient communication with public transport in the area results in limited transport accessibility and, consequently, may lead to transport exclusion.

The purpose of the article is to theoretically analyse the nature and characteristics of territorial capital. The article examines the conceptual framework of this notion to identify its originality and added value. The applied research method is literature review. The concept of territorial capital amalgamates numerous findings from endogenous approaches to development. Its originality derives from a holistic and complementary perspective on territorial resources, which give rise to new development trajectories and foster territorial specificity. This concept emphasises the significance of network relationships and the intangibility of resources, along with their embeddedness. It highlights the importance of place specificity and territorial capabilities in creating new values and resources. It forms the basis for place-based development policy.

The main goal of this article is to investigate how the structure of inter-sectoral links affects the dynamics of human capital. This structure has been split into related variety (RV) and unrelated variety (UV). The assembled empirical evidence shows that RV positively affects the rate of human capital growth in a region, while UV has negative effects both in the group of all Polish regions and in the most developed regions located in western Poland. Moreover, among all the analysed control variables, only RV determines the existence of the effect of human capital convergence.

Cities are becoming more important actors in the international arena because they have competencies that enable them to conduct foreign activities. This phenomenon is the result of far-reaching processes of globalisation and the pluralisation of actors in international relations. This study presents a map of partnerships between six Croatian and two Slovenian cities and their Chinese and American partners, as well as a description of the thematic areas of such cooperation. Moreover, based on the results of our survey, we indicate similarities and differences in the patterns of cooperation between the cities of the Western Balkans and their foreign partners, referring to the multilevel governance theory.

Evaluation is an important element of the public policy cycle, providing information for improving the effectiveness of implemented policies and designing future ones. In Poland, the need for the diffusion of this practice from the field of structural funds to other public policy fields has been discussed for at least 15 years. Although one such obvious direction of diffusion is local government, very little is known about evaluation at this level, and in studies summarising the general evaluation practice in Poland, this strand is omitted. The aim of this study was to assess the extent and characteristics of evaluation practices in the period 2010–2021 in cities with county [Pol. powiat] status. The analysis was based on the information on evaluation studies provided by city halls. Out of the 55 cities that were included in the analysis, 62% carried out evaluations and they completed a total of 469 studies. A systematic increase in the number of studies and the number of cities carrying them out was also observed. The dominant thematic areas were civic budgeting, social policy, and development strategy. The shares of studies carried out internally and those commissioned from external companies turned out to be similar. In contrast, studies of intervention implementation processes dominate over evaluations of intervention effects. This research can serve as a starting point for further, more detailed analyses of the organisation of the evaluation process and its use in local government.

Local governments in the Western Balkan countries are dependent on central governments’ transfers, with low fiscal autonomy and limited efforts for own-source revenue mobilisation. The paper identifies that besides central government transfers, other significant factors in determining municipal own-source revenues include central and local public investment, current expenditures, human development index, and population density. Municipal own-source revenue is adversely affected by intergovernmental transfers, implying their de-incentivising effect in collecting local revenues. Local capital expenditure is a significant and strong determinant with a higher strength than central government investments, suggesting their importance for local fiscal autonomy. The human development index as a composite measure, unlike GDP per capita, positively affects the municipal fiscal autonomy.

This article aims to explore residents’ preferences and perceptions of the actual styles of local political leadership in Poland over the past decades. In particular, it analyses the size of the gap between preferred and perceived leadership styles. The paper uses a classification developed by Peter John and Alistair Cole distinguishing city boss, visionary, care-taker, and consensus facilitator styles. The primary empirical material comes from a nationwide survey of residents conducted in December 2022 and surveys in a few case study cities conducted in the spring and summer of 2023. In addition, previously published results from surveys conducted using similar methods are used. The results indicate a growing preference for consensus facilitator style, assuming an inclusive style for both policy preparation and policy implementation. The size of the ‘expectations gap’ is explained by the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents (age, education) and the size of the city. Younger and better educated respondents have a particularly high expectation that mayors should involve different stakeholders in the preparation and implementation of local policies, while at the same time being more critical in assessing the actual behaviour of local authorities.

The article was published in Polish in "Studia Regionalne i Lokalne", 3/2004

Theory and empirical literature relate educational quality to two main explanatory factors: family education (intergenerational transfer of human capital) and the quality of schools. The model proposed in this paper is intended to verify the significance of these factors in explaining territorial disparities in educational quality in Poland. The dependent variable is the test score of sixth grade pupils in 2002, averaged at municipality level. The test results prove to be strongly correlated with human capital stock in the municipality`s adult population, which points to the key role of intergenerational transfer for educational quality. On the other hand, the role of school resources (understood as expenditure on education) is rather small. Average test results differ significantly between Poland`s historical divisions. Surprisingly, the more urbanised and relatively affluent regions, like Greater Poland (Wielkopolska), Pomerania (Pomorze) and the so-called Regained Territories (ziemie odzyskane) reveal a substantially lower educational quality than the territories in the east and south-east of the country, generally less developed and with a significant share of agriculture in the economy. These differences can only be partly explained by an additional environmental factor, related to the prevalence of state-owned economy before 1990 (e.g. state farms PGRs) and today`s high structural unemployment. Interestingly, the dissimilarities between the historical regions are not only illustrated by average test score levels, but also by parameters of the determining functions for these results. It can be concluded therefore that location in a historical region has a substantial impact on the flexibility of educational outcomes with regard to different explanatory factors.

The article presents the classification of municipalities in Poland, divided into urbanised and non-urbanised based on their spatial dimensions. The spatial distribution of urbanised municipalities and their basic characteristics are discussed. The classification was performed using the k-means clustering algorithm on the spatial data from Corine Land Cover databases. The comparison of the administrative and land-use driven classification of municipalities in Poland indicates that the widest differences occur between the functional areas of cities and along dynamically developing transport routes, when identification of urbanised areas in terms of land use is taken into consideration.

The paper refers to sublocal units within metropolitan governance, focusing on Wrocław in the context of multi-level governance and good governance. In Poland, such units function as ancillary units of municipalities (gminy). The paper describes their legal status and functioning within the Polish territorial government and discusses selected urban districts (powiaty). The analysis is based on legal acts and interviews with people involved in the local and sublocal government in Wrocław. The organisation of metropolitan governance based on smaller units is an efficient solution applied in cities worldwide, however, in the case of Wrocław, the borough model leaves a broad potential to develop this element of municipal management structure. Currently, a clear concept of their role in the city is needed.

The aim of the paper is to identify and diagnose problems relating to Poland`s metropolitan areas. In the frst part, the authors offer a review of the most important features metropolisation process and indicate problems associated with such processes on the local and regional scales. This is followed by an identification of major urban centres in Poland, and a delimitation of their metropolitan areas. In the subsequent part of the study, the identified metropolitan areas are characterised in terms of their pertinent development problems. Finally, a set of conclusions and recommendations is proposed, with the aim of improving the functioning of the largest cities and their environment.

This paper focuses on the link between women’s civic engagement and elected political participation. The first part presents the theoretical aspects of both concepts – i.e. civic engagement and political involvement – and combines them with another category, namely the descriptive representation of women. The second part of the paper is devoted to the methodology of the present research, which consists of both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative research examines the composition of six city councils in Poland (Wrocław, Kraków, Gdańsk, Łódź, Lublin, and Poznań) as well as city mayorships after the last elections (2018). The results confirm a positive correlation between women’s elected political participation and women’s civic engagement. The qualitative research, based on 11 semi-structured interviews, aims at explaining why the civic sector is dominated by women, even though politics still remains men’s domain. Another objective is to identify particular obstacles that prevent female civic activists from further engagement in politics. Specific recommendations for mitigating the identified obstacles and increasing the number of women in politics are provided.

The paper discusses the development of gated and guarded housing estates in Poland`s capital, Warsaw. It contains a presentation of recent empirical findings based on a series of field research carried out since the 1990s in Warsaw, with a special focus on its largest residential district of Ursynow. Detailed mappings of the researched housing estates are included, which evidence their rapid spread in the district. An attempt at classifying the housing estates according to different clusters of their physical design is made. A functional analysis of their physical features is carried out against the background of a global discourse of in/security which is presumed to play a major role in the development of contemporary cities. However, several local factors, which have a bearing on gating the city of Warsaw, are also reflected upon.

Human capital stock affects economic growth by raising the productivity of labour in a given area or by enhancing the ability of the regional economy to create and absorb innovations. From the perspective of an academic city, this process can be reinforced by attracting students and researchers to study and work at the local universities. To do this successfully, the city needs not only high quality academic institutions but also a wider labour market for educated individuals and, more generally, the ability to attract the creative class to settle down. The article provides a comparative analysis of the capacity of the largest Polish cities to attract and absorb human capital. The research is based on a unique dataset coming from the nasza-klasa.pl website (which allows users to contact their former classmates). The research concludes with the typology of Polish cities with respect to benefits from performing the academic function.

The main purpose of the paper is to recognise the impact of statutory Sunday trading restrictions on consumer behaviours (shopping time) and mobility (activeness, motivation, modal division) of residents in Łódź, one of the largest Polish cities. An additional aim is to determine the independence of the indicated elements for selected features of the surveyed residents and their households, for which purpose a two-stage questionnaire survey was conducted among the residents/dwellers of Łódź. The first stage was performed during a week following a non-trading Sunday, and the respondents were asked to refer specifically to the previous Sunday. The second phase was carried out during a week immediately following a trading Sunday, with the questions focused on that particular Sunday. The returned results showed that the main factor determining the time when people do their shopping to make up for a non-trading Sunday is their professional Sunday activity. The answers also revealed that the residents of Łódź chose an inactive and rather a “couch-potato” lifestyle on the analysed Sundays, whether trading or non-trading.

The aim of this article is to outline growth tendencies and growth factors in the subregions (NUTS 3) of Central and Eastern Europe in the period 1998–2006. A wide range of complementary research methods has been used in order to triangulate results, starting with classical beta and sigma convergence analysis, to kernel density estimation, transition matrices, spatial autocorrelation and multi-dimensional comparisons. Some rarely discussed aspects of the influence of capital regions on growth processes have been taken into account. An additional analysis of the data in relation to country averages produced results independent of the country context. As a result, we have been able to answer the following questions: do the analysed countries experience regional convergence or rather divergence/polarisation processes? What factors determine the dynamics of regional growth? What are the main dimensions of spatial disparities in Central and Eastern Europe?

Public space of the post-modern epoch is a conglomerate or blend of discontinuous functions, a collection of loosely connected fragments, increasingly more frequently unrelated to a city. People compose for themselves their own town from individual trajectories that are outlined by means of motor roads. Neo-liberal logic of city development recognizes the rule of spontaneity wherever the interest of big capital groups dominates, pushing onto the sidelines the more important task of contemporary urban planning – the protection and development of public spaces. Due to the crisis it is undergoing at present (commercial pressure), the efforts are taken to regain its social and spatial significance. The purpose of these transformations is bonding public spaces with broader surroundings (with open terrains, waterside zones, promenades, playgrounds, etc). Such recomposition is part of a regeneration process that unites the city and reconstructs the identity of the place where relationships of inhabitants with their urban environment were not completely abandoned.

This paper examines the impact of the implementation of participatory budget (PB) projects on the development and creation of public spaces in the city. The first part of the paper describes the main assumptions and models of participatory budgeting as well as the legal basis and rules of PB implementation and financing in Poland. In the second part, those are confronted with the implementation of PB (civic and green) in Lublin in 2015-2019. In the third one, detailed analysis of the PB rounds 2015-2017 show that 86% of investment projects submitted and 87% of projects selected for implementation were directly associated with activities in public space. Furthermore, the spatial distribution and thematic scope of those investments in 27 districts of Lublin in relation to 10 categories selected by the authors as well as the motivation and activity of residents of individual districts in applying for projects were presented. The fourth part shows the changes in Lublin’s public spaces caused by the implementation of PB projects and Lublin’s experience in relation to other cities in Poland. The summary includes recommendations on how to effectively implement BP to create a high quality public space in cities. Three aspects are distinguished: 1) organizational and procedural; 2) mobilisation of the stakeholders and 3) implementation of projects.

The goal of this article is to investigate the spatial allocation of human capital investment at the local level in Poland. In particular, this analysis refers to the funds within the Human Capital Operational Programme (POKL 2007–2013). The study is divided into the following parts: extrapolation of the algorithm for allocating the POKL funds between regions to the local level; comparison of the allocation based on the data from the period before the programme with the hypothetical allocation of the same funds based on the measurement done after the end of the programme (the „before-after” method); and a comparison of the intentional allocation of POKL funds with the observed actual absorption of funds at the local level in 2007–2015. The analysis carried out in this article proves that the final effect of POKL allocation at the local level is not a simple extension of the government’s plan of division expressed by an algorithm. The absorption of funds per capita differed between municipalities within individual voivodships, but more funds did not necessarily go to the areas that were particularly structurally burdened (according to the governmental algorithm). The „before-after” analysis leads to the conclusion that, in the period under study, development disparities increased, and development gap between eastern and western Poland deepened. The situation is particularly difficult in the territories of the so-called internal peripherals.

Investment policy is a driving force in the transformation of cities. It plays a significant role both in terms of daily living conditions and in the long-term consequences of decisions that are taken. The residents’ opinions about the investment policy should be accorded a special value. The aim of this paper is to analyse and estimate the scale of empowerment of the investment policy of all 71 cities of the Śląskie Voivodeship. Three models of residents’ participation are used in the paper: symmetric, consultative and asymmetric. The questionnaire survey and desk research form the basis for assigning cities to the proposed models. The analysis reveals that the mechanism of empowerment is becoming more and more important for Silesian local governments, although residents’ involvement in urban investment policies is still far from satisfactory.

The study aimed to examine the determinants of car choice in daily trips of the inhabitants of four Polish cities: Białystok, Gdańsk, Kraków, and Warszawa. Data from the Eurostat’s Quality of Life 2019 study was used to achieve this goal. The results of the empirical exercise revealed that the main factors affecting travel mode choice included the respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics. The perceived satisfaction with air quality, the city’s noise level, and public transport quality were found among the important predictors of car choice. The homogeneity of travel mode preferences at the city level was also analysed.

The paper analyses the changes in the scale of the rural economic activity and identifies their selected determinants. The socio-demographic characteristics of the labour resources and the economic differences between rural regions in Poland were analysed as reasons for the dissimilar levels of rural employment. Analyses have demonstrated that, in 2010–2016, rural economic activity measured by the employment rate increased from 50% to 53%, primarily as a result of the impact of cyclical determinants, reflected in the increase in the number of the employed being higher than the number of inactive persons, with a reduced scale of unemployment overall. The studies indicated similar values of the employment rate for urban and rural areas, while the differences in its level within the selected social categories were much more visible for rural populations. This reflected a persistence of territorial disparities in labour markets as well as a trend towards their convergence. The level of territorial differences in the rural employment in Poland was moderate and should be linked with regional economic characteristics. In this context, the allocation of rural labour supply could be attributed to the impact of cities and their functional areas and to the progress in economic diversification of villages located in a particular region. The discussion section of the paper outlines the institutional opportunities and barriers increasing rural economic activity. The presented conclusions were based on the Central Statistical Office data (mainly the Labour Force Survey and the Local Data Bank) and statistical and comparative analysis methods.

This study aims to clarify the role of actionism as a peacebuilding tool, identify the advantages and disadvantages of its various techniques (performance, happening, art installation, flash mob, etc.), and evaluate their effectiveness in the urbanized space. The research methodology is based on postmodernism and its comprehension of activism, public action and protest. Anti-war actionism is considered an element of the system of socio-political actionism. It is characterized as a set of spectacular forms of non-violent public protest against armed aggression and its consequences. The expansion of today’s anti-war actionism beyond the narrow artistic environment and its entrance into the broad social dimension is demonstrated. The empirical basis for the conceptualization of anti-war actionism includes two groups of actions: (1) anti-war actions carried out since the 1960s in the United States and Western Europe; (2) anti-war actions carried out in various countries in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The regional features of anti-war actionism under the conditions of armed conflicts and wars are determined, and the advantages and disadvantages of anti-war actionism as a peacebuilding technology are identified within the space of modern cities.

Apart from traditional fashion trade fairs understood as specialist events addressed to a limited number of business clients, a growing popularity of B2C fashion fairs has been observed in recent years in Poland, in particular in large cities. Such events provide opportunities for purchasing unique clothing, offering possibilities for cultural distinction but also for spending leisure time, engaging in social interactions, and participating in urban arenas. They are in line with broader phenomena such as the festivalisation of urban space, the development of the experience economy, and the ecologisation of consumption. The aim of this article is to show the scope of this phenomenon in the Polish context. Proposing a typology according to this sort of fashion events as well as places where they occur, the authors attempt to show the intraurban and interurban specificity of fashion fairs, pointing to main centres and important factors of their location.

The article attempts to indicate the hypothetical spatial extent of the process of rural gentrification. To this end, using the extended case method, the author elaborates on the rural gentrification index that has been developed by describing demographic, social, economic, and spatial changes. This approach made it possible to identify areas where the phenomenon in question is the most active. It turns out that the potential range of gentrification in Poland mainly includes counties located near large cities – especially those located in central, northern, western and, south-western parts of Poland – which could be described with the English-language term as city’s countryside.

Uptade from 2.03.2021: Parts of this article were subsequently used in the following publication: Swianiewicz, P., & Brzóska, A. (2020). Demand Elasticity for Local Public Transport in Polish Cities: Do Local Policies Matter?. Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 16(61), 125-142

After 1990, the number of local public transport passengers has been systematically decreasing at the expense of individual transport, which led to an increase in traffic congestion and deterioration of air quality in cities. However, for the last few years, a reversal of this trend has been observed in some cities. The article, using the data on the present number and recent changes in the number of passengers in nearly 100 Polish cities, discusses regression models to explain the factors influencing the diversity of demand for public transport services and its dynamics. The independent variables of the model refer both to the characteristics of cities (their socio-economic environment) and the organisation of services (e.g. organisational and legal forms of local transport companies, tariff policies, etc.). The results show that the density of the public transport network is the most significant factor explaining variation of the demand, while the level of ticket prices is almost insignificant. Demand in the largest cities has also recently been on the increase, but the relationship between the demand and the population size of the city is not a linear one.

For many years, public participation has been a very popular subject of research and of interest for practitioners. Little attention has been devoted, however, to the issues of formal and organizational tools of managing this process. The paper contains the results of research aimed at creating the concept of participation infrastructure and at measuring its application in 17 Polish cities. For these purposes, the authors develop their own method of examining the practical use of participation tools. Typologies of participation tools are created and cities are classified according to their advancement, basing on the results of the research. The most popular and most willingly used tools are indicated, together with the levels of their implementation.

The main purpose of this article is to systematize issues related to recognizing and measuring the gentrification process using quantitative methods. The article discusses the definition of gentrification, its phases and types, factors influencing the creation and development of the process, as well as gentrification indicators, and it briefly reviews existing research of their use. Although there are Polish publications on the process of gentrification, there is a perceptible lack of comparison of gentrification indicators and the conditions in which they are used. Thanks to the selection of indicators that are appropriate for gentrification analysis in Polish cities and their testing in a case study of the gentrification process in Kraków, Poland, this article may help to create a methodology for empirical research.

The article discusses the involvement of the US federal government in the policy of urban development in the years 1965-2012. The implementation paradox, understood as a limited ability to achieve national policy objectives as a result of the empowerment of potential adversaries, and the changing views of the successive presidents on federalism were considered crucial in explaining the discussed issue. The following categories have been used: federalism, orientation and instruments of development, and financial outlays for development. Orientation and instruments of development have been presented on the basis of selected federal programmes addressed to cities, and outlays – based on federal budgets. Three generations of public policy implementation theories constitute the theoretical framework of the study. In conclusion, the author points to the withdrawal of the federal government and the growing importance of state authorities in urban development policy.

Uptade from 2.03.2021: Parts of this article were subsequently used in the following publication: Swianiewicz, P., & Łukomska, J. (2016). Local tax competition in Poland?. Miscellanea Geographica, 20(3), 37-43

The paper considers the usefulness of the tax competition theory for the analysis of local tax policies in Poland. The concept has been successfully used for analyses conducted in several European countries, but it has not been systematically tested in Poland yet. There are two types of competition discussed in the paper: classic competition for mobile tax base and yardstick competition, in which local politicians compete for political capital related to a comparison of tax rates with neighbouring municipalities. Due to the limited size and types of local taxes in Poland, it is expected that yardstick competition is more important than classic competition for mobile tax base. The paper also examines regional variation in the intensity of local tax competition, and it formulates the hypothesis that it is more visible in regions with higher bridging social capital. Results of the conducted research indicate that the theory of local tax competition is a useful concept helping to explain the variation in tax policies among Polish municipalities.

The article focuses on the beliefs of the regional political elites in Poland about the models of democracy, operationalised as opinions about political representation, direct democracy and elite integration. The empirical basis is a questionnaire survey of 400 members of regional political elites carried out in 2017. The sample consists of 400 councillors of the 2014-2018 term of regional (voivodship) assemblies and town councils of big cities. The data show that an incoherence of views characterises the regional political elite: they do not form a more general vision of the democratic process, and detailed opinions on representation, direct democracy and elite integration poorly correlate with independent variables, including those describing political affiliations, i.e. party affinity or location on the left-right scale. The primary explanation for this incoherent image is the thesis about the lack of professionalisation of the regional elite.

The author explores the problem of territorial reorganization of the metropolitan area within the Canadian evolutionary federal system, taking as an example the cities of Toronto and Montreal. The results of the research indicate that adaptation strategies, applied by states aiming at empowering the metropolis, depend on the general level of the territorial units’ autonomy. The existence of strong local self-government favours creation of intercommunal cooperation structures without dissolution of current local territorial units. Territorial reorganization in the case of states with a low level of local autonomy may facilitate elimination of former local units by theirs amalgamation in new, larger metropolitan self-government structures. As far as this context is concerned, Canada constitutes a very interesting study case. Taking into consideration Canadian evolutionary federal system, highly limited local autonomy of the cities, and its mix of European and American traditions, one can observe almost all the above-mentioned dimensions of reform and adaptation strategies. Advanced and institutionalized intercommunal cooperation, developed in Toronto and Montreal in the middle of the 20th century, was interrupted by amalgamation imposed by provincial government, which resulted in creation of new, enlarged metropolitan cities of Toronto in 1998 and Montreal in 2002. In both cases the amalgamation has not been accepted by a part of the population and destabilized cooperation in these metropolitan areas. The trouble with amalgamation led to abandonment of further structural and territorial reforms, which were replaced by functional ones, taking the form of special agreements between Toronto and Montreal and their respective provinces (Ontario and Quebec), giving them both new competences and financial resources. Regardless of any difficulties in pursuing an appropriate metropolitan regime and the suitable position for the metropolis in the structure of a political and territorial system, both cities have achieved strong economic performance and high quality of life.

The article presents the factors influencing the choice of local transport delivery modes in Poland. It is the first quantitative study conducted on a representative sample of municipalities since the 1990s, and it concerns three service delivery modes: contracting-out, cooperation, and corporatization. Most local governments do not invest their own resources to deliver local transport, but rather act as a private market supply regulator and contract the service out to private enterprises. Some of them act based on functional connections within metropolitan areas, joining forces with other local governments. More affluent and densely populated cities opt for corporatization, which gives them greater political control over the delivery process. The presented results are useful for decision-makers who have to select the mode of local transport service provision, as they characterize the municipalities which, in 2017, chose one of the three analyzed modes.

The objective of this paper is to present the role of the relationship between the location and financial performance of local government units. One of Poland’s largest voivodships, Wielkopolskie, was used as an example. Recent acceleration of suburbanisation processes not only results in socioeconomic changes in municipalities surrounding cities but also affects their financial performance. To attain the aforesaid objective, this study used variance analysis to investigate the significance of the differences in the financial ratios between the units analysed by location (measured as the distance of rural municipalities from district towns and from Poznań, the region’s capital). The research proved that the closer a municipality is to an urban centre, the greater its financial autonomy, liquidity and investments, yet at a higher level of debt. Also, the proximity to Poznań is a better determinant of the differences in financial performance than the location close to smaller urban centres.

The author attempts to determine the size, structure and diversification of the economic base of towns and cities in the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodship, as well as their evolution in the years 2008-2015. An additional objective is to determine the relationship between the level of economic growth of the examined units and the state of their economic base. The obtained results confirm the hypothesis that the economic sector is not a significant part of total employment in the surveyed units. At the same time, the exogenous employment structure is poorly diversified, and in the period under study it decreased even further, exposing local economies to external shocks. There is also a positive, although weak effect of the increase in local specialization on the level of revenue in local self-government units and on their level of unemployment.

Modern cities are developing dynamically in search of ever newer concepts of management. One of them, developed in Poland since the 1990s, is the concept of the marketing management of the city, which is based on the marketing mix concept. The city authorities also look for new sources of the competitive advantage (this is how the concept of slow city management was born). At the same time, in addition to competition, there is a desire for cooperation between cities, manifested by the development of the Citt?slow city network. The study identifies the marketing mix instruments of cities which are used by Polish cities after they joined the Citt?slow network. The method employed was a questionnaire survey, which was sent to 26 Polish Citt?slow member cities in 2017. It was observed that the greatest changes occur in the product strategies under which cities are obliged to develop these urban sub-products that are necessary for the city to function in accordance with the slow city philosophy. As part of promotional efforts, PR activities should be emphasised, whose aim is to create the image of a slow city. The “hospitality” of the city and openness to contacts with the external environment has also increased.

Competitiveness is a key factor determining the development of a region and hence the standard of living of its inhabitants, and human capital is one of the most important factors enabling improvement of regional competitiveness. The aim of the presented research is to analyse the spatial differentiation of the level of human capital in the regions of the European Union (EU) in relation to their level of competitiveness. The results show significant disproportions in this respect, especially between the so-called old and new EU. The higher levels of human capital in the old EU regions were also generally accompanied by a higher level of competitiveness. In the long run, this will lead to an increase in regional disparities in development.

The paper discusses the development of gated and guarded housing estates in the Polish capital city of Warsaw. It contains a presentation of recent empirical findings based on a series of field research carried out since the 1990s in the city with a special focus on its largest residential district of Ursynów. Detailed mappings of the researched housing estates are included, which evidence their rapid spread in the district. An attempt at classifying the housing estates according to different clusters of their physical design is made. A functional analysis of their physical features is carried out against the background of a global discourse of in/security which is presumed to play a major role in the development of contemporary cities. However, several local factors, which have a bearing on gating the city of Warsaw, are also reflected upon.

The aim of the study is to examine the impact of the amendment to the Municipal Self-Government Act (hereinafter: MSGA; Journal of Laws 2018, item 994) on the implementation of participatory budgeting (PB) in 2019 and 2020 in Polish voivodship cities. Using the desk research method, 36 PB regulations and over 3.4 thousand projects were selected for implementation in 10 categories: 1) sports (investment and other), 2) leisure and recreation (investment and other), 3) construction or modernisation of sidewalks, 4) construction or modernisation of streets, 5) pedestrian walkways, 6) parking lots, 7) lighting, 8) city bicycles (bicycle infrastructure), 9) modernisation of buildings, and 10) other (e.g. educational, cultural, training). Detailed studies were carried on the influence of legislative changes on: 1) financial mechanisms; 2) principles and organisation of the budgeting process; 3) generic structure of projects; 4) participatory budgeting model. In order to verify the results obtained, changes in the PB regulations not resulting from the MSGA provisions were additionally analysed. It was shown that the amendment to the Act had a significant impact on the implementation of PB in all the analysed cities. The changes mainly concerned the financial and formal-organisational aspects of participatory budgeting process. The most crucial ones include: increase in the size of the overall subsidies (in 15 cities), modification of the distribution of the financial means (9), introduction of letters of support at the stage of project submission (7) and appeal procedure (9). Among the “non-statutory” activities, the abolition of age limits in the remaining 7 cities should be mentioned. These activities brought positive effects on the increase in turnout (15), the number of projects selected for implementation (12) and their average value (13). On the other hand, the changes in MSGA did not affect the generic structure of the projects (in both years, in 10 cities the category “leisure and recreation” prevailed, and 1149 projects from this category were selected for implementation). The final unification of the PB implementation model in Polish voivodship cities has been completed. Finally, three modes of PB implementation according to the new rules were indicated: financial, procedural and combined.

The purpose of the paper is to point out the characteristic features of spatial development in cities of the Metropolitan Union of Silesia (GZM), located in the central subregion of the Upper Silesian region. The specificity of its development is the result of both historical conditions arising from the exploitation of natural resources, which were taking place for many centuries, as well as the contemporary economic and social impacts that are affecting the functioning of highly integrated territorial units that co-create the GZM. The presented research results refer to a selected area of interest in urban morphology. In this case, it is the comparison of a combination of building types located in the GZM cities with buildings in other cities of the Upper Silesian region and all other Polish cities.

Uptade from 2.03.2021: Parts of this article were subsequently used in the following publication: Swianiewicz, P., & Chelstowska, K. (2015). Neighbourhood Council as a Path of Political Career Development in Poland. Polish Sociological Review, (190), 223.

On the basis of data from six Polish cities, the authors discuss the role of sub-municipal (neighbourhood, city district) councils as paths to political career in big Polish cities. The analysis of social composition of neighbourhood councils is based on Putnam’s law of increasing disproportionality, while various theoretical concepts inform the division of the selection process into three stages: self-selection, pre-selection (top-down selection), and bottom-up selection. Neighbourhood councils are considered as incubators and respirators of political career.

The article was published in Polish in "Studia Regionalne i Lokalne", 3/2004

The paper assesses the state and conditions of the development of Polish cities in the context of processes and issues that occur in the cities of highly developed European countries. The latter, particularly those located at the very core of Europe, enter a new phase of development. Interconnected through networks of various links, the countries form economically integrated urban spaces characterised by the highest competitive potential in the global economy, at the same time losing their nature of self-contained, self-standing socio-economic systems. The author describes the underlying processes, pointing to the fact that they are visible in Poland, but rather not yet advanced. Poland is a country of retarded urbanisation with insufficiently competitive in Europe economic base of cities, quite well-developed human capital, but with mediocre social capital and low quality urban space. The main challenges of Polish cities` development are outlined from the perspective of European integration, including a discussion of the most common visions of European cities of the 21st century, in the context of developmental aims and ways to attain them.

The Act of 11 January 2018 amending certain acts in order to increase participation of citizens in the process of selecting, functioning and controlling certain public bodies (Journal of Laws 2018, item 130) obliged all local government units to establish a citizens’ resolution initiative and to regulate the basic procedures related to the preparation and submission of applications by a resolution of their law-making body. The article analyses the implementation activities undertaken in cities with county rights. It indicates that before the entry into force of the Act, 55 cities out of 66 had already implemented such an arrangement, and, in their case, the Act helped unify the procedures. The article also points out that some cities did not implement these regulations before the beginning of the 8th term of office of local governments, and in several cases there were problems with the implementation, which prevented citizens from exercising their resolution initiative. The article presents the legal status as of 31 December 2019.

The aim of the study is to indicate the importance of rural areas in the system of inter-communal migrations in Poland. Internal migration in rural areas was analysed for the years 1995–2019, with particular focus on the state of migration registered in 2019. The study used basic indicators determining the intensity of migration, which made it possible to conclude that rural areas play an important role in the system of internal migration in Poland, contributing to the spatial redistribution of population. However, this influence varies due to the fact that, on the one hand, there is a strong influence of suburbanisation on migration processes in rural areas in suburban zones of large and medium-sized cities in Poland. On the other hand, migration outflows caused by an unfavourable socio-economic situation are visible in the case of external and inner peripheries.