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Search for phrase: "human resources"
Taras Vasyltsiv, Olha Levytska, Olexandr Rudkovsky

The article addresses the structural–temporal changes in the characteristics of the labour market in the oblasts of the Carpathian region of Ukraine (Lvivska, Zakarpatska, Ivano-Frankivska and Chernivetska) due to the large-scale Russian military invasion of Ukraine. Regional, sectoral and market condition–related changes in the labour market and employment in the region during the war are identified. The article defines the threats to the functioning of the regional labour market, which are related to growing unemployment, increasing pressure on social infrastructure and the domestic labour market, reduction in human resources and the growing trend of relocation of business and skilled workers from the western oblasts of Ukraine to other countries. The policy for social-labour stabilisation of the oblasts in the Carpathian region of Ukraine in conditions of war and post-war recovery is substantiated.

Marek W. Kozak
Dynamic tourism development has resulted in equally dynamic growth of tourism industry, being the major source of income. Tourism development strategies are based on different concepts of economic growth which do not answer all questions. Among them is the issue of success factors: what makes certain localities enjoy fast tourism development while other similar places have problems? Against many beliefs on the significance of natural resources, more important are cultural assets and in particular development of tourist infrastructure and products. Having this in mind one should look for success factors in quality of human resources, elites and leadership.
Marta Götz
Endogenous growth theories presume knowledge plays the key role in economic growth (1). Yet, new economic geography along with empirical findings suggest the possibility of divergence occurring in development processes (2). Combining (1) and (2) indicates the importance of studying knowledge factors’ distribution. To obtain the fully fledged picture of a given economy one shall go beyond simply analyzing knowledge factors but include also their spatial location. The article touches upon this issue. It is devoted to Germany and examines three territorial and administrative levels: one referring to former country division (DDR & BRD), the second relating to NUTS 1 (16 Bundesländer) and third represented by 41 Regierungsbezirke (NUTS 2). Results are obtained by investigating 5 factors (e.g. expenditure on R&D, human resources in S&T, patent applications) and applying 4 measures (Gini, Rosenbluth, Ellison–Glaeser and Herfindahl–Hirschman Coefficients). This paper is meant to supplement earlier studies as well as a good starting point for further research devoted to country’s knowledge landscape.
Marek W. Kozak
Tourist sector belongs to most dynamic sectors able to absorb large and different human resources. Its chances to get developed depend not only on natural and cultural resources, but also increasingly on necessary infrastructure and appropriate development policy. While Polish natural resources were mostly overvalued, the cultural ones were seemed to be underestimated. In general most of the Polish territory does not have significant touristic resources and its chances to develop touristic sector depends to a large extent on ability to create touristic products and on involvement into networks with other, better equipped regions. The state policy should concentrate scarce development resources on 1. areas already touristically developed in order to improve their competitiveness and 2. support to diffusion processes and cooperation network creating.
Marek Furmankiewicz, Joanna Stefańska
This paper presents analysis of different connections between institutional participants of three area-based partnerships (LEADER Local Action Groups) that have been created in rural areas to coordinate actions which contribute to social and economic development of the respective regions. The relations in three partnerships located in different historical-cultural regions of Poland were analysed in the context of the social capital concept, using basic network relation indexes. Various types of interactions between agents (coordination, conflict, co-operation, control and competition) and flows (information, financial assets, human resources and tangible resources) have been analysed.
Denok Kurniasih, Wahyuningrat Wahyuningrat, Paulus Israwan Setyoko, Rodon Pedrason, Muhamad Yusuf

Human resource management (HRM) studies have been continuously developed to serve as a reference for enhancing the quality of public services. This includes the case in local government where it is important to have highly competent resources, because civil service personnel are the door that deals directly with local communities. Using bibliometrics and analysing previous research coherently, this study focuses on identifying the development of HRM discussions on local governance at the global level, both in developed and developing countries. As a result, although in general, the topics raised included managerial and personnel issues. There are certain issues raised by developed countries, such as innovation to contemporary social issues. Meanwhile, in developing countries discussed challenges faced by local governments in managing their resources. This study contributes to the development of HRM concern-mapping in local government globally and can be used as a reference for increasing the capacity of human resource management in local government.

Joanna Nargiełło
Creditworthiness, similar to the ability of generating profit and efficient disposal of financial resources, is one of the basic elements of local governments’ financial potential, since it enables gaining additional funds for investment purposes. However, the possibility of obtaining credit is limited not only by law regulations, but also by economic restraints, which determine creditworthiness. Each time, before deciding about incurring debts or about financial involvement, banks as well as local governments themselves should analyze thoroughly the current and future budgets in respect of credit facilities.
Mikołaj Herbst
Human capital stock affects the economic growth by raising the productivity of labour or by improving the ability of the economy to create and absorb innovations. In the scale of the local economy 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 a high quality academic institutions but also the wider labour market for the educated individuals and – more generally – the ability to attract the creative class to settle down. The article provides the comparative analysis of the ability of the largest Polish cities to attract and absorb human capital. The research is based on the unique dataset coming from nasza-klasa.pl website (allowing users to contact their former class mates). The research concludes with the typology of the Polish cities with respect to the scale of benefits from performing the academic function.
Adrian Lis, Anna Szerenos
This article aims at creating the foundations for a coherent theoretical concept of cluster structure, meeting high requirements of a continuously changing area of social sciences. Such a concept should provide an opportunity to make comparisons between clusters of various branches and at various stages of development. To construct such a theory, a modified and supplemented Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of capital was used, putting large emphasis not only onto stricte economic sources of influence in the cluster but also onto human beings and their activities, which influence the operation of cluster structure to the greatest degree.
Marcin Kleinowski
This article presents new risk analysis technique. The People and Property Hazard Analysis (PPHA) is probabilistic, semiquantitative technique, uncomplicated and easy to use. It provides more precise estimates of a risk level than preliminary hazard analysis – probably the most commonly performed technique by local governments in Poland. PPHA is applicable to the analysis of all types of communities and organizations. The purpose of the new technique is to provide a tool that can assist decision-makers in effectively allocating limited resources across the vast array of potential investments that could mitigate risk.
Ewa Frąckiewicz
Competitive advantage of a region, beside its natural resources, is determined to a large extent by the quality and competence of local and regional authorities. In order to benefit from region`s full potential, it is essential to involve the authorities into efficient information policy. It is reflected by the results of a Poland-wide research, where 67% of respondents perceived that it was the creation of an information system enabling fast and accurate decision-making that was the key factor determining efficient management of a company. It is therefore important to analyse how the Western Pomeranian companies see the role and activities of local authorities in this aspect. Local governments play a unique part in information delivery as they represent a group of entities which should actively affect development conditions for companies in the region, within existing legal and administrative system. The paper presents results of the research on information policy in local governments in Western Pomerania.
Małgorzata Leszczyńska, Małgorzata Wosiek
Income disproportions that occur in Eastern Poland are becoming an important contemporary diagnostic problem due to their influence on human capital-related development of households. The diversity of incomes and of expenditures on human capital is the result of great differences in socio-economic situation of Eastern Polish regions, which are shaped by historical, technical and organizational, production-related, socio-cultural and natural conditions. Among the voivodeships with the lowest incomes there are those with low so-called ‘prosumptional’ expenditures – the expenditures related to investments in human capital.
Alexander Tölle
The revitalisation process in Polish cities – here by the example of Poznan – is still rather on a modest level. Nevertheless the needs are urgent if we consider the continuing degradation of inner-city areas, the insufficient quality and quantity of housing resources and increase of suburbanisation. The legal, financial, and socioeconomic conditions do not allow the application of Western patterns. Yet there exist in Poznan various examples of renewal of old housing stock as well as of revitalisation of whole inner-city areas. They may be regarded as starting points for the realisation of future revitalisation ventures, also with regard to expected European funding.
Katarzyna Sadowy
The paper presents the problem of measuring and evaluating human well-being and socioeconomic development. The goal of the paper is to introduce the term ‘life dignity’, to define it and specify its relation to such terms as living standards and quality of life, and, more importantly, to show the advantages of using life dignity as a benchmark for evaluating urban public space. The term ‘dignity’ is used in other fields of research that have already recommended directions for constructing the index and measuring methods.
Piotr Maleszyk

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.

Anna Gąsior-Niemiec
The article focuses on the discussion over attempts to re-interpret causes and effects of the state of permanent socio-economic under-development of peripheral regions in Europe invoking Italian Mezzogiorno as a case. Mezzogiorno widely held to be a monolith paradigm of unsuccessful modernization, is being cognitively deconstructed in the face of a two-way running stream of analyses and enunciations. Ideologically imbued political discourse originating in the separatist North reinforces and emphasizes an image of South as a lawless consumer of the Italian state’s resources produced in the North. As a response arises an equally ideologically motivated discourse of academic and cultural elites of the South, whose aims to produce a new, positive image of the South as a space alternative to northern egoism and materialism, a space bridging Europe and the rest of non-Atlantic world. In this context, a discourse of social sciences ever stronger marks its presence; considering conditions of socio-economic development of peripheral regions it forfeits a unidimensional neoliberal approach and instead turns to multidimensional analyses of institutional environment as a primary source of socio-economic dynamics. The debate surrounding Italian Mezzogiorno may constitute at the same time a useful vantage point for a debate over the Polish model of development, especially with regard to peripheral and backward regions in Poland.
Janusz Zaleski, Zbigniew Mogiła, Joanna Kudełko
The scale and structure of EU funds are one of the key determinants of Cohesion Policy impacts on socio-economic regional development, along with the magnitude of the Keynesian multiplier mechanism, spill-over elasticities, initial stocks of infrastructure, or human and physical capital. The aim of the paper is to analyze how changes in forecasts of Cohesion Policy public financial resources (available in NDPs & NSRFs) affect a counterfactual analysis of the Cohesion Policy impacts on the Polish NUTS-2 regional economies. On the basis of the financial data from the Polish Ministry of Infrastructure and Development which were made available in the years 2008?2013, simulations were carried out for the period 2004?2020 using 16 macroeconomic HERMIN models for the Polish regions. The results show that yearly forecast errors of the EU funds at the regional level account for up to 229%, and the forecast errors of allocations of the EU funds amount even to 32%. The inaccuracy of the forecasts of the EU payments and their volatility considerably distort the results of macroeconomic research of the Cohesion Policy impacts on development processes – even by 88% in the case of the yearly results, and by 49% in the case of cumulative results.
Mariusz Malinowski
The aim of this paper is to define the relationship between the level of human potential and economic efficiency of companies in different voivodeships. For the purpose of this paper, a synthetic indicator was constructed to evaluate the economic efficiency of companies as well as a synthetic indicator of human potential in a region, based on previously selected set of diagnostic variables. All 16 Polish voivodeships were included in the research. The TOPSIS method, Ward’s method and the PAM method were used in the research to classify different voivodeships. Moreover, correlation analysis and spatial autocorrelation analysis were carried out. The main criterion when selecting variables was their completeness and their accessibility for all objects in the research between the year 2009 and 2013.
Janusz Hryniewicz
Multiculturalism is a kind of social policy that depends on cultural neutrality of the state. Huge communities of immigrants of non-European cultures arose in Western Europe. In response to this phenomenon, European states initiated a multicultural social policy. In effect, many behaviours of immigrants turned out to be at variance with human rights, but consistent with multiculturalism. Great cultural distance between European societies and immigrants caused more serious problems with integration than had been expected. Nowadays, we can observe a contestation, but not abandonment, of the multicultural policy, accompanied by anti-immigrant sentiments. A new social policy ought to facilitate the adaptation of immigrants in economic and politic institutions, and to respect human rights as a key value.
Katarzyna Krok
The turn of the eighties and nineties was a particular moment for the natural environment in Poland. Two important factors occurred at that time. First was the post-communist transformation of the country, which affected all spheres of socio-economic life in Poland. On the other hand, new ideas of sustainable development taking into account both quality of human life and quality of natural environment have been spreading all around the world. Changes in the system of environmental protection in Poland which occurred after the year 1989, took into consideration the consequences of both processes. It seems therefore interesting to find out how the new instruments worked and what effects they have brought to Poland in the nineties. This article describes the changes in the quality of different components of natural environment in the areas of environmental risk in Poland between 1982 and 2000. Using the results and methodology of Rolewicz and Kassenberg (1985), the situation in 27 such areas was analyzed.
Paweł Kos?cielecki
The article is an attempt at a brief overview of the development strategies of Polish voivodeships in terms of the role of culture as a factor in regional development. The author compares the ‘old-generation’ strategies (applicable until 2005/2006) and the ‘new-generation’ ones (developed for the programming period of 2007–2013). Culture plays an important role in the development of regions as after the administrative reform of 1998 cultural policy became an element of the local government activities. The overview is preceded by a description of the constituents of cultural policy such as 1) the cultural industry as a sector of culture creation and development of cultural products, 2) cultural institutions, and 3) cultural heritage as a pool of resources to be used in the cultural creation process and promotion through the cultural institutions network. Each component analysis is accompanied by a brief discussion of the related ideas and opinions expressed in academic literature by experts from cultural institutions and culture-related academic centres. The author also offers his own concept of describing elements of cultural policy. He juxtaposes the perception of culture as presented in the available publications with the aims of cultural activity and the philosophy of cultural development in voivodeships. Consequently, the author assesses the usefulness of the widely available cross-sectional literature on culture in Poland for the building of the cultural development philosophy in the Polish regions.
Robert Pyka
The paradigm of analysis of the reality and its management, based on vertical hierarchic structures, cannot be used to characterize situations of resources concentration in the hands of many social actors. Nowadays, the paradigm seems to be less popular. First scientific diagnoses of the described situations seemed to prove their chaotic and ungovernable character, but they were gradually replaced with approaches which allowed to penetrate and govern composed systems. The notion of ‘governance’ (i.e. a multi-layered network process whose participants have different statuses and resources, and which results in a consensus achieved in an interactive play of all partners) has a high heuristic value. France is a perfect illustration of this phenomenon. The process can be observed especially in metropolitan areas that create their own compounded authority systems.
Mykola Nazaruk, Volodymyr Khudoba

The aim of the work was to analyse the essence of recreational resources as a component of ecosystem services for the planning and development of recreation within the protected areas of Ukraine. This study highlights the features and essence of the ecosystem services concept. The classification, characteristics and possibilities of cultural ecosystem services usage of protected areas are assessed, and the location and importance of recreational services are emphasized. Theoretical and methodological approaches to the recreational ecosystem services assessment of protected areas were performed using GIS tools. The negative consequences of the Russian Federation military aggression on the protected areas of Ukraine and the ecosystem services decline are considered. The main advantages and obstacles of implementing the ecosystem services concept for planning the recreation development of the Ukrainian nature reserve fund are discussed.

Mykola Serbov, Iryna Kramarenko, Inna Irtyshcheva, Marianna Stehnei, Yevheniia Boiko, Nataliya Hryshyna, Kseniia Khaustova

The purpose of writing the article is to study the effectiveness of water resources management in the Black Sea region of Ukraine in the context of sustainable development under the conditions of military operations. The theoretical approaches to defining the essence and functions of water resources management through the prism of sustainable development goals have been considered. The main problems of water resources management in the regions of Ukraine are systematised and the ways of their solution at the present stage of the reform are outlined. The author’s approach to evaluating the effectiveness of water resources management in the context of the model of sustainable development is proposed using the example of the Black Sea region of Ukraine. Methodical approaches to assessing the effectiveness of regional water resources management that includes the main stages, the criteria for assessing, indicators for each criterion, and a mathematical apparatus for their calculation have been developed. In accordance with the author’s approach, a diagnosis of the effectiveness of regional water resources management was conducted based on the example of the Black Sea region.

Vesna Garvanlieva Andonova, Borce Trenovski

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.

Svitlana Babushko, Nataliia Opanasiuk

It is expected that people from all over the world will visit Ukraine after its victory in the war against Russian aggression, turning Ukraine into a world-popular tourist destination. Hence, Ukrainian egislation on tourism must be improved in the post-war period. The authors analysed the current legislation on tourism in Ukraine and identified major problems that must be addressed systematically and those that should be settled in the post-war period in view of the post-war humanitarian, socio-economic, institutional, and cultural challenges. In this context, the authors proposed a set of changes to improve Ukraine’s legislation on tourism on the national and institutional levels. Such changes should positively impact other socio-economic processes of reconstruction in post-war Ukraine.

Svitlana Kuzikova, Valeriy Zlyvkov, Svitlana Lukomska, Tetiana Shcherbak, Olha Skyba, Borys Kuzikov

The article is devoted to determining the specifics of war injuries among people of various ages living in the deoccupied Kyiv and Kharkiv regions of Ukraine. The purpose of the research is to determine the residents’ traumatic experience in the de-occupied territories of Ukraine caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war. The direct effects of PTSD concern intimate relationships such as marriage, social interactions, decreased productivity, and decreased resilience. This study shows that PTSD symptoms are more common for respondents over fifty years of age, who have deficit of social resources. It has been proven that the severity of PTSD symptoms in the residents of the deoccupied Kharkiv region is statistically significantly lower than the symptoms of the residents of the de-occupied Kyiv region, which is due to the longer occupation and more pronounced joy from liberation. Therefore, the appearance of PTSD symptoms in a more delayed period is likely.

Andrzej Cieślik, Tomasz Misiak

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.

Dorota Węziak-Białowolska
In the article, the authors present the distribution of human capital in Poland in general and in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship in particular with respect to demographic and socio-economic characteristics. In the analyses, they applied a composite indicator of human capital. In order to construct, validate and test the reliability of the indicator, its authors carried out an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and a principal component analysis for categorical variables. They used data from the Social Diagnosis 2009. The results show that human capital in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship was slightly higher than the average for Poland, but more dispersed according to selected demographic and socio-economic characteristics than in the whole country.
Aleksandra Nowakowska

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.

Stanislav Konečný

Decision-making in a conflict situation in public policy practice is most often associated with conflicts of interest. One of the frequent forms of this conflict is the so-called NIMBY phenomenon, which has become a subject of interest mainly because of the distinctive spatial characteristics of the conflicts. A very rich base of empirical research has been provided by the Polish geographical sciences, which allowed us to attempt in this study to propose an analysis of NIMBY-type conflicts in terms of different types of collectivised interests. Hypothetically, on this basis, it would be possible to find a new approach to the resolution of these conflicts no longer only in the processes of participation of stakeholders but based on merit-based criteria. When making these decisions, it is necessary, first, to check whether there are legitimate supra-individual (group) interests at stake, since sometimes this legitimacy is questionable, and it may be only an individual interest. Different types of individual interests are justified and collectivised according to different criteria. When it comes to legitimate interests, there may be a conflict between the vertically differentiated bearers of these interests. However, even in this case, the higher hierarchical position of one of the bearers cannot imply a preference for his/her legitimate interest. As in the case of a horizontally-situated conflict, the decisive factor is the content, where interests with a higher degree of substance should be privileged over others: interests that are already concerned at the individual level with values such as human life, health, etc., must be privileged over others. They must be privileged over the interests of an economic nature, etc., and these over ordinary short-term interests. It turns out to be obvious that it is the degree of legitimate collectivised supraindividual interests that is the primary criterion for assessing preferences in decision-making in conflicts of public interests, rather than the simple preference of legitimate supra-individual interests only according to the position of their bearers in the vertical hierarchy.

Tetiana Dmytrivna Chubina, Yanina Anatoliivna Fedorenko, Oksana Oleksiivna Spirkin

The accident at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant was one of the largest in human history. It is often referred to as a global event because its effects were felt not only by Ukrainians but also by the populations of Belarus, Russia, Central Europe, the Balkans and the Scandinavian Peninsula. 2022 marked the 36th anniversary of this terrible occurrence, when the history of Ukraine in the late twentieth century was divided into two parts: before the tragedy of 26 April 1986, and after it.
Today, it is important for Ukrainian society not only to recognise the significance of the catastrophe and remember its victims but also to find ways to overcome its grave consequences. This requires comprehensive research useful for developing new approaches to minimising the environmental and socio-demographic problems caused by the Chornobyl tragedy. Thus, this research has practical scientific, humanitarian and socio-political significance. The novelty of the obtained results lies in the study’s critical rethinking of the achievements of predecessors and its analysis of historical sources concerning the environmental and socio-demographic consequences of the accident at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant as they manifested from 1986 to 2022.
The methodological basis of the work is empirical cognition. The use of logical-analytical methods of grouping and typology allows us to classify homogeneous events and coherently present the material of the article. The study additionally uses comparative judgment, historical-statistical and problem-chronological methods. The principles of objectivity and impartiality also play an important role in the work.
The purpose of the study is to investigate the consequences of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident on the environmental and socio-demographic aspects of the population of Ukraine from 1986 to 2022 based on the identified set of sources. From a historical perspective, the level of pollution in the territories of Ukraine is traced, the demographic situation is monitored, and parallels are drawn between the Chornobyl disaster and the increase in incurable diseases and mortality.
In conclusion, the authors note that although 36 years have passed, the echo of this catastrophe remains tangible for the population of Ukraine. Several issues still must be solved. The first is the return to life, namely, the safe living and management of areas that have been exposed to radiation contamination, as well as the continuation of work aimed at restoring agricultural soils. Second, purposeful work must be conducted by the state to minimise social and demographic problems resulting from the Chornobyl catastrophe. In our opinion, the government should increase expenditures aimed at providing quality medical services to the population of Ukraine, as well as conduct constant monitoring of the health of those people who are at high risk in order to better detect diseases in their early stages.
These groups of people include liquidators of the consequences of the accident and migrants. Such measures can stabilise the demographic situation by increasing birth rates and reducing mortality, as well as improve the health and living standards of the population of Ukraine.

Katarzyna Szmigiel-Rawska, Justyna Ślawska

The article describes the perceived burden of transaction costs in externalising three local services in Poland – transport, care services and water and sewage services. The tool for interpreting the results of the empirical study is the concept of transaction costs concerning the difficulties of monitoring services. The article poses questions about which of the analysed monitoring costs are perceived by local government officials as more painful and how this perception differs between the organisational forms of public service provision. The study found that contracts with a public agent are perceived as more expensive than contracts with a private agent. Administrative agreements and purchases from other local governments are important tools for providing services in Poland; they are used to adjust the structure used to provide the service to the size of the market and the resources needed to provide a given service. The effective monitoring of these contracts is a crucial element in building the quality of governance in Poland.

Mikołaj Herbst

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.

Dominika Wojtowicz, Bogusława Fudala
Structural funds – instruments of cohesion policy – are aimed to support local and regional development and to speed up regional convergence. For the last few years they have been the main source that enable realization of different activities and investments on local level in Poland. In the light of systematic extension of financial resources provided within structural funds effective absorption of those funds becomes a matter of great importance. Experience of previous implementation period gives some clues on the perspective of use of structural funds provided for Polish regions in 2007–2013 period. The results of previous research showed that effective absorption of pre-accession and structural funds depends on many both material and untouchable factors but the most important for effective absorption is adequate institutional system with procedures of programming, financial management, monitoring, evaluation etc. This paper presents the results of research conducted in 2008. The authors focused on three main areas: experience of 2004–06 period of implementation – identification of successes and barriers of structural funds implementation system, practical use of these experiences to improve institutional system for 2007–13 period and finally priorities of 16 Regional Operational Programmes realized in Polish voivodeships.
Marek S. Szczepański, Weronika Ślęzak-Tazbir

From the five senses that men have the sense of sight and touch, though seemingly the most acute, are limited when it comes to examining space and all phenomena that occur in it. Moreover, it is much more difficult to examine space through the sense hearing and it is almost impossible to taste it, even if it is humanized. Another human sense i.e. the sense of smell which enables us to recognize different scents may, due to its transitory and temporary nature, appear to be useless when it comes to examining space. Nonetheless, if we concentrate on all the scents that fill the space, they are frequently a more distinctive and prominent landmark than, for example, a building or a road. Therefore, it seems to be vital that the perspective of sociology of scent be adopted if we want to make a more in-depth analysis and interpretation of space dynamics. The scents that fill a chosen urban and suburban old industrial region are analysed and observed in this study. What are the scents that fill urban space? On the one hand there is the tempting scent of private space, which is filled with artificial perfumes and air fresheners. However, on the other hand there is the unpleasant and offensive odour from neglected backyards and outhouses; the odour coming from a local beer stand and an aromatic bouquet of cognac in a hotel bar; obnoxious odours emitted by mine slag heaps and the scent of the pine forest. We aim to show that a wide range of different smells, ranging from delicate and lovely scents to offensive and foul odours, have a growing influence on fragmentation and privatization of urban space.

Małgorzata Suchacka
The paper focuses on the transformation of human capital in the Silesia province and the formation process of the creative class. In the first part are described some theoretical assumption of human capital and creative class, and the history and specifics of the most important social groups in Silesia. In the second part the authors cite the main results of their research conducted in 2010–2011. In interviews, entrepreneurs, experts and policy makers recognized the existence of regional professionals and active individuals who operated at the level of enterprises and local communities. This confirms the assumption of the enclave nature of the formation process of the creative class in Silesia.
Mikołaj Herbst

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.

Justyna Orchowska

The issue of transport-related exclusion in Poland is increasingly being raised in the public debate. This problem intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the reduction in the number of routes and the frequency of buses and trains. However, in Poland, the scientific literature on this subject is still insufficient. This article attempts to broaden our knowledge on this topic. The main objective of the paper is to show, from the perspective of the residents, various aspects of transport-related exclusion. Three dimensions of this phenomenon are considered: limited access to public transport, spatial and temporal limitations, and the inability to participate in important social institutions. The article is based on three case studies in the Masovian Voivodeship, namely from Ostrów Mazowiecka, Żuromin, and Tczów. The research was carried out in 2021 through the use of two methods: an analysis of secondary resources and individual in-depth interviews. Based on the opinions and observations of the residents of the above-mentioned towns, this article presents the social consequences of limited access to bus and train connections.

Robert Pyka

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.

Marek Furmankiewicz
The paper shows the basic problems of implementation of the cross-sector cooperation, in the frame of area-based partnerships, for specified rural areas in years 2001-2004 in Poland. In this period partnerships were created with international sources support and with appreciable participation of non-government organisations. The main obstacles to their actions were: the insufficient financial resources, the lack of legal form of self-governments, NGOs and entrepreneurships cooperation with equal rights, tendencies for leaders` domination in group`s actions, weak organisational structures and the lack of long-term strategies. The first effects of cooperation are little; they deal with social affairs and tourist promotion, but they show the positive role of such type coalitions in local development.
Wojciech Jarczewski
The majority of major local actors of the city of Mielec have united in the idea of creating the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the 1st half of 90s. The informal coalition of representatives of various bodies and institutions quickly started to have access to institutional resources, that enabled them to control the decision-making and took over the social leadership. The young coalition managed also to gain the support from the government. Such informal deal was characterised by the most typical features for urban regime of symbolic type and develop to all actors a great mobilisation for finding new progress tendencies of the city. The strength of the coalition and the success of the regime may be measured by the first SEZ in Poland that has been created in 1995 in Mielec. The legal regulations for functioning of SEZs in Poland were developed mainly by participants of this regime having a visible stigma of local city problems.
Mikołaj Herbst
Theory and empirical literature relates educational quality to two main explanatory factors: intergenerational transfer of human capital and the quality of schools, school composition and economic conditions. Based on these findings a model explaining territorial differentiation of educational quality is proposed. The dependent variable is test score of 6th grade students, averaged at municipality level. As it turns out, educational outcome is highly conditioned on local human capital stock. The role of traditionally meant school quality (resources) is minor (although higher in rural areas than in cities. Average school outcome differs significantly along historical divisions of Poland, not only in levels, but also in parameters of determining function. Legacies of the past and related socioeconomic processes have a substantial impact on the sensitivity of educational quality to different explanatory factors.
Zbigniew Rykiel, Katarzyna Żerebecka
Quality of life is discussed in the paper in the context of human needs. In this conceptual framework, sexual needs are considered as well as their relations with the concept of pathology in social sciences and theology. Prostitution is analysed as a special form of sexual pathology and a social service that fulfils human needs and influences quality of life. The location of prostitution in the city of Bydgoszcz is analysed in details, as well as models of spatial distribution of ‘social agencies’ in the city.
Andrés Rodrígues-Pose, Ugo Fratesi
European regional support has grown in parallel with European integration. The funds targeted at achieving greater economic and social cohesion and reducing disparities within the EU have more than doubled in relative terms since the end of the 1980. making development policies the second most important policy area in the EU. The majority of the development funds have been earmarked for Objective 1 regions, i.e. regions where GDP per capita is below the 75% of the EU average. However, the European development policies have come under increasing criticism based on two facts: the lack of upward mobility of assisted regions and the absence of regional convergence. This paper assesses, using cross-sectional and panel data analyses, the failure so far of European development policies to fulfil their objective of delivering greater economic and social cohesion by examining how European Structural Fund support is allocated among different development axes in Objective 1 regions. We find that, despite the concentration of development funds on infrastructure and, in less extent on business support, the returns to commitments of these axes are not significant. Support to agriculture has short term positive effects on growth, but these wane quickly, and only investment in education and human capital which only represents about one-eight of the total commitments has medium-term positive and significant returns.
Mikołaj Herbst, Jakub Rok

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.

Łukasz Drozda
System transformation is a long-lasting process which is reflected in the model of property relationships and the way inhabited environment is created. This paper discusses the Polish urban area as an example of a neoliberal model of space transformation characterized by: atrophy of the public sector, arbitrary spatial order, and deepening spatial segregation. The transformation of the urban area in a neoliberal model has affected the legal order, spatial planning, privatization of housing resources, and public infrastructure. The paper is based on source literature, official statistics, and an analysis of Polish legal acts.
Kinga A. Komorowska
Interaction between human beings and their environment is a relatively new science domain, placed between geography and sociology. Therefore, a theoretical part of this article aims at familiarizing the readers with perception issue. In the following part one can find a description of perception of the Bieszczady National Park by tourists, adult inhabitants and pupils from Bieszczady region. It is compared to the similar research conducted in the Tatra National Park. One of the findings is that tourists are better familiarized with the mountain geography than any other group. What is also interesting, people find national parks bigger and more empty than they are in reality. Some of the theories presented at the beginning of the article were confirmed by the author’`s reseearch.
Michał Dudek

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.

Paweł Merło, Marcin Bogdański

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.

Piotr Werner
Information Society technologies are aimed at raising productivity while reducing time and costs of materials and energy for the economy. Specialists have also observed that ICTs, which have become significantly cheaper, are in huge demand for individual (household) use. Individual applications of ICT in Poland’s economy lead to a growth in different human activities. They impact the economies of Poland in a similar way to the well-known take-back (rebound) effect, which increases the efficiency of resource use and electrical energy consumption in households.
Robert Pyka

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.

Stanisław Flejterski, Magdalena Zioło
The problem of centralization and decentralization is very interesting and important in management science, political science, sociology, political economy, economics and regional sciences. The discussion over the centralization versus decentralization is a never-ending one. It is an age-old battle of standardization versus autonomy, corporate efficiency versus local effectiveness and pressure on costs and resources versus accommodation of specific local needs. The advantages of each model are, in essence, the disadvantages of the other. Decisions to decentralize or centralize must be derived from a careful cost–benefit analysis. The debate over whether to centralize or decentralize is not so much over which type of strategy is more effective but the degree to which each strategy is used in combination with one another.
Paweł Swianiewicz, Urszula Klimska
The article discusses political leadership in local government. Change from traditional local government to local governance requires also institutional changes and new roles played by local leaders. The notion of political leader is limited to persons having democratic legitimacy for their role played in local politics. It excludes people, who might be influential but remain outside formal democratic institutions of local government. The article distinguishes between type (which depends on formal institutional settings) and style (more dependent on personal characteristics) of leadership. The article discusses selected theoretical concepts of type and style of leadership and tries to refer them to Polish local governments. Recent Polish reforms have brought a change from the type which was close to a collective model to one closer to a strong mayor form. Analysis of four initiative in 2 Polish cities (Poznan and Ostrow Wielkopolski) allows to formulate some conclusions on citizens’ perception of actual styles of local political leadership. The largest proportion of citizens in analysed cities prefers a style which is close to consensus facilitator. But in a real behaviour of leaders, citizens see more of city boss style, which might be characterized by the implementation of an own vision with internal resources existing within local government structures. Comparison of citizens’ preferences with the perception of actual behaviour of leaders allows to compute an Expectation Gap Index. The gap is usually quite narrow in initiatives focused on the construction of broad development programmes, but it becomes wider if we turn to more concretely focused projects.
Justyna Ślawska

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.

Mikołaj Herbst, Anna Kaliszewska
Many authors claim that regional differences in average student achievements in Poland are partly determined by the cultural factors and cannot be fully explained by uneven spending on education or by reproduction of human capital between generations. The aim of this article is to better understand this phenomenon by studying the institutional aspects of Poland’s education system during its formation back in the 19th century, when Poland remained partitioned between the three empires: Prussian, Russian, and Austrian. It turns out that one fundamental difference between the early education system under the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian rule may concern the degree of social acceptance of the school, teacher status, and the role of education as a lever of social advancement. Another important factor is the perception of educational goals either in terms of acquisition of practical skills, or of personal formation. In this respect, there was a clear difference between Galicia (Austrian partition), where the curriculum was focused on the humanities, and other partitions (particularly Prussia), where schools were more linked to the economy.
Magdalena Górczyńska
The paper describes the creation of the Greater Paris metropolitan area (Métropole du Grand Paris, MGP), with special emphasis on the changes and challenges related to the implementation of the housing policy at the metropolitan level. MGP is an inter-municipal cooperation structure with its own budget and special status. It embraces Paris, 123 municipalities located in the neighbouring departments, and fie external municipalities. MGP will take the responsibilities in the field of: management of resources to support social housing, renovation of housing, elimination of low-quality buildings. The implementation of the housing policy at the metropolitan level is associated with a number of challenges mainly in terms of consolidation of activities undertaken by the institutions of social housing, reservation of land for social housing investments, increase in the amount of new housing, including attempts for their more even distribution at the metropolitan scale. In addition, a set of new challenges appeared due to the changing socio-demographic structure of households, which in turn require innovative architectural solutions.
Arkadiusz Ptak
This article analyzes the commitment of village residents to creating a village council fund. The research is based on 28 villages which have been adopting the fund in the past 4 years. The author describes the residents’ interest, or rather, the lack thereof, in the village matters and looks to answer why the residents of a given commune hardly execute their rights to take part in village meetings and decide about allocating resources from the village fund. The theoretical framework of the research is based on the rational choice theory and the theory of small groups by M. Olson.
Monika Mularska-Kucharek, Kamil Brzeziński
The paper’s main objective is to present the importance of the quality of life in the context of one’s emotional attachment to one’s city. The paper offers an in-depth discussion of some aspects of quality of life and place attachment. The relationships between the phenomena are also discussed. The analyses were conducted based on empirical data from the research project: Social and human capital as factors of the development of the region of Łódź. The project was funded by the European Union. The survey research was conducted on a representative sample of inhabitants of the Łódź voivodeship aged 16–65. The total number of conducted interviews was 2005. However, in the paper, the authors focused exclusively on the inhabitants of Łódź (N = 560). This post-industrial city was chosen on purpose. Firstly, this former centre of Polish textile industry lost much of its industrial function as a result of globalization and transformation. Secondly, the city authorities are planning to conduct a comprehensive process of city revitalization. The aim of the revitalization is to improve the quality of life. This is why the quality of life and place attachment in this post-industrial city were considered very interesting from a scientific point of view.
Tomasz Kościelski, Krzysztof Malaga
The aim of the article is to answer the question about the effects of Poland’s accession to the European Union from the point of view of regional inequalities in Poland. We present a neoclassical model of exogenous growth with the balance of European Union’s resources allocated to the cohesion and convergence policy implementation. The model is a generalization of the standard growth model of Solow and Swan. in the paper, we describe the methods of establishing the values of the model variables in a steady state. We perform a retrospective analysis of regional inequalities in Poland for the period 2004–2006 and a prospective analysis based on the models of growth of the Polish economy and the regional economies of voivodships. We draw conclusions about the first effects of the cohesion and convergence programme in Poland and the postulates for the principles of construction of new regional growth models as instruments of description and analysis of convergence and regional inequalities.
Małgorzata Czornik, Piotr Gibas

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.

Marek S. Szczepański, Weronika Ślęzak-Tazbir
From the five senses that men have the sense of sight and touch, though seemingly the most acute, are limited when it comes to examining space and all phenomena that occur in it. Moreover, it is much more difficult to examine space through the sense hearing and it is almost impossible to taste it, even if it is humanized. Another human sense i.e. the sense of smell which enables us to recognize different scents may, due to its transitory and temporary nature, appear to be useless when it comes to examining space. Nonetheless, if we concentrate on all the scents that fill the space, they are frequently a more distinctive and prominent landmark than, for example, a building or a road. Therefore, it seems to be vital that the perspective of sociology of scent be adopted if we want to make a more in-depth analysis and interpretation of space dynamics. The scents that fill a chosen urban and suburban old industrial region are analysed and observed in this study. What are the scents that fill urban space? On the one hand there is the tempting scent of private space, which is filled with artificial perfumes and air fresheners. However, on the other hand there is the unpleasant and offensive odour from neglected backyards and outhouses; the odour coming from a local beer stand and an aromatic bouquet of cognac in a hotel bar; obnoxious odours emitted by mine slag heaps and the scent of the pine forest. We aim to show that a wide range of different smells, ranging from delicate and lovely scents to offensive and foul odours, have a growing influence on fragmentation and privatization of urban space.
Adam Płoszaj
The paper discusses selected tools within Cohesion Policy that stimulate cooperation between cities. Subject to analysis are two programmes from 2004?2006: INTERRREG and URBACT. In the case of INTERREG programmes, the analysis pertains to the largest Polish cities (31 most populous cities and the Silesian and Tri-City conurbations), while in the case of URBACT, all the cities that were beneficiaries of the programme were taken into account. The results of the projects are usually of the soft type and involve transfer of good practices, building institutional capacity, and human capital. In this respect, the results of the analyzed projects should be considered at least satisfactory, although the number and scale of the completed projects does not allow for clear and measurable effects to be perceptible in a country-wide perspective.
Mikołaj Herbst, Jakub Rok
The aim of this article is to gain a better understanding of the patterns of human capital mobility in transition economies. It exploits a unique dataset from a Polish social networking website to develop a typology of skilled migration. Determinants of human capital flows are further elaborated using an empirical model of student and graduate migration. It is found that spatial mobility of human capital in Poland is low, and the distance between the home region and potential destination plays the most significant role in migration decisions. Migrations of skilled individuals favour metropolitan areas, which experience a net gain of human capital, while all other regions are subject to brain drain.
Grzegorz Gorzelak, Maciej Smętkowski
Territorial entitles and thus has influenced relations between them. In particular, these changes influenced the relations between the metropolis and its hinterland. Contemporary metropolis became a concentration of innovative activities that led to development of flows within world cities network. As a result its ties with regional surrounding, that offers mainly "simple" resources, has became relatively weaker. The article demonstrates these new processes by the empirical research of three Polish metropolises: Warsaw, Poznan and so called Triple-city (Gdansk-Gdynia-Sopot).
Zbyszko Chojnicki
The article is an introduction into methodological problems in regional studies. It consists of three parts. The first discusses the nature of regional studies, which include Regional Science as their institutional-academic representative form. The second presents methodological conceptions and standards to be found in social science in the form of two models that can provide a basis for a methodological analysis of regional studies: empirical and humanistic. It is suggested that the two models be treated as complementary. The third part gives a methodological characterisation of regional studies embracing: (1) the domain and field of inquiry of regional studies, (2) methods of the research procedure, and (3) the nature of knowledge.
Robert Pater, Rusłan Harasym, Tomasz Skica
A measure of economic development for regions is proposed in the form of a multicomponent index. This measure is composed of the following aspects: technology, infrastructure, human capital and social capital and defied by an array of indicators. Such a measure has significant advantages over the most commonly used indicator of GDP per capita. The statistical data based on which it is built are freely available and with a much shorter time lag than GDP at the regional level. This indicator makes it possible to depict economic factors behind long-run economic growth as well as to include less measurable factors such as social change, environmental degradation, etc. On the one hand, the proposed indicator comprises symptoms of the quality of life, and on the other hand, it includes factors which are essential for long-run economic growth and productivity. The authors show usefulness of such an indicator for policy formulation, which is rarely pointed out in the case of other indexes and is especially important at a time when long-run economic growth, and also development, in high-developed countries is endangered. The authors also discuss some general aspects of constructing indexes of economic development for regions, e.g., the often omitted problem of inclusion of cyclical indicators in the indexes of development. Empirical analysis of the proposed indicator is made for the NUTS-2 regions of Poland for the years 2009–2011.
Karolina Czerwińska
The paper analyses the Irish way of implementation of the structural assistance from the European Social Fund within a context of Ireland`s development strategy. Identification of the factors influencing considerable efficiency and effectiveness of Ireland`s performance is the article`s main focus. The paper begins with a review of the Irish labour market situation and, responding to it, human capital development policy of 1990s. Then, implementation and evaluation of the measures supported by the ESF within a programming period 1994-1999 are examined in detail. Finally, some conclusions and recommendations from the Irish case for Poland are outlined.
Katarzyna Zajda
One of the challenges for the contemporary Polish village is the transformation of its economic structure. It is necessary not only to create new jobs in the non-agricultural sector, but also to increase the competitiveness of enterprises. In their activities, entrepreneurs may use local resources in an innovative way. The author of the present article focuses on the following question: “What is the potential of entrepreneurs as far as the innovation based on local resources is concerned?”. Innovation is defined as a way of using local resources which emphasizes the specificity of an area. In her research (undertook in 2012), the author analyzed the local resources of the Pilica River Valley and the applications for support (from Rural Development Programme 2007–2013) submitted by the entrepreneurs to the local action group. The entrepreneurs (in their activity) do not use the resources which have been identified in the local development strategy. The additional funding allowed them to increase the competitiveness of their companies, but was not used to make their activities more innovative.
Marcin Wajda

The aim of the paper is to analyse the allocation of resources from the Cohesion Policy provided to individual regional programmes in the European Union’s 2021–2027 financial scheme. In addition to the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund Plus funds, funds from the Just Transition Fund distributed under the European Funds for Just Transition programme, as well as funds from the European Funds for the Eastern Poland programme were also analysed. The analysis covers the proposition of allocation of funds to regions in the context of the experience gained so far in Poland in the implementation of regional programmes. The carried out analysis confirmed the decrease in the importance of regional programmes in shaping the Regional Development Policy in the 2021–2027 perspective due to the reduction in allocation.

Katarzyna Wojnar
The purpose of this paper is to perform a cross-sectional ex-post evaluation of the impact of interventions carried out in the framework of EU Cohesion Policy on social cohesion of Polish cities. Social cohesion has been understood as the ability of modern society to ensure long-term prosperity for all its members, including the provision of equal access to resources, respect for human dignity and diversity, personal and collective autonomy and responsible participation. The study shows a concentration of resources in large system projects, and the greatest progress is seen in the case of education, labour market access for women and availability of medical services. A relatively slower improvement can be observed in programmes concerning social exclusion, supporting disabled people, and culture.
Stanisław Furman

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.

Stanisław Furman
The paper gives an appraisal of Polish cities in the context of processes and problems observed in cities of highly developed European countries. These last cities, in particular those situated in the hard core of EU, enter a new development stadium. Interconnected by networks of multifarious links, they create an integrated urbanised space of the highest ability to compete in the global economy but lose at the same time the character of relatively closed and spatially distinguished socio-economic systems. The paper, pointing at the processes that lead to this phenomenon, stresses that they are already visible in Poland but not advanced. Poland is a country of a delayed urbanisation and cities the economic base of which is not competitive in Europe. These cities possess a not bad human but rather weak social capital and the urban space is of a low quality. The paper outlines the main challenges Polish cities are facing in the era of European integration and presents also the most frequently discussed visions of XXI century European city described through development goals and strategies.
Sławomira Hajduk
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the activity of local governments’ planning and investment service in the environmentally valuable areas of Podlaskie Voivodeship. Spatial planning at the local level is extremely important, especially in the environmentally valuable areas. It makes it possible to preserve the natural environment for future generations and to maintain ecological processes. However, protective measures should not disturb municipal investments. One of the appropriate solutions is the introduction of local land development plans – a framework of rational management of natural resources and of marketing development. This is particularly important in the areas of municipalities which, beside ecological functions, play an important role in the development of tourism and transport, and are situated in suburban areas.
Adam Gendźwiłł
The article presents an overview of opinions on climate change and the ways of adapting to it held by representatives of Polish local authorities (political leaders and local administration representatives) in a recently conducted survey. The author briefly describes the institutional context in which the new field of local policy has emerged and local adaptation strategies are established. The empirical analyses, based on survey data, demonstrate that local authorities in many municipalities remain relatively sceptical about the human impact on climate change: 32% feel convinced by the existing evidence. The analyses also demonstrate that there is a relationship between attitudes of local authorities towards climate change and the population size of the municipalities, as well as its previous exposure to extreme weather events. The results suggest that local adaptation policies have more chance of being developed in municipalities with specialized environmental administration.
Krzysztof Janc
The purpose of this paper is to discuss cyberspatial visibility of Polish cities and their connections. The visibility of cities is determined based on the results obtained by Googling phrases connected with cities. The connections in cyberspace are approximated using the analysis of co-occurrence of terms (shared presence) connected with pairs of cities. On the basis of the research, it can be stated that the position and the connections between the cities in cyberspace are closely related to those found in the real world. The research indicates that the information analysis of Web resources can be applied to determine the significance of cities and connections between them.
Grzegorz Gorzelak, Mikołaj Herbst, Agnieszka Olechnicka
Warmia-Mazury region, one of the poorest in Poland, faces the deepest (as compared to all regions of the EU) labour market crisis. The mixture of social and economic problems represents a huge challenge for regional authorities. The chances for fast improvement are limited by several factors, such as low quality of transport infrastructure, low innovation potential and productivity, large share of unskilled labour force, etc. One necessary condition of the improvement is the reform of public finances at country level. Nonetheless, regional authorities should undertake the activity in order to increase the potential of human capital in the region, e.g. by improving the quality of schools. While directly fighting unemployment more effort should be put on stimulating the demand side of the labour market and co-operation with NGOs.
Janina Kotlińska
Self-government-owned properties, and especially local ones, are primarily owned by urban and urban-rural communities. Many of them constitute municipal real estate resources and serve the collective needs of both members of the local community and visiting outsiders. These properties need constant budget expenditures (both current and asset-related). Some of them generate income that is a small percentage of total municipal budget revenues. However, the income from their sale can be much higher if the local authority decide to sell it and someone wants to buy it. The interests of both sides do not meet often enough. Not all municipal properties are for sale, and those that are do not always meet buyers’ needs. Very often the value of a property is different in the owner’s and the potential buyer’s opinion. The purpose of the study is to answer the following questions: 1) Do municipal properties have market value and does their sale price reflect their value?, 2) What are the determinants of municipal property price and for what reasons do local authorities decide to sell them?, 3) Are all municipal properties equally attractive to buyers?, 4) What revenues has the sale of municipal real estate generated for municipal budgets in the recent years?
Grzegorz Gorzelak
The paper analyzes statistical relationships between the inflow of EU financial resources to Polish territorial units (voivodeships, NUTS3 and poviats) and the pace of their economic growth. Correlation analysis reveals that the less developed units which enjoyed relatively more massive inflows per capita grew more slowly than the better developed ones – the correlation coefficients are negative (for the voivodeships) or close to zero (for NUTS3 and poviats). This suggests that until now, the EU funds have led to a stronger demand effect than the supply effect in the Polish economy. It may therefore be claimed that in the next programming period 2014–2020, more funds received from the EU should be devoted to the support of economic development than to the improvement of living conditions.
Stanisław W. Ceran, Michał Sidoruk
The study contains a review of websites of local governments in Podlaskie voivodship. The authors address the problem of demand for internet services, provide the inventory of available websites and evaluate the importance of this form of communication. The popularity of Internet services is clearly growing, especially with respect to interactive solutions, saving time and money of citizens. The quality of website’s contents is also a strong determinant of it’s success.