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The objective of the research was to analyze the patterns of behaviours in the urban space of the rich inhabitants of Warsaw. The targeted group can be classified as members of the rising metropolitan class. The research covered interviews with 132 inhabitants of the luxury apartments. The location of the apartments in Warsaw is in fact the result of the former socio-spatial structure of Warsaw and the subjective valorisation of urban space. The research revealed that one of the main motives for choosing the apartments as a place for living was the need of security. Another reason given by the interviewee was a sense of belonging to the own class – sense of being in a “peer group” and the prestige of the place. The inhabitants of the apartments create “a separate world” around themselves. It consists of well secured, protected, isolated houses, luxury consumption, top restaurants, malls, pubs, private schools and travels to exotic, foreign countries (for business purposes or just for vacations). The inhabitants of the apartments have spots of interests in the urban space and they travel between these isolated points of the city in their luxury cars. Thus, these members of rising metropolitan class have very limited contact with the “life on the ordinary streets”.

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 purpose of this article is to analyse opinions and attitudes of inhabitants of a Silesian town of Tychy toward the civil society and local democracy. Basing on sociological research done in the spring 2003 and reinterpretation of sociological research of the town, the article shows an activity related to and awareness of these issues among the local community in times of democracy and free market economy. The example of Tychy is specific because during the socialist period sociologists emphasised the fact that it was a socialist town. After political transition, scientists and researchers have pointed that urban community has a disintegrated character and that social bonds must be created in order to cope with regional development. The present article is especially focused on changes which have taken place over the past few years in Tychy.

The method and rules of elections of village heads and village council-members, which are conducted at meetings of village residents, are one of the last examples of direct democracy. Even though this form of democracy has been studied and described previously, the electoral rivalry within rural communities is marginalized; therefore, it is little known. The paper tries to define the features of electoral competition and analyze rivalry at this level of government. It has been based on a case study of one commune and three research methods have been used: direct observation, document analysis and personal interviews. Additionally, the paper presents sociological and demographic studies on some of the newly elected village heads and their councils.

The paper presents the spatial and socio-economic transformation of one of Warsaw’s large-scale housing estates – Sluzew nad Dolinka, especially after 1989. In spite of potential threat of physical and social degradation, the area has not converted into a city slum and still offers attractive living conditions for its inhabitants. Continuous and regular actions of the local housing association, city authorities, entrepreneurs and dwellers, as well as propitious circumstances of the Warsaw real estate market, protect the estate from physical and social decline.

In this paper I try to outline 3 theses: 1) In the experiences of the XX century the model of socially minded regional policy was the dominating phenomenon. 2) In the experiences of XXI century the model of globally minded regional policy will be the dominating phenomenon. 3) The transformation from the old to the new model is taking place in the great Sturm und Drang Periode of the years 1980–2020. The shift from the old to the new model of regional policy is firmly linked to the parallel transformation of the cohesion policies designed and implemented by the European Union. This is the shift from mechanically to organically minded cohesion policies.

As a result of broad demilitarization process, numerous military bases had been locked out in the last years all over the world. In the regions whose economies depended heavily on military orders, and large share of employment was in the army-oriented services, the closure of the military bases had huge negative impact on the economy, as finding new development path showed to be difficult. The article demonstrates the examples of successful demilitarization and conversion of the cities and regions in France, Germany and USA and formulates recommendations for the Polish communes experiencing military base closure.

The essay concerns “widely closed spaces” in today’s metropolises. By this term I understand territories that belong to private firms and syndicates and are predominantly situated in big office buildings. These places have certain features both of the public and the private space. They also co-create one of the zones in which the processes of fragmentation and appropriation of the urban space take place. It is so because they construct symbolic and literal barriers to access. The text provides an analysis of the functioning of “widely closed spaces” and their role in today’s metropolises.

The article analyses the expenses of local communities in zachodniopomorskie voivodship during the 2000–2005 period, with special regard to capital expenditures and to social care expenditures. Local communities conduct counterbalanced expenditures policy adapted accordingly to incomes. Whereas capital expenditures vary in time with growing tendency to diminishing, the social care expenses continually grow (in analyzed tenure). In spite of this the numbers of people taking advantage of social help diminishing very little (and even growing from time to time). What is more, as can be presumed, the social funds are constantly directed to the same group of beneficiaries without gaining the results in limiting the scale of poverty in community.

A representative sample of 1328 participants, coming from three historically different regions of Poland (Western and Northern Lands, Eastern Wall and former Galicia), and an analogous sample of 900 participants, recruited from two different regions of Ukraine (western and eastern Ukraine) were compared with respect to different aspects of identity (place identity, place attachment, psychological rootedness, neighbourhood ties, regional and national identity, etc.). In line with the predictions, Poland turned out more homogeneous than Ukraine. Western Ukrainians showed more similarity to inhabitants of the eastern and the southern regions of Poland than to the eastern parts of Ukraine.

The paper analyzes the functional aspect of metropolitan processes in one of the most densely populated areas in Poland. The purpose of the article is to study metropolitan functions, as well as to analyze the intrinsic structure of the Upper-Silesian Metropolitan Area, which used to be an industrial conurbation that evolved into a polycentric settlement arrangement. The analysis is based on selected qualitative features of international and domestic standings, and uses the centrality indicator. The selected functional metropolitan area is formed by 15 municipalities, including 13 towns with county rights, and is inhabited by 1.9 million people. The functions are dispersed in different towns and seem polarized. The metropolitan centre of utmost importance and holding well-developed metropolitan functions is the city of Katowice, whereas Gliwice and Chorzow are first-class auxiliary centres. The remaining towns are centres of developing metropolitan functions.

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.

Planned large-scale animal farms are often the subject of protests by local communities due to the nuisance they generate. The active participation of local residents occurs at an early stage of the investment process, namely the proceedings for issuing an environmental decision, because it is at this stage that location and characteristics of the facility are determined. The article analyses 52 cases of proceedings to set the environmental conditions for the construction of animal farms in which there were documented protests of local residents. The aim of the paper is to determine the course of environmental proceedings for animal farms under the influence of residents’ protests, as well as to determine whether environmental conditions are eventually established. The statements of protesting residents are presented by means of references to the category of knowledge in decision-making (Glicken 1999, 2000; Edelenbos 2011). The study showed that despite the binding rule that public opposition cannot be the basis for refusing to set environmental conditions, the protesting residents indirectly influence the final, usually negative, result of the environmental impact assessment. By blocking the realisation of unwanted investments, they have a real impact on the shaping of the local space.

Debates on urbanization usually present benefits of big cities. We agree that only metropolis offers prospects for economic growth and prosperity. We tend to forget that big cities of the South remain the areas of poverty, joblessness, social alienations and ecological disasters. But already in 2015 population of sixteen cities will be larger than 10 million people and fourteen of them will belong to the poor urban regions. Therefore, the greatest challenge of our century is urbanization of the South, creating a real threat to global social, political and ecological stability. The idea of metropolitan cities is not the answer.

The aim of the article was to present the methods of operationalisation and measurement of intellectual capital of the region. The methods of fuzzy sets and structural equation modelling were used. The obtained results were the following: (1) the verification of the conceptual model of intellectual capital of the region and (2) measurement of intellectual capital of region.

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.

The Information Society’s phenomenon is a subject of interest of many scientific disciplines, among them geography, economy and sociology. The ESPON 1.2.3 project differ against a background of research on the Information Society because of its thematic and spatial scope of the analyses. The operational objective of the project was not only the description of Information Society’s state and trends in Europe from the territorial perspective15, but also analysis of Information Society’s effects on spatial development in different types of regions and formulation on that basis of policy recommendations for macro-, meso- and microlevels. The project has been the first attempt to include the issues of the Information Society into research conducted in the field of spatial development within the enlarged European Union and it should be conceived as a pilot study for the future research.

The article offers a forecast of GDP per capita growth in Polish regions (NTS2) and subregions (NTS3) between 2006 and 2015, based on the past deviations of regional economies from the national growth path. The simulation shows that highest rates are expected in two metropolitan areas – Warsaw and Poznan. The Mazowieckie region (the one including Warsaw) will become the first to surpass the average level of GDP per capita in EU27. Although Poland will generally close the GDP gap to EU, further polarisation between regions is expected. The per capita income of the most lagging Polish regions will in 2015 reach (in real terms) the 2006 level of Polish national economy.

Democratic end economic transformations that occurred after 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe Countries have resulted in a new political situation in the Baltic Sea region. They created opportunities for unrestricted development of cooperation not only at international, but also at regional and local communities level. Those initiatives are a consequence of the necessity for social and economic activation, the belief in opportunity of achieving economic benefits for everybody and they are motivated by cross-sborder transport links, cultural and language similarities between communities living at both sides of the border. The paper aims at presenting the scope and scale of regional cooperation in the Baltic Sea region with particular focus on the current effects and potential of that cooperation in the border areas of Poland. The paper presents the results of questionnaire based on investigations encompassing representatives of local governments from border municipalities of the Baltic Sea Euroregion.

The paper deals with the analysis of spatial identification treated as the process of individual identification with the particular space by taking the role of the inhabitant of the particular territory as well as the sense of the connection with the territorial community which makes the social group of positive reference for the individual. The paper analyses two measures of spatial identification: individual identification and collective one. The analyse results in answering the question what is the range of coherence of spatial references of Lodz inhabitants. In order to do that the typology including indicated aspects of spatial identification was created. Obtained results present that within investigated individuals category including the process of identification with the city in individual measure and treating the neighbour community as the reference group dominates. That is why it is necessary to notice the lack of the coherence between individual and collective measure of spatial identification of Lodz inhabitants.

The article explores the issue of social development of the local communes. This development process is defined as growth and differentiation in the fulfilment of needs of the social groups located on the particular area. There is spectrum of measures that allows us to define level of development and specificity of the particular territorial communes. Author presents the concept of Indicator of Development of Territorial Communes (IDTC) calculated for communes. This indicator is calculated according to the portfolio method and it takes into account both growth factors and barriers of development. The practical use of the IDTC is illustrated on the example of the communes in Zachodniopomorskie Region, for years 1999–2001. The results show uneven and incoherent development of the communes in the region discussed. The further conclusion is that this situation would not change in the short-term perspective.

The paper presents the ways public space is socially used in three cities: Jastrzebie Zdroj, Tychy and Zory. The theoretical background is the culturalist perspective of urban sociology and the theory of public space. In the socialist era, the space in the researched cities was dominated by production and monofunctional housing estates. Public space did not exist. In the recent years, some unfinished structures may have been completed, but creating integrative urban public space is still a challenge. As a result, it is interesting to research and describe contemporary ways of using space in the “socialist” cities. The results of qualitative research show that inhabitants appreciate multifunctional market places and public squares wherever they exist. Such places constitute multifunctional public space. However, in cities lacking functional public space, shopping centres replace traditional city space. Unfortunately, they do not have the social integration function and do not promote social interactions. In every city, recreational areas are important for inhabitants.

There are three Social Economy Support Centres (OWES) operating in the Łódzkie region. The basic role of such centres is to provide advisory services to the existing social economy entities and train people interested in setting up a social enterprise. The aim of the article is to present the activities of social economy support centres aimed at supporting social enterprises and promoting the development of social economy in the Łódzkie region. Evaluation of their activities and conclusions from this analysis may be of practical importance for the development of social economy. The research material is based on the desk research for the projects: “OWES – support to social economy”, “Social Economy Support Centre in Łódź”, “Social Economy Support Centres KLUCZ”, “OWES – development of social economy” implemented in 2016–2017, research of the Regional Centre for Social Assistance in Łódź and CATI interviews conducted with coordinators of social economy support centres operating in the Łódzkie region.

As a result of interaction of many factors, the conditions of academic institutions have changed significantly over the last decades. Globalization and internationalization, demographic and economic challenges, as well as growing international competition between universities causes these institutions to take up new functions, restructure and change their character. Top universities respond to the changing context by developing new strategic solutions aiming at sustaining and strengthening their high position in international rankings. Some of the strategic solutions are similar for most universities, but some are unique and specific. The aim of this article is to identify latest trends in strategic management of top universities and present selected case studies to illustrate the most interesting solutions.

The text is an essay of analysis of the relations and interactions between the main protagonists of the “Warsaw scene”: the local administration representatives, anthropologists and sociologists, architects, urbanists, journalists and common citizens. The author is trying to summarise the discourse about the public space in Warsaw and about the difficulties in communication that concern the public discussion on the topic. The aim of the analysis is also to define the place of Warsaw as a city that belongs as well to the Europeans’ metropolises and to the towns of the Third World at the same time. The main topic concerns the view of the public spaces and its social functions in case of Warsaw, the position and roles of the heroes of “the game of the city space”, the architectural and urbanistic structure, the citizens’ identity and other issues. The essay is based on the personal research and TNS OBOP’s surveys and discourse analysis of the media content.

The aim of this article is to analyze the odds to find a job and the assessment of the duration of long-term unemployment. The data base is the 2007–2011 records from the Local Labour Office in Sulęcin. The authors of the article make the hypothesis that the impact of the determinants on the odds and rate of finding a job by the long-term unemployed is the same as in the case of the all the unemployed. The authors present a thesis that the determinants of long-term unemployment in the period of study are: the place of residence, age, the level of education, gender, seniority and the year of leaving the register. To analyze the data they use such nonlinear regression models as: the logistic model and the Cox hazard model. The former enables them to compare the odds to leave unemployment and the latter – to assess the time spent on finding employment. The designated odds ratios and hazard ratios are used to study the differences between subgroups of individual characteristics of the long-term unemployed as compared with all the unemployed.

The main objective of this article is to present the way in which people from the Suwalki region perceive their coexistence with rocks, which are ubiquitous in the region and constitute a kind of its trademark. The first question is: how do local people perceive rocks, and how do they assess their presence? The second important question is how the rocks ft into the image of the region, created and distributed as a tourism product? Does their history contribute to the mysteriousness of the region which permeates touristic narratives?

Urban renewal in derelict sites has become a focal point of interest in many traditional industrial cities. Having adopted the case study of the Cork City (Ireland), the authors presented four urban renewal schemes which were implemented in this city over a 25–year period. It ought to be emphasised that not only has Cork implemented various rejuvenation programmes since 1979, but also revived three entirely different urban sites: the former industrial areas, the historic centre and the docklands. However, the latter still requires further regeneration. The urban renewal schemes contributed to an enhancement of the quality of life and a rise in local and inward investment. Moreover, the number of tourists increased considerably. In consequence, the image of the city was improved. Hence, the urban renewal has become a factor of Cork’s redevelopment.

The article deals with the analysis of the anticipated middle-term demand for dwellings in Poland. On the basis of the empirical research this demand has been considered as being determined by the two groups of factors: demographic and economic, together with the level of the state of fulfillment of the basic housing needs. The finale set consisted of eight factors of the diverse wage. These were: the percentage of deficient flats counted as the difference between the number of households and the number of flats, the average space floor per capita, the population growth in 1998-2002, the percentage of people in the age from 20 to 39, prognosis of the number of inhabitants in 2002-2010, the unemployment rate, average wages, and the number of the business entities per 1000 inhabitants. The analyze has been carried out in the commune-scale pattern and can be useful for spatial planners and persons professionally involved in the housing market.

The author of this essay argues that, in a longer time perspective, four major processes have been taking place in the countryside and changing its character in Polish as well as in other countries in Western and Central Europe: de-ruralization, de-agrarianization, development of a new model of agriculture (peasantization/ de-peasantization) and re-stratification. These processes are affecting 1) the place of the countryside in society, 2) the place of agriculture in society and in national economy, 3) the structure of the countryside as a social subsystem. These changes have been taking place throughout the last two decades, albeit with different speed in different time periods. Three of them, de-ruralization, de-agrarianization and re-stratification, are continuations of processes which took place before 1989. Their dynamics does not differ from that in Western and Central-Eastern Europe. The fourth, more original process can also be detected in the development of a new agrarian model: the adjustment of the post-communist structure of agricultural production to the market economy.

The article introduces the concept of ESPON (European Spatial Planning Observation Network) programme, dealing with a research on spatial development of enlarging European Union. The role of Polish research units in the programme is described. The article demonstrates also the benefits and constrains related to the participation in ESPON, based on the experience of the Centre for European Regional and Local Studies. Several suggestions on how to increase Polish participation in the ESPON programme are formulated.

The article is demonstrates the differentiation of the intensity and characteristics of entrepreneurial activities in Belarus. With respect to many features, Belarus seems to be divided into the western and eastern part, that is, between the territory belonging before World War II to Poland and USSR. The eastern part is more urbanized (76% of urban population comparing to 60% in the west), includes largest cities and has better education indicators that the western part. As the entrepreneurship is highly correlated with education level and the degree of urbanization, it is not surprising that small business is most intense in Minsk and eastern Belarus. However, of the areas characterized by similar urbanization and education level, but located at different sides of the pre-war border, the entrepreneurship is decidedly more developed in the west. The research was conducted in the two regions: Grodziensk (western Belarus) and Witebsk (eastern Bealrus). It showed that the entrepreneurs from the western part of the republic are more free market oriented. While they main request from the central government was simply: less regulations, their counterparts in the east demanded rather more direct support from the state. This difference is the legacy of historical divisions and closer links of the western Belarus with the market economies of Poland and Lithuania.

The goal of this article was to estimate the regional rates of return of investment in higher education as well as potential benefits of migration of educated people between Polish regions. The results show that the benefits of higher education in Poland are higher for women than for men. Also, wage benefits of education grow with age and work experience, but they are characterized by decreasing marginal value. Internal returns of investment in education, calculated for every region assuming no migration of workers, are weakly correlated with the expected salaries of university graduates. In turn, the returns of interregional migration for people with higher education indicate that the most attractive destination in Mazowieckie, and the least attractive – Podlaskie. A particularly strong motivation for migration is faced by educated women of Podlasie. The research demonstrated also that in some regions (Lodzkie, Lubuskie), the expected earnings of graduates are largely influenced by the opportunity to work in neighbouring regions, offering more attractive salaries.

In general, political marketing is a collection of activities, techniques, methods and means that at least facilitate and at most make possible electoral success on the part of political entities. At present political marketing represents an indispensable part of politics, since only with its help do candidates have a chance of gaining and then holding on to power. After every election we can observe yet-greater competition. Political entities apply different and more elaborate methods and techniques which are aimed at increasing chances of electoral success. During the last ten years in Poland (since the new voivodships were established), it has been possible to observe the professionalization of marketing operations, particularly at municipal elections and especially at those on the regional level. In this article distinctions are therefore drawn between regional political marketing operations and those at either nationwide or local levels. The findings are based on investigations conducted by means of questionnaires distributed among the councillors serving on the voivodship regional assemblies (sejmiki) for the 2006–2010 term of office.

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 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.

Sociological research on the social bonds so far has analysed causes and a degree in which the community does not meet requirements of the traditional community any more. Modern research on the nature and the structure of local communities have introduced a new typology which reflects the advanced state of modern social bonds. Social relationships between the residents of cities and countries are reduced the number of the partners as well as people who seem to have the role of the partner decrease and the contact circles are homogenous as regards the socio-professional affiliation of partners. Interactions partners are willing to offer their help although they claim that they seldom use it and if only they turn to somebody for help it will be the closest family.

The author investigates the citizens perception of the impact of Polish-German border on local economies and communities in Western Poland. The research, based on the survey conducted in selected municipalities, reveals also the attitudes of the citizens towards the protection of natural environment and their opinion about the neighbours at both sides of the border. Finally, it attempts to assess the degree of citizens identification with the border area.

The article is based upon the results of National General Survey conducted in December 2002. It is focused on differences in professional activity and the levels of unemployment among various subregions in Poland. Considering this issue two subregions were pointed - the "Central" and the "West". They both vary in levels of economic activity of inhabitants. There are more ownership and self-employment in the "West" region, but nevertheless there is higher rate of unemployment. The reasons lay in character of enterprises - they are very small, vulnerable and unstable. They produce the streams of inflows and outflows from unemployment to job and vice versa.

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.

The article examines cooperation between cities from Poland and the South Caucasus, focusing on its forms and joint projects. The analysis is based on the results of a questionnaire sent out to Polish cities with a population of more than 50,000. It included questions about the nature of cooperation, initiatives underway, and the importance of regional issues in these relations. This allowed for a detailed understanding of their involvement in international contacts. The main purpose of the article is to show how Polish cities – through projects with cities in Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan – support intercultural dialogue and regional development, highlighting the growing role of local diplomacy.

The aim of the paper is to examine the relation between pupil movement between school catchment areas and the examination results of primary and secondary schools. The problem is analyzed in a broader context of educational disparities related to the spatial organization of educational activity. The results show that the non-rigorous approach to educational zoning by the city authorities, school directors, parents, and their children, causes an intensive movement of pupils between school catchment areas (especially at the level of secondary school). It was found that pupil movement between catchment areas accounted for almost 50 per cent of variation in examination results in the secondary schools in Poznan. The consequences of this situation for the city’s educational policy and school management are discussed.

The article examines the relationship between the exam results of primary school students and the socio-spatial diversity in Warsaw. Over the past two decades of dynamic transformation and significant social changes in the city, the overall scale of socio-spatial segregation has remained relatively stable. However, studies have revealed a persistent polarisation in exam results, with students from certain districts consistently performing below average. Local educational and economic capital as well as access to non-public schools have significantly influenced both the level and changes in these results. The research provides evidence of some – albeit often weak – correlations between the quality of public education, the availability of non-public education, and the socio-spatial structure of the city. These findings form the basis for public-policy recommendations aimed at addressing the existing inequalities and ensuring access to high-quality public education in all districts of Warsaw.

From the middle of the first decade of the 2000s protests by residents against the siting of wind turbines took place in all regions of Poland. The actions taken by anti-windmill groups were addressed to institutions at all levels of government and argued by the negative impact of windmills on acoustic environment, health, property values, and landscape. The aim of this article is to identify the characteristics of the anti-windmill movement in Poland in relation to the concept of new social movements. Based on analyses of the local press, a literature review, and other sources, the activity of the protesters, their impact on the image of wind energy in the local media, the motivations of the protests, and their consequences were all discussed. The protesters took a variety of actions against the siting of wind turbines from the typically formal to the highly informal, taking care to publicise them, thus shaping a negative image of wind energy in the local media. Locally, there were numerous groups of protesting residents who fought for a solution to a specific problem related to the location of a wind turbine, with different motivations for the protests. These groups gained the support of local residents and intervened with local authorities. On the supra-local level, there were several organisations whose aim was to establish restrictive distances of windmills from residential development. Their activities were supported by conservative party politicians. They negated the EU climate policy and global warming.

The article presents a synthetic assessment of the diversity of the housing situation in Polish communes in the context of ongoing demographic changes. In addition, it presents an original method of typological research combining measures of the housing and demographic situation for all 2,477 communes in Poland as at the end of 2021. The scope of the study covered the years 2011–2021. The article identified that both functional urban areas and coastal municipalities have their own specificity in terms of housing and demographic situation, to a lesser extent this phenomenon affects mountain municipalities. It was also pointed out that the lack of a place-based policy in the National Housing Program makes it difficult to shape the national housing policy in a manner adapted to local and regional conditions.

Sustainable development requires a transition in the way we manage resources in cities. For this reason, circular policies are implemented by many local and regional governments around the world. The article broadens our knowledge about the circular economy in relation to three spatial scales indicated in the literature: the macro scale (urban policies), the meso scale (urban space) and the micro scale (civic practices). The article presents the case of Warsaw, and its aim is to notice circular practices undertaken by young people living in the city. This exploratory qualitative study is contextualised by the analysis of urban policies in the field of the circular economy. Research results indicate that circular practices are undertaken by young residents of Warsaw, despite poor knowledge of the concept of circular economy. These practices include in particular efficient use of resources, trading in second-hand items, preventing waste and pollution, waste segregation and engagement in socio-educational events.

The aim of the study is to examine the relationship between the socioeconomic potential and the financial condition of regions (voivodeships) in Poland. The authors hypothesise that there is a linear relationship between the potential of regions, manifested by the wealth and economic activity of people living and entities operating in their area, and the income potential of these local government units, and thus their ability to meet the needs of the local government community. For the purposes of the analysis, eleven measures were selected from four areas, reflecting the social and economic potential of the regions, and seven measures of financial condition, reflecting the structure of their budget income and expenditure, as well as their selected values on a per capita basis. In connection with the above, the study used descriptive statistics methods, linear correlation r-Pearson, and the method of standardised sums (Perkal index) in order to typologise the studied entities.

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 main purpose of this article is to determine whether there is gender discrimination in access to the local authority housing stock in Poland. The study focused on 26 cities from which data were obtained through access to public information. In the qualitative part, an analysis of resolutions regulating the rules of renting premises from the local authority housing stock was conducted, focusing on identifying provisions that could lead to gender discrimination. The quantitative analysis was based on data showing the number of households that either had signed rental agreements or were waiting to obtain them in the examined cities. The conducted research provided no evidence to conclude that gender discrimination exists in the allocation of local authority housing in Poland.

In the article, we analyse the reactions of large Polish cities (over 100,000 inhabitants) to the (re)centralisation pressure of the central government in 2015–2023. Referring to the developed typology of these reactions, we attempt to measure the intensity of contestation on the part of cities and determine the variables that build the potential for expressing such contestation. As measures of contestation, we use three variables: the city mayor’s participation in the Self-Government Movement “Yes! For Poland”, the adoption of a local in vitro programme and the presence of a roundabout, square, or street named after Women’s Rights in the city. The independent variables were the city’s size and wealth, the city mayor’s political affiliation, and the local electorate’s political preferences. The study showed that the city’s size and its citizens’ political preferences are the factors most strongly associated with the tendency to engage in conflictual behaviour towards government policies.

The suburban zone of Wroclaw is characterised by dynamic population changes and increased construction traffic. However, the pace of the changes taking place is not fully reflected in official population statistics, based on registration data, presenting a much lower population than actually resides in the suburban municipalities. The purpose of the article is to estimate the actual population of the Wroclaw suburban zone for data from 2012/13 and 2020, and to show the degree of the differentiation of the population transition taking place in individual reference units. The estimation of the population size was made on the basis of the author’s method, based on the aggregation and comparison of statistical data on registrations from the register of the General Electronic System of Population Registration (PESEL) and vector spatial data from the Database of Topographic Objects (BDOT10k). From 2012/13 to 2020, the population of suburban zone of Wrocław almost doubled compared to official statistics data. The highest level of the underestimation of the actual population was observed in villages located near main communication routes and in the closet vicinity to Wrocław city. Those are places where the suburbanistion processes were observed the earliest.

Financial resources from the European Union can be an important factor in the development of various sectors of the economy, including transport. Among other things, they are used to make investments in transport infrastructure and in elements related to the operation of sustainable and integrated urban transport. The conducted study concerns the identification of the scope of the use of EU funds by cities and other entities operating urban transport, as well as tasks related to the implementation of the assumptions of sustainable transport in the years 2014–2020. The study covers Polish cities that have benefited from the European Union’s subsidies in this regard. The results of the survey allowed us to observe certain trends in the implementation of investments, which are related to the size of urban units, such as the dependence of the type of investment on the size of the city. The smaller the city, the more investments related to the construction of an interchange or interchange centre and fewer investments related to the construction of bicycle paths and roads.

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 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.

This paper attempts to diagnose the attitudes of municipal office employees toward civic participation and assess selected outcomes of participatory budgeting (PB) in the six largest Polish cities between 2014 and 2023. The analysis is based on empirical research, including surveys, in-depth interviews, and secondary data analysis. The findings reveal an institutional perspective and indicate the presence of two dominant approaches among public officials, namely an affirmative and a critical one. The article also discusses both the direct and indirect effects of PB – educational, social, political, and redistributive. In cities where the affirmative approach prevails (Poznań, Wrocław, Gdańsk, and Łódź), higher educational and political outcomes were more frequently observed. In contrast, in Warsaw and Kraków, where the critical approach dominates, lower educational and political outcomes were more commonly noted, along with relatively stronger redistributive effects. The results further suggest that participatory budgeting can serve as an effective tool for municipal administrations in identifying residents’ needs, although its capacity to meet those needs remains limited.

The article discusses the financialisation of housing while examining its economic, social, and political determinants as well as the consequences of its development. The conceptual perspective is not limited to the macroeconomic mechanisms of the process. The impact of marketisation and, consequently, the financialisation of housing was analysed in detail using the city of Gdańsk as an example. The mechanisms of financialisation in the neoliberal market economy and its impact on housing markets were discussed, as well as the financialisation of households through their inclusion in financial operations was considered. Additionally, the phenomena of touristification, studentification, and the increasing number of vacant dwellings were analysed as processes that transform urban spaces, which have a close relationship with the financialisation of housing markets. The importance of legal regulations and active housing policy in counteracting the negative effects of financialisation was pointed out.

This article analyzes local agency as a category describing the relationship between individuals and their local community. Agency is conceptualized as a two-dimensional phenomenon, encompassing a subjective sense of agency, responsibility, and the ability to influence one’s immediate (referred to in the sociological literature as the sense of agency), and a behavioral dimension, expressed in residents’ actual engagement in activities aimed at changing or maintaining the local social order. The article focuses on the interrelationships between these two dimensions of agency and on the socioeconomic determinants of its behavioral dimension. The text highlights the interconnections between local agency and social capital and their importance for local development. The empirical basis of the study is a representative sample of 1,000 Warsaw residents representing a metropolitan local community characterized by high heterogeneity and weakened social ties.

The main aim of the paper is an attempt to assess whether academic cooperation is an important component of a region’s innovation potential. First, a preliminary operationalization of the most important components of innovation potential is presented based on a literature review. The components are then verified using factor analysis which makes it possible to identify the main dimensions of a region’s innovation potential. The results suggest that academic cooperation is a significant component of the potential, given that the indicators that illustrate it are part of the potential’s „academic” dimension (betweenness centrality) and of its „core” dimension nternationalization). However, the paper shows that cooperation is not linked with the “technological” dimension that, at the time of the study, played the central role in shaping European regions’ growth dynamic. The ”core” dimension, on the other hand, comprising e.g. internationalization of academic cooperation, proved to be significant in explaining the growth dynamics of three out of nine subtypes of regions, the “academic-technological” among others. It may mean that foreign academic cooperation is important for the development of the regions that are key for European innovation potential.

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.

It was in winter 2009/2010, from mid-December to mid-February, that almost all Poland, especially Warsaw, faced exceptionally heavy snow falls. What did the snow falls change in the city? How was city life affected by those winter conditions, how did the inhabitants deal with the snow? What new elements were introduced in the urban space and what new kinds of everyday life practices emerged? We present our own take on the city-users’ attitude toward the heavy winter, based on press news, on-line comments and blog entries. This paper is based on participant observation and discourse analysis, including urban anthropology and anthropology of everyday life.

This article shows the profiles of people who hold at least the second cadence on the position of village mayor, mayor or president of the city. According to the paradigm New Public Management, the person who manages the community is often antidote on its problems, the key for its economical success and the chance of better life its inhabitants. Doubtlessly, it is connected with a charisma of the leader. What is hidden under this term? The aim of this article is to answer the question whether it is possible to show some personality features and the model of management which decide on the chance of holding the position of the mayor of community on the next cadence. The method of the studies contain the interpretation of the personality test NEO-FFI and the questionnaire concerning the model of management of the community. The results show that the people which are the managers of the community must have some level of the main personality features in fact. Only then it is possible to hold the next cadence. It relates mainly to extraversion and conscientiousness. The model of management chosen by them is of great significance too.

The article describes the costs of higher education. To do so, it uses the cost estimation method and, on its basis, determines the structure of individual costs and estimates them on the example of economics departments. The author takes into account direct, indirect and alternative costs incurred by students as well as their income, and differentiates between full-time and extramural students. He hypothesizes that the main cost incurred by full-time students is alternative cost, and in the case of extramural students – tuition. He also assumes that full-time students of economics-related ?elds have a relatively high income from their own work.

The "Baltic" Euroregion after 7 years of functioning still is a developing structure, which implements the priorities identified in its charter and identifies new goals to achieve. Those goals are to be supported by appropriate information policy concerning e.g. publicizing the Euroregion activities through organization and participation in conferences, seminars and lectures on all aspects of cross-border cooperation within the"Baltic" Euroregion as well as organization of sports and cultural events for children and youth. However, at present, the Euroregion is not generally recognized, which might indicate lack of adequately wide promotional policy of the "Baltic" Euroregion concerning its activities on one hand and lack of active community participation in the political and economic life of the place of residence on the other. The paper discusses the issues of public relations activities and in particular their role in creating the image of the institution. That is important because the organization or institution can achieve the identified goals and priorities more easily when it has community support and understanding. During the conducted empirical studies the focus was on the level of knowledge of Warmia and Mazury province residents on the idea of cross-border cooperation and the "Baltic" Euroregion, including the information reaching the local community through the media.

In recent years, the largest Polish cities have experienced intensive suburbanization processes. People migrate to suburban communes and hitherto undeveloped areas change their function towards single- or multi-family residential neighbourhoods. Spontaneous and dispersed suburbanization processes (urban sprawl) have many negative consequences that might become a serious problem, not only for the inhabitants but also for the local authorities in the suburban areas. The article presents the results of the evaluation of the role of Cohesion Policy projects in counteracting negative effects of suburbanization processes in potential suburban zones of the largest Polish cities. The results of the evaluation indicate that in suburban areas there is a major focus on meeting the current needs of residents, whereas strategic prevention of negative effects of suburbanization processes is neglected.

The authors of the article test social trust in three dimensions: one vertical (trust in various types of institutions) and two horizontal – a private and a generalized one. Their main purpose is to study the level of social trust of the adult residents of rural communities of the Lodz region and the residents of the city of Lodz. They aim to diagnose social trust of the communities and to determine the correlates of the third type of trust, defined as generalized trust manifested in contacts with other people.

The article is devoted to the role of the local political elites in the process of local commune (gmina) development. The research was made in three municipalities that differ in terms of economic development and their location on the territory of Poland. The author discusses the relation between the social-economic awareness of the councillors and the commune development strategy. She confronts the strengths and weaknesses of the municipalities in question as perceived by the local decision-makers with their communal development strategies and the course of action undertaken. The analysis of the development strategies of the three communes shows different approaches to strategic planning that result from differing attitudes of the councillors towards the creation of economic progress which, in turn, have a fundamental influence on the functioning of local structures.

The article presents the results of a questionnaire received in Autumn 2013 from over 1,300 Polish municipalities whose population does not exceed 50 thousand people. The material obtained from this questionnaire offers exact data concerning the performance of local governments in promoting local economic development, as well as opinions and values shared by these governments. The research is related to a similar undertaking performed in mid-1990s, and confirms earlier hypotheses indicating that spatial differentiation of performance of the local governments in Poland has deep historical roots.

Researchers do not study territorial origins of students very often. However, it is a very important determinant of connections between universities and their social surroundings. A regional character of a university may be an essential value for local communities, who need well-educated employees capable of working in local administration, economy, education, social care, security, culture, research etc. In the article, territorial and social origins of the Szczecin University students were analysed and it was proved that several regional ranges of recruitment existed. A range is determined by distances between students’ houses and the university, although evidences of local loyalty can be also seen.

The aim of this study was a synthetic evaluation of EU funds’ distribution between 16 voivodships. It was found out that the regional EU funds’ distribution in the years 2000–2005 is an effect of a method, according to which the voivodships that more populated are privileged. In absolute numbers the biggest recipients were: Masovia, Silesia and Malopolska – regions with a high level of urbanization, equipped with a broad business environment and with a relatively rich scientific background. At the same time, these voivodships win the most direct foreign investments. Thus we deal with a double privilege of these voivodships in relation to other regions. In relative numbers, described by an index of received funds in relation to the share of produced GPD, the dominating regions are: Warmia and Mazury, Podlasie and Western Pomerania. But it does not mean that in this way the distance between these voivodships and the most developed regions is reduced. The research did not prove that there is a connection between GDP per capita and the amount of aid per one inhabitant. The lack of any connection (positive or negative), which is a logic effect of the assumption that the regional distribution of EU funds is conditioned mainly by the number of inhabitants, indicates that the criteria do not differentiate voivodships according to the anticipated economic effects. They take an egalitarian approach – every inhabitant should receive statistically equally.

Poland as a rightful member of European Union has got a chance to participate in structural funds and Cohesion Fund as well. Taking into consideration the limited financial opportunities of territorial self-government units in projects co-financed by structural funds, presence of private sector means may be considered as a crucial factor. The scope and typology of public-private partnerships PPP have been presented in this study. The chances as well threats which may occur during the execution of investment ventures within the framework of public-private partnership have been presented there as well.

The absorption the European Union structural aid, available in 2007–2013 period, provides Poland the opportunity of fast development and improvement of life quality. A regional policy that will effectively use the structural funds may contribute to the improvement of infrastructure, development of entrepreneurship and restructuring of rural areas. The issue of absorption ability has to be considered with particular attention. This study – on the basis of experiences in implementing the Integrated Regional Operational Programme – points out some threats and bottlenecks limiting the potential absorption of funds. The barriers have been identified using the questionnaire based research on the experiences of local governments in the swietokrzyskie region.

The aim of the paper is to present the impact of ICT on the spatial behaviour of the main actors (households, enterprises, public administration) that constitute the regional economic system. The results are based on the regional case study developed within the ESPON 1.2.3 project. The research has been conducted in 2006 in the Podlaskie Voivodship – an example of peripheral Polish region. In particular the analysis covers the range and effects of new technologies implementation both in private and public sectors.

Of all the arts, architecture is the one with the closest links to ideology – not only because in many cases it serves as an instrument of power, but also because any structure is invariably preceded by words. A poet writes poems which need no design beforehand; a painter may occasionally prepare sketches for his painting, but these drafts potentially contain the entire painting which is to be produced. Conversely, there are at least three stages to any building or structure. First, there comes an idea – expressed in words – which determines its function, form and meaning, then comes a hand drawing, which contemporarily is more and more frequently replaced by computer simulation, after that a scale model, and finally – a building.

Tourism is often treated as a solution for all development problems of every Polish local government. However, even the most popular tourism resorts do not always take the economic advantage of it. The economic impact of tourism is often lower that it could have been expected. The case study given in the article is Mikolajki – the most popular tourism resort in Mazury region, but very common as far as local government’s revenues are concerned. Why? This article gives at least a partial response for the question.

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.

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.

The aim of the paper is to define and evaluate the level of local socio-economic development of largest cities in Poland, as well as the differences and disproportions which appeared between them in the years 2010-2012. The subject of the research were 30 cities in Poland whose population exceeded 120 thousand. These cities fulfil key roles in the country. A literature review and an empirical analysis were used as the base for this work. The data from the Local Data Bank (by CSO) were analyzed with the use of one of the taxonomic methods – the Hellwig development pattern method. Originally, 67 diagnostic variables were examined which, after verification, were cut down to 42 variables. Five groups of variables were distinguished: demographic figures, quality and availability of cultural and educational services, labour and social security conditions, housing conditions, and economic potential. Statistical description of the cities was prepared for all the groups of variables. The differences and disproportions between the cities were revealed. After reduction, 21 variables were used. Four groups of cities representing different levels of local development were distinguished. The results of the research allow for a comparative assessment of each city with reference to its characteristics. The research results showed substantial differences and disproportions in the level of local socio-economic development of the surveyed cities. The used method proved to be an adequate tool for local development analysis. The synthetic measures and indexes proved to be a useful tool of city management.

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.

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.

Transport policy requires greater territorial differentiation; at the local level, it should be closely integrated with education, health and social policies. This approach to transport policy contributed to the research and determined its area – the research was carried out among school students, and its aim (and that of this article) was to determine the accessibility of secondary schools in the Wągrowiec district via public transport. Many inhabitants of villages and small towns are forced to have a car or else face a whole host of difficulties. The most common difficulties include access to education, health care or better paid work.

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 paper discusses research results regarding the influence area of cultural institutions located in Łódź. The analysis includes data collected from nine biggest museums and theatres. In order to gather the information, customers were asked for their zip-codes. This method allows for surveying a large group of people and at the same time it does not interfere much with current activity of the institution. During the spring of 2012, the information about places of residence of 35 thousand customers who visited cultural institutions in Łódź was gathered.

The last decades have brought intensive development of urban areas. In many Polish cities, including Warsaw, such development takes place without obligatory local plans. Thus, administrative permission decisions concerning any investment are prepared on the basis of so-called studies of conditions and directions of spatial planning. The aim of the present paper is to discuss how general plans of spatial development in Warsaw can influence some features of its climate which are important for the quality of life of Warsaw citizens. Special attention is paid to Urban Heat Island.

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.

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.

The author discusses different definitions of social justice related to equality of outcome and equality of opportunity. It is argued that, in the territorial perspective, public policy should aim at improving the equality of opportunity by means of reducing social exclusion rather than at fighting regional disparities in the standards of living. What is challenged is the interpretation of the relationship between political preferences and the core–periphery division of Poland into Northern and Western Territories on the one hand and Eastern and South-Eastern regions on the other, as presented by R. Perdał et al. (2020).

The paper deals with the issue of filling seats without voting in elections to councils in municipalities with up to 20,000 inhabitants. In comparison to the local elections held in 2014, the number of such cases increased by 77% in the 2018 elections. It appears that the applicable election law, in particular Article 418 § 1 (the division of municipalities into single-seat constituencies), Article 434 § 1 and 2 (the election organisation rules applicable when the number of candidates equals the number of available seats), and Article 478 § 2 (the procedure for proposing candidates for the position of municipal leader or town mayor) of the Electoral Code, combined with the conditions determining local electoral competition, may facilitate the occurrence of the phenomenon of non-competitive elections that results, among other things, in low voter turnout.

In many European countries local governments, in particular on the municipal level, search for new solutions to improve the governing process. The aim of this paper is to present an innovative model, based on the idea of New Public Governance management, which operates in the city of Tampere, situated in southern Finland. Introduced in 2007, the model is based on three main pillars – strong leadership, effective and responsible service provision, and citizen involvement in the decision-making process. The paper describes each of these elements and indicates its practical advantages and disadvantages. The analysis has been conducted on the basis of official city documents and interviews conducted with experts in Finnish local government as well as leading local politicians from Tampere. In conclusion, it is pointed out that although the Tampere model should certainly be labelled as innovative, the solutions adopted generate some difficulties. These include tensions between politicians and administrators as well as problems related to the coordination of city services and the attitude of politicians and administrators towards citizen participation.

The aim of the paper is to describe the material conditions of marginal gentrification in the specific context of the old part of the Nowa Huta district in Kraków. Nowa Huta was planned as an ideal city and is currently becoming an interesting and desirable place to live for new residents. The author focuses on the physical aspects of its gentrification and on the changes in the old part of the district, the local real estate market and the activities of residents-developers.

The institutionalized revitalization process is an important tool of contemporary Polish public policy. According to the declarations of local authorities, its programmes are designed to support the development of so-called degraded spaces and the effort against social exclusion of their inhabitants. However, as the analysis of municipal revitalization programmes (GPR) in the biggest cities reveals, planned revitalization leads to gentrification of a urbanized area and is therefore more conducive to segregation than to social inclusion. This paper discusses the relationships between revitalization and gentrification on the basis of the content and assumptions of urban regeneration programmes. It is based on the literature and on selected GPRs.

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.

Szanowni Czytelnicy, Autorzy i Recenzenci!

Z kwartalnikiem „Studia Regionalne i Lokalne” jestem związana niemal od początku jego istnienia. Mój pierwszy tekst ukazał się w czwartym numerze pisma w 2000 roku – pierwszym roku jego istnienia. Od tego czasu moje związki ze „Studiami” stopniowo się zacieśniały. Czytałam i recenzowałam artykuły, weszłam w skład redakcji, a teraz staję przed wyzwaniem kierowania naszym kwartalnikiem, zastępując pomysłodawcę i pierwszego redaktora naczelnego, profesora Grzegorza Gorzelaka, który budował kwartalnik z dbałością o jego jakość i rozpoznawalność.

Przejmując funkcję redaktorki naczelnej „Studiów”, czuję dumę i ekscytację. Z jednej strony, wchodzę w nową rolę ze świadomością, że będę kierować jednym z najlepszych czasopism w dziedzinie nauk społeczno-ekonomicznych w Polsce, pismem o uznanej pozycji, indeksowanym w SCOPUS, przyciągającym dobre teksty i świetnych Autorów, pismem, które pełni ważną funkcję w dyskusji naukowej. Z drugiej strony, już dziś wiem, że musimy dokonać wielu zmian, podyktowanych rosnącą konkurencją w zakresie publikacji naukowych i trendami związanymi z koniecznością udostępniania tekstów w formie elektronicznej i wymogami wolnego dostępu do prac naukowych finansowanych ze środków publicznych. Przygotowuję się, wspólnie z dr Dorotą Celińską-Janowicz, która szczęśliwie nadal będzie koordynować prace w redakcji kwartalnika, do podjęcia decyzji wzmacniających prestiż pisma, wykorzystując do tego także nowe możliwości techniczne i finansowe, które współprojektowałam w ramach Inicjatywy Doskonałości Uniwersytet Badawczy, uruchomionej na Uniwersytecie Warszawskim.

Chciałabym wspólnie z Państwem przeprowadzić te zmiany, by w najbliższych
latach „Studia Regionalne i Lokalne” wzmocniły swoją pozycję i cieszyły się niesłabnącym zainteresowaniem Autorów i Czytelników. Kierowanie kwartalnikiem to duża odpowiedzialność, jednak ze wspaniałym zespołem Redaktorów, Recenzentów, Autorów i gronem wytrawnych Czytelników, przy wsparciu Wydawnictwa Naukowego Scholar, podołamy temu zadaniu. Zapraszam Państwa do współtworzenia naszego pisma!

Agnieszka Olechnicka
1 października 2020 r.

The aim of the paper is to identify different visions and expectations of the citizens and the local government regarding the development of their suburban space, which are a source of potential spatial conflicts. It discusses contradictory interests of all the people living in the suburban area, certain groups of inhabitants, and local authorities. The paper characterizes different types of conflicts, including spatial ones. The conflicts in the suburbs are generated by a desire to keep the suburban character of the place of residence, the primacy of property rights and individual interests over collective ones, and excessive development ambitions of local authorities. Considerations on spatial conflicts in a suburban zone are illustrated by the results of two surveys carried out in the Lesznowola municipality near Warsaw, one on a representative sample of residents throughout the whole municipality (394 persons), and the other on a representative sample of residents of Mysiadło (305 people).

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.

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.

The article offers a multidimensional analysis of the dynamics of population ageing in Poland. To this end, the spatial dynamic shift-share method is used. The data used in the analysis include the number of people aged 65 or over per 1,000 population, based on the criteria of sex and place of residence (urban or rural areas) in 72 Polish subregions in the period from 2003 to 2016. The study analyses the pace of changes in the scale of the phenomenon and identifies structural and local factors underpinning the net effect in specific subregions. In effect, subregions with the greatest pace of change and its underpinning factors are identified.

The paper focuses on the assessment of the role of tourism in the development of towns and cities of the Warmian-Masurian voivodeship. The respondents, representatives of town halls, claim that tourism is important and has an impact on economic development of towns and cities. However, nature and wildlife of the Warmia and Masuria regions are not the key tourist attraction of the regions’ towns and cities. The respondents say that each town and city should build its own unique brand rather than relying on the region’s or a dominating city’s brand. It is however useful for the towns and cities of the regions to cooperate in order to promote the tourist product.

The article aims to verify the relationship between the value of real estate and urban renewal. The analysis was conducted for undeveloped land properties traded between 2006 and 2014. In that period, a time trend was set for the real estate from the areas covered by the Local Revitalization Programmes and the areas located in their immediate vicinity. The observed trends of the changes were compared with those occurring at the same time throughout Krakow, as well as in the areas specified in the Urban Revitalization Programme for Krakow as potential revitalization complexes, for which no local revitalization programmes were eventually prepared. In addition, the author analyzed how transaction prices were distributed in space over the specific years. The obtained land value maps were compared with the records of the documents which formed the basis for the urban renewal of Krakow.

After 10 years of discussions about the need to empower the metropolitan areas in Poland, finally a metropolitan union law for the Śląskie Voivodeship [Silesian region] has been adopted. Defining two million people as a population level required for the creation of the metropolitan union confirmed that the legislator’s intention was to establish the first metropolitan union in Poland specifically in the Silesian conurbation due to its unique territorial structure. The establishment of the Upper Silesian and Zagłębie Metropolis [Górnośląsko-Zagłębiowska Metropolia] should be seen as an important social experiment and significant innovation in the Polish local – government system. The large territorial delimitation of the metropolitan union with 41 local units is a courageous step that proves a high level of mobilisation and strong involvement of Silesian local decision makers. The specific decision-making procedure based on double majority voting should entourage dialogue between the large and small member cities of the metropolitan union. The generally formulated competences of the metropolitan union allow considerable freedom to the authorities in prioritising tasks and projects. The author’s analyses the institutional architecture of the first Polish metropolitan union, which is a hybrid organisation combining an inter-municipal association and a local government unit, from the perspective of turning the Upper Silesian metropolitan area into an efficient system of metropolitan governance.

Local referenda are a special form of direct democracy in Poland. As a result of some legal solutions and in the light of practice, now reaching back for over ten years, they must be considered as a populist and ineffective instrument. This refers primarily to the referenda on recalling local authorities such as city council and mayor, accounting for 85%-90% of all such events. The practice of local referenda in Poland embraces approximately 400 cases. During the first three terms in office of the territorial self-government (1990-2002), 347 referenda concerned recalling the communal councils. Such referenda may be initiated only by the residents of the commune. Only 37 of these referenda proved to be decisive, as their attendance turnout exceeded 30%. The effectiveness of referenda is limited mostly to small towns (up to 20 thousand residents), where the threshold turnout is usually reached.

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.

The paper presents the state of development and the identity of the city of Biała Podlaska using the analysis of literature and official documents of the municipal authorities. The opinions of 316 PSW students about the city’s image and identity were also presented. The research revealed that the city’s image is strongly determined by its location near the state border and the presence of academic centres in the region. The functioning of universities affects not only the city, the surrounding towns of the municipality, but also the entire region and other places of residence and employment of graduates. The research corroborated the hypothesis that the way in which students perceive the city is important for the further development of the city.

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.

The purpose of this article is to establish whether regional convergence is present in Poland in terms of GDP per capita. An analysis was conducted for the years 1995–2005 at the voivodeship (NUTS2), sub-regional (NUTS3 classification) and intra-voivodeship levels. Convergence means a reduction of income disparities between regions. The opposite phenomenon is called divergence. The author of the paper used a method – proposed by Quah (1993, 1996a, 1996b) – that enables an analysis of the full distribution dynamics of relative per capita income. It consists in the estimation of transition matrices derived from Markov’s processes and in the use of nonparametric kernel estimators of the relative density function for relative GDP distribution per capita in subsequent years. The method facilitates verification of the club convergence hypothesis, which is impossible using the classic methodology (Barro and Sala-i-Martin 2003). It is clear that income distribution is stable and that there is no unconditional convergence both between voivodeships and between sub-regions. In general, voivodeships as well as sub-regions were impoverished as a result of a faster-than-normal growth of the richest voivodeships (mazowieckie voivodeship) and sub-regions (large cities, mainly Warsaw and Poznan). The diversification of relative GDP per capita grows in time both in the case of voivodeships and sub-regions. The convergence model that can be seen both at NUTS2 and NUTS3 levels is club convergence (polarisation): relatively the poorest and – separately – the richest regions are becoming similar and converge at different income levels. The analysis also includes the occurrence of sub-region convergence within voivodeships, with the only observable convergence model being club convergence.

One of the most important features of Eastern Poland is its peripheral character. This region is often associated with various negative socio-economic phenomena. Population processes, including the problem of depopulation, affect a large part of rural areas of the macroregion. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of the demographic changes occurring in rural areas of Eastern Poland in 2002–2015 on selected areas of socio-economic life, as well as to attempt to determine the scale of the changes and their spatial consequences in the field of education, entrepreneurship, construction, housing, and public finances.

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.

In the study, the impact of tramline construction on changes of apartment prices was investigated. The object of study was Podgórze, i.e. district XIII of Kraków, where a tramline towards Mały Płaszów was built in 2010. The authors used the base of transaction prices from 2008-2013 for apartments located within 500 m of the newly built tramline. Statistical analysis using the multiple regression model showed a 91% coefficient of price determination by the adopted attributes. It was shown that the „communication/transport” attribute explains 27.8% of property values, which gives the average real estate price increase by over PLN 600 per sq. m calculated per unit price after the construction of the new tramline.

Małopolska (Lesser Poland) and Śląsk (Silesia) are historical regions which only partly overlap with the present-day borders of the Małopolskie and Śląskie voivodeships. In spite of their geographical proximity, they are historically and culturally dissimilar. A survey has been carried out in order to verify the perception of the regional identity of these voivodeships by their inhabitants. It was found that although old cultural and historical divisions are still important for the people, possible economic advantages seem to prevail. In addition, the Śląsk region as compared to the previous surveys is no longer identified with air pollution and environmental degradation.

Revitalisation, which is defined as a planned process of restoring deprived areas, entails the difficult challenge of achieving long-lasting spatial, economic and social effects. In Poland, the accompanying inflow of European Union funds not only fosters a wide range of activities for entities involved in urban renewal, but also raises a question about the potential dysfunction of investments in deprived areas. Based on the experiences of Kraków, the paper presents some undesirable effects of projects implemented under the Local Revitalisation Programmes (LRP) in the years 2007-2013. The goal of the LRP projects was to promote the rehabilitation of deprived housing areas. The initial results, however, indicate that these projects are characterised by specific pitfalls, which include touristification, uniformisation, gentrification and social polarisation.

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.

Migration management is one of the key tasks faced by regional authorities in Poland, which experience deepening processes of shrinking and ageing of population. The aim of the article is to determine whether policy makers are aware of the role of migration processes and migration policy, to show their presence in demographic development strategies, and to describe the activities undertaken at the regional level in response to the ongoing demographic processes. The analysis is based on the example of the Łódzkie, Opolskie, and West Pomeranian voivodships. The article proposes an analytical model assuming a gradual process of decision-makers’ reaction to demographic changes. An analysis of documents and interviews with people responsible for regional demographic policy confirms they are aware of ongoing population processes and their consequences, at the same time, however, there is a lack of actions aimed at stimulating inflows of foreigners. The initiatives aimed at stopping the population from emigrating are more important.

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.

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.

The aim of this article is to describe regionalism in the Warmia and Mazuria region. Although the majority of indigenous inhabitants emigrated from the region after 1945, some intellectuals who did not leave Poland established several organizations that focused on activities which may be described as ‘old regionalism’. Taking into account the political context, they tried to save the regional culture. After 1989 (the beginning of the transition period in Poland) new organizations were founded. Their members try to create a new type of regional culture and identity – a synthesis of cultures and identities of all cultural and ethnic groups living in Warmia and Mazuria. These new kinds of activities should be called ‘new regionalism’.

The right to the city is being able to co-decide about the city by its inhabitants. It can be implemented by means of urban participation that consists of two elements – a formal framework created by municipal authorities that enables city residents to join decision-making processes as well as readiness and willingness of the inhabitants to engage in such processes. In recent years, we have witnessed a “participation boom” that manifests itself through an increasing number of public consultations. In this context, the aim of the article is to describe the category of urban participation and offer a critical analysis of participatory processes and their determinants. At the same time, it should be emphasised that the article is theoretical in nature, and the analysed factors determining participation should be treated as a set of the author’s hypotheses that require empirical verification.

The aim of the article is to present an outline of the concept of revitalisation as a public intervention aimed at strengthening local cohesion. The concept emphasises the multi-faceted, participatory and inclusive nature of revitalisation. The article contains arguments in favour of the following theses: (1) Revitalisation should be not only an ad hoc reaction to the accumulation of crisis levels, but also a long-term action for local cohesion; (2) The long-term success of revitalisation depends on the scale and quality of the involvement of residents, especially residents from disadvantaged or excluded communities; (3) The inclusion of social economy entities in the revitalisation process is an important factor in strengthening local cohesion

After partitions of Poland in 1795 its west territory (Wielkopolska) became a part of Prussia. Poland and Prussia were parts of east European complex of economy, but Prussia was more developed and better organized than Poland. During the XIX century Prussian elites were romantically oriented and dealt with bastion policy which was oriented towards defending the Germans against the Slavs. Prussian state played main role in economy and subordinated it to the military oriented goals. Prussian case was extremely popular among Polish elites at the beginning of XX century. At the base of Prussian patterns the Poles learnt that main actor in economy is not individual unit but the state, and Prussian case was the source of inspiration for strong nationally oriented ideology in Poland after 1918. Research on Polish communes proved that impact of Prussia on contemporary development in Poland was rather damaging than uncourageous.

The purpose of the article is open to debate. It presents the main conclusions from a study made in March 2017 for the Office of Analysis and Expertise of the Senate of the Republic of Poland on the merits of changes in the territorial division of the Warsaw Metropolitan Area. In this study was carried out a synthesis of the research conducted mainly by the author on the development of Warsaw Metropolitan Area and the Mazowieckie voivodship, including the impact of the capital and delimitation of its functional urban area. In its summary were formulated the most important conclusions, arguing for finding a compromise solution, aimed at establishing a new administrative division system, taking into account both the daily urban system, spatial cohesion needs, and the interests of residents and entrepreneurs. Due to the importance of the area, including Warsaw’s functions as a capital city, the conclusions apply to the whole Poland.

The aim of this article is to identify the role of fees and user charges in the budgets of large cities (cities with county status) and policies of these entities in this regard. To achieve this goal, the article reviews the research on the importance of fees and user charges in local government finance, and analyses the role of fees and user charges in large cities finances in Poland from 2006 to 2012. The study confirms the global trend observable in different countries, i.e. the increasing importance of revenues from fees and user charges to local government budgets. Secondly, the relative size of revenues from fees and user charges in large cities in Poland are evening out. Thirdly, there are two key areas in terms of service charges: public transport and housing management.

The purpose of the research presented in the article is to assess the effects of the 2015 amalgamation of the Zielona Góra city with the rural commune of the same name on the quality of local democracy. The second goal is to examine the phenomenon of free riding on the common pool in the context of the local-level territorial reform. The analysis, based on a quasi-experimental scheme using the synthetic control method, unlike previous studies, did not confirm the free riding hypothesis. The results of the study also indicate that the strategy implemented in Zielona Góra can be useful in achieving an intermediate political goal, which is to ensure the residents’ approval of the reform and legitimization of its results.

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.

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.

The impact of ICT use is an important aspect of studies concerning the transformation of contemporary democracy. The paper presents results of the research project on the development of e-government in Polish self-government institutions, carried out between 2005 and 2012. Websites of all Polish territorial counties as well as all the communes in two voivodships were analyzed within the project. Results of the research indicate that the sophistication of the ICT use grows at both levels of self–government. At the same time significant regional differences in the development of e–government can be observed. Thus, the mode ICT is used by self-government institutions is the additional dimension of digital divide at local level.

The article presents the results of the analysis of the impact of the National Development Plan (NDP) 2004–2006 and the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) 2007–2013 on divergence/convergence processes taking place in Poland as well as between its regions and the EU average, measured as GDP per capita in PPS. The analysis was made using simulation results received by applying 16 regional HERMIN models and data as well as forecasts concerning NDP and NSRF transfers prepared by the Ministry of Regional Development of the Republic of Poland. The application of HERMIN models allowed the authors to make forecasts regarding the following macroeconomic indicators: GDP per capita (in PPS) in relation to the EU average and to the national average by 2020. The results indicate that NDP and NSRF implementation can accelerate the convergence process between the Polish regions and the EU average and slow down the weak divergence process within the country.

Changes caused by transformation of political system such as comeback of ground rental and other market factors caused some changes in socio-spatial structure in Eastern Europe cities. One of them was segregation, which means increase of differences between social status of dwellers of particulars zones and quarters. These changes occur mostly in Eastern European greatest cities. Meanwhile socio-spatial structure of industrial "dependent cities" is less crystallized. Changes in these cities are still in initial phase. In four concentric spatial zones of the city social status of dwellers is similar. Meanwhile at the level of settlements there is clear, although weak statistical connection, which reveals some degree of socio-spatial differentiation. Social status of dwellers in eastern part of the city, especially in the Widzew quarter is higher, than in the other parts of Lodz. But in general differences of social status of particular spatial units are small, what corroborates basic hypothesis about weak differentiation of socio-spatial structure of lodz. It means, that processes of segregation and polarization are at the very beginning phase. For now, its negative consequences of globalization which occur in Western metropolises such as ethnic ghettos and “dualization" of city are no threat for lodz, but, on the other hand, this result reveals small dynamics of development of the city. There are some negative effects of transformation process, such as decrease of social status of dwellers of standard housing units. On the other hand, there is no concentration of the poorest people in particular parts of the city, and existing enclaves of poverty are the margin of urban space; however, this margin is growing. Also people of the highest status don`t live in particular parts of the city and there are very few settlements of the very high standard. There are some enclaves of such houses, which don`t cause the clear increase of standard in broader units. Trend of increase of social status of dwellers in the Eastern parts of lodz may be the response to the expectations for very far future perspectives of common Warsaw lodz metropolis. Basic hypothesis, verified during the research, claimed, that socio-spatial structure of lodz is differentiated in small degree. Survey was run at the turn of 2001 and 2002 on the sample of 797 dwellers. Method of selection caused, that demographic structure of sample in particular zones, quarters and smaller settlements was the same, as in population. We analyzed three attributive variables: character of employment, level of education and financial standard, measured with number and quality if durables. These variables were the basis for indicator of social status.

This paper is a comparative study of main social theories of urban development in the last fifty tears. The author presents various approaches and social theories from across the world. He divides the after-war period into three phases according to the profound social changes. the first one covers the years of ending the post-war reconstruction of economy, infrastructure and cities damaged by the war. the second phase includes "the golden years" between approximately 1955 and 1975, when the formation of different types of welfare state, but mainly the urban population growth, suburbanization and metropolization processes and improvement of living conditions and urbanities took place. the third phase, covering the years between 1975 and 2000, is marked by the first signs of the decline of the welfare state accompanied by deepening social inequalities increasing urban poverty, marginalization of some groups of the population, political radicalization and urban conflicts as well as by urban and regional polarization.

The study proposes a method of designating areas at different levels of socio-economic development (problem, success areas, and the intermediate stages between them). In the adopted research procedure, the above-described areas were identified on the basis of a synthetic indicator, which took into account six features assigned to two thematic categories (socio-demographic and economic-technical). The years 2003–2019 were assumed as the research period. The applied dynamic approach made it possible to trace the path of socio-economic development of the surveyed units within the proposed four types of areas. The obtained results refer to rural and urban-rural municipalities of Dolnośląskie (Lower Silesia) Voivodship (województwo), with a particular emphasis on the Kłodzko district (powiat), which has been considered a problem area for many years.

Article presents results of the analysis of 15 regional innovation strategies prepared by the Polish regions in the years 2002–2005. The stress was put on their conformity with the standards. In particular, adequacy of the diagnosis and objectives and character and scope of the first implementation activities were taken into account. The strategies in question turned out to be quite different as far as methodology and conceptual underpinnings adopted or objectives and activities proposed are concerned. The efforts put into RIS preparation were not in vain, however, there is a need to upgrade them up (wider use of qualitative criteria in diagnosis, improved compatibility of methodology used) and first of all to get full picture of innovativeness of Polish regions. And this is what cannot be achieved on the basis of those 15 strategies. Strongly recommended nationwide research on regional innovativeness may serve as a starting point to create national Innovation Support and Technology Transfer System SWIFT which is considered by Authors a precondition for effective utilization of regional efforts for the benefit of the country as a whole.

The aim of the article is to examine if the form of ownership is a base of social identifications as important as a space of living. Author presents results of own research, conducted in Szczecin in Social Housing Associations area. The results show that forms of ownership become important part of social identity, even more than location in urban space.

Education is a field which is not subject to unification in the European Union. Education systems in the EU countries differ, among others, in terms of: sources of funding, provision of basic education, participation in the education and training system, and functioning of higher education. The main aim of the present study is to compare education systems in EU Member States using statistical methods of linear ordering of objects. The study posits lower effectiveness of individual indicators that characterize education. It is focused on a synthetic evaluation of education in EU countries using Hellwig’s modelling method. This approach makes it possible to prepare a ranking and to determine the distance separating Poland from the best (model) education system.

The debt of local government units (LGU) is part of the public debt. Therefore, the analysis of the phenomenon of local government debt is important for the financial security of the state. In Poland, in the period 2007–2013, the debt of local government units rapidly increased, in particular in the major cities with poviat rights – metropolises. Due to the dual nature of metropolises, they perform many important tasks in the social and infrastructure sphere that determine the quality of life of their residents and contribute to the socio-economic development of the region and metropolitan areas. However, an excessive increase in debt of the metropolis may in the future be a barrier to achieving a high rate of socio-economic development. The aim of the paper is to analyze the phenomenon of indebtedness in the largest cities with poviat rights – metropolises – in Poland in the years 2007–2013. The study draws on publicly accessible databases compiled by the Ministry of Finance (Wskaźniki do oceny sytuacji fiansowej jednostek samorządu terytorialnego).

In the last few decades, the topic of quality of life has been of interest to the theorists as well as social life animators. Many studies consider two dimensions of this quality: subjective and objective. The present paper discusses the problem of subjective quality of life. Our aim is to diagnose the mental well-being of Lodz residents. Questions about general life satisfaction and satisfaction in particular fields and spheres of life such as: family, income, housing, ability to fulfil one’s needs, etc., have become the empirical determinant of the analyzed dimension of quality of life. An exploratory analysis of the studied phenomenon allows us to determine the level of subjective quality of life of the studied community. In addition, we attempt to determine the attributive conditions of the phenomenon.

The article analyzes the problem of delays in the preparation of local spatial development plans in Polish communes. Data from the annual survey sent to local governments and carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology and the Statistics Poland were used. On this basis, the categories of communes in which there is highly possible to identify occurring of planning works prolongation (referred to in the article as delays in drawing up plans), as well as its reasons, were identified. No territorial differentiation in this scope was found. The basic differentiation is related to the population of communes, i.e. the larger the commune in this respect, the greater the delays are. The interviews obtained from 16 communes (at 68 over 50,000 inhabitants, where the highest number of delays in preparing plans was identified) show that the main reasons for delays include problems related to public consultations and arrangements of draft plans, changing legal regulations, and staff shortages in commune offices. The article shows how these issues are related to the broader problems of the Polish spatial planning system. Further research directions were also proposed.

In most European cities industrial districts and, later, consumption areas have emerged supplementing the areas of exchange, which had always been existing within the cities. At present, the cities are almost free of production (especially of industrial production), which has been replaced by the areas of entertainment. This is due to the fact that the metropolitan class - which lives in the cities and moves between them as the most precious part of the tourist community – has demonstrated growing demand for culture and entertainment. The influences of the media, mostly of television, make this demand more and more uniform, which results in globalisation of culture and entertainment. It is therefore quite obvious that big corporations engage themselves in undertakings that shape the urban areas in order to advertise their products and brands. As a result, the public parts of the cities are appropriated by individual interests and privatized in a specific way.

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.

The local government plays a huge role in supporting local development. In this paper, the authors present the results of conducted research concerning the impact of selected aspects of financial policy of the local government units on their development on the example of cities affiliated with the Union of Polish Metropolises. Therefore, firstly, they construct a synthetic indicator of local development and use it to assess the relative development of the analyzed cities. Then, they measure the relationship between the level of the cities’ relative development in the years 2007?2012 and the values of major categories of the units’ financial management in those years (per capita), in particular the amount of their debt, total and investment expenses, and expenditures on individual groups of local government tasks.

The paper is based on the results of empirical studies concerning town identity building conducted in 206 selected town administration offices in Poland during the years 2003–2005. The paper aimed at identifying the main identity strategy instruments applied in Polish towns. For that purpose the major town identity building instruments related to visualization, communication and pattern of behaviours including marketing activities, were identified and characterized. Those instruments should be focused around the most important attributes of a given town. It was established, however, that towns expose too many attributes of identity in their strategies hence the image created can become unclear and illegible.

Branches of international corporations are a significant element of the economic structure of towns and regions, and depending on the degree of their integration with (‘embeddedness’ in) the regional and local economic milieux, they can play an important role in their development. The location of a branch of an international corporation has a multitude of effects in a variety of spheres: economic, social, spatial, and environmental. The effects in the social sphere include the formation of attitudes of the residents towards the investor, which takes place on the basis of the knowledge about the investor and his/her image, and then gives rise to some forms of behaviour towards him. This paper compares the attitudes towards foreign investors of the residents of a big city and a small rural commune. The analysis is based on a survey research carried out among the inhabitants of Poznan city and the commune of Zbaszynek. The attitudes examined in the first case were those towards a branch of the international corporation EXIDE Technologies, which has been operating in the city since 1995, and in the other case, the attitudes towards a branch of the Swedwood corporation, present in the commune since 1999.

A low level of social activity in all dimensions is a characteristic feature of Poland. However, some enclaves of social activity do exist: there are fields of social life in which Poles are more active and devote more spare time to them; we can also distinguish active social groups. The article is an attempt to analyze social activity of Lodz citizens in the following dimensions: the participation in community activities and the participation in non-governmental organizations. The authors try to indicate the level of social activity of Lodz residents and the correlates of the analyzed dimensions of civic activity. Sex, age, profession and income are analyzed as independent variables.

The article presents intersectoral partnerships forming Local Action Groups, and analyzes the mechanisms of emergence of such partnerships in the Podkarpackie region, particularly factors contributing to their emergence, their initiators and partner-recruitment methods, as well as the relations of partnerships with their social milieu, decision-making inside partnerships and expectations regarding their future. The theoretical framework of the study is rooted in the neoinstitutional theory with its historical, normative, rational-choice and network approaches. Based on them, the authors formulate some hypotheses referring to the innovativeness of the partnerships, the supremacy of local authorities over other partners, the utilitarian character of partnerships and the assumptions concerning their future. The hypotheses are then verified on the basis of the results of quantitative research of Local Action Groups in the Podkarpackie region.

The aim of this paper is to discuss urban renewal policy implemented in France over the 20th and the 21st century. Referring to selected examples from the agglomeration of Paris, special attention is paid to the social dimension of urban renewal. The diversified tools in the field of urbanism and contract policy led to vertical and horizontal cooperation between different entities. The key element was the differentiation of housing supply, especially in the case of apartments for rent. In the areas with better potential and likely to become more multi-dimensionally attractive, the effects of renewal were more spectacular, whereas urban renovation carried out in deprived areas still brings mixed outcomes.

The article describes a local conflict which arose when the decision on the establishment of the Brzeziny district (powiat) had been waived at the last moment. This resulted in strong protests of the inhabitants, who hoped that the district authorities would be located in Brzeziny. The conflict impaired the local community`s ability to exercise its political function and to execute public tasks. Two opposed groups emerged in the local community: representatives of the local authority and people connected with them on the one hand, and the protest committee, later the Teraz Brzeziny (Time for Brzeziny) association, on the other. The consequence of this local conflict, taken as a model, is mutual adaptation of both opposing sides. In Brzeziny, the adaptation took the form of a compromise negotiations between the government authorities and local community`s representatives, which brought a solution to the problem. As a result of the compromise, the Brzeziny district has been established, however not within the originally planned boundaries.

This paper analyses the shifts in the system of governance of Kyiv in 2008–2014 as a crucial element of the resilience capacity of the region. The consequences of the economic crisis and the ongoing security crisis demand new approaches and solutions from the city’s leadership and community. For years Kyiv suffered from poor municipal leadership and unprecedented control by the central government, which undermined the resilience of its socio-economic system in the aftermath of the global economic crisis. However, new forms of community initiatives that bring together private and non-governmental actors are becoming widespread, and are becoming critical knowledge networks that are essential for successful long-term development. Changing institutional frameworks, and the firm commitment to decentralisation proclaimed by the country’s current leadership, open new avenues for harnessing the city’s potential. The challenge is in finding ways for constructive collaboration between formal and informal leaders of the city while building a new base for sustainable and competitive economic growth.

The concept of the political cycle was originally formulated with regard to decisions taken at the central level, but it may be also applied to the local level. Most of the previous empirical studies have focused on expenditure (how its size and structure change depending on the electoral cycle). The applicability of the concept to local tax policy has also been studied, although more rarely. In Polish studies of local public finance, the concept of political cycle has so far been rarely used. In this article, the authors check whether the theoretical frame of the political cycle is suitable for interpreting decisions relating to tariffs on local public services. It is empirically tested on tariffs on water and sewage, rents in municipal housing, tickets for local public transport and parking charges. The second research question concerns factors influencing the likelihood of the political cycle in different services. In this respect, the article puts forward four specific hypotheses. The authors have to face a methodological problem: the distinction between the influence of the electoral cycle and of other factors, such as inflation, or the change in the financial situation of local governments, and economic growth rate. The applied quantitative methods refer to panel logistic regression and linear regression models in which the impact of the electoral year is controlled by other variables.

The aim of this article is to show how regions are created in Poland. The author focused on Warmia and Masuria, which started to become an established region as a result of an administration reform in 1999. An image of a region as an existing phenomenon is planted in its inhabitants’ minds by regional authorities, who make use of their strategic plans, financial instruments, and regional discourse.

The article presents the role of territorial units in enterprise stimulation, discusses the factors that encourage local authorities to promote entrepreneurship or discourage them from using supporting instruments. The authors assess the current activity of local governments in the domain and they suggest potential changes in local policy regarding entrepreneurship stimulation. The article points out areas where improvement is possible despite the obstacles due to the existing legal framework

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.

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.

The aim of the article is to determine the level of urbanness as regards the physiognomy of those settlements which, since 1990, the beginning of systemic transformation, have obtained the status of towns for the first time. The qualitative features of built-up areas were defined using the indicator showing the share of farm buildings, and height using the indicator showing the number of dwellings per residential building. In this way, a group of new towns with a typical rural physiognom existing in Poland (Glinojeck, Radłów, Świątniki Górne) was obtained, and settlements centres with unfavourable synthetic index values in the Zachodniopomorskie Voivodship (Gościno, Stepnica) were specified. Their example demonstrates the imperfection of the requirements and suggests that the procedure for granting urban status should to a greater extent take into account the physiognomy of potential towns and verify that aspect of urbanness.

An Economic and Monetary Union is the next stage of European integration. The membership in the euro zone should result in strengthening the safety and stability of the national economy. Therefore, the new member countries ought to aspire to accession, meeting in advance the Maastricht convergence criteria. The paper presents the assessment of the nominal convergence of new EU members (general government deficit and general public debt related to GDP, annual average inflation rates, long-term interest rates) in 2004–2009.

The development of Lithuania was deeply affected by the recent world economic crisis, which had a negative impact on most countries in Europe. However, the degree of impact was quite differentiated spatially, and various localities suffered from the crisis unevenly. The economic sectors that suffered the most in Lithuania, were concentrated in metropolitan areas, so the crisis damaged urban economy most seriously. How the economy of the capital city was affected at this time is a central question for researchers. Different areas and sectors of the urban economy were affected differently, so the impact on urban space was fragmented. Our analysis is mainly seeking to understand changes in the construction sector and housing market. The paper also tries to reveal the main features of the development of the whole Vilnius urban region, which occupies much wider territories than the city municipality. The capability to withstand economic threats depends both on urban economy and on the situation in the surrounding region or hinterland of the city. The process of the transformation of rural areas into urban regions is constantly taking place and in the case of metropolitan regions, it depends on the situation in the urban, country, and global economies. The rise of discussion about possible paths of prospective development of the Vilnius city region is also among the tasks of this paper.

In the last decades, especially in Europe, a process of the rebirth of national and regional identities of small ethnic groups has been taking place, leading in many cases to a change of language situation and to attempts to stop and even to revert processes of linguistic assimilation. The article presents individual cases of ethnic/regional movements having “language issue” in their programmes, and makes an attempt of a typology of regions and countries according to their language situation and policy. The language question also appears at the European Union level. The EU institutions try to combine the ideological principle of multilingualism (equality of all official languages of the EU members) with pragmatism implying minimizing the number of working languages. At the “civil” level the EU supports the model of multilingualism of the inhabitants as a means to facilitate functioning of the common labour, commodity, service and capital market while maintaining cultural identities of its member states. In individual countries the language policy is competence of national authorities; there are no common binding rules on the territory of the whole EU. As a result, there are differences among countries in their attitudes towards languages of ethnic minorities.

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.

Big cities in Poland as well as abroad are the focus of many scientists of different disciplines. The authors of this study join these researchers and concentrate on a previously neglected segment of the Polish big cities’ political actors – city councillors. The aim of this paper is a socio-demographic description of the big city elite. The authors analyze its main characteristics: gender, age, occupational position, and local government experience. They also try to compare the big city elite with other parts of the political elite, especially with the simultaneously studied medium city elite. The paper is based on survey research conducted by the authors in the 12 biggest Polish cities.

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 article is to present the process of changes which occurred from the 1970s until 2012 in the areas of urban agglomerations in Poland. In contemporary agglomerations in Poland, their socio-economic function is centralized while land use and building development become progressively decentralized, which results in dynamic growth of the central metropolitan area, and in simultaneous deurbanization of its zone of influence. The described problem is typical of the Warsaw Urban Agglomeration (Warszawski Zespół Miejski, WZM), where the population of the metropolitan zone increases while the importance of the surrounding towns, particularly in their central areas, decreases. The objective of this paper is to present these contemporary trends in the communes of the northern zone of WZM. The analysis involves three towns: Legionowo, Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, and Zakroczym, and two communes – Jabłonna and Wieliszew. The results are compared with relevant changes occurring in the communes of the Piaseczno district. The examined processes are also confronted with the proposals and arrangements included in planning concepts prepared in different periods for the agglomeration. The escalating suburbanization, characterized by deurbanization visible in spatial planning, affects the effectiveness of newly created building developments and their rank of service centres, and also shows the failure of long-term planning, which is not supported by detailed analysis and research.

The aim of the paper is to analyze the factors determining the likelihood of reelection of Polish mayors. In order to identify the factors impacting the likelihood of reelection, the author estimates the parameters of the binomial model. The results show that spending in the election year, especially on housing, is greatly appreciated by the inhabitants of cities. The mayors who are very likely to be reelected are leaders of cities that are successful in acquiring EU funds, where the labour market is stable, and the material situation of inhabitants and businesses does not deteriorate during their term. Cities that are capitals of voivodeships offer a greater likelihood of reelection, as do those formerly in the Austrian partition or on the so-called Reclaimed Lands of Western Poland. Variables belonging to the domain of sociology of politics have an equally significant impact on the analyzed likelihood.

The text aims to analyse the patterns of immigrants’ settlement in Warsaw agglomeration, especially their settlement in the area of the city of Warsaw. The subject of the study is: the emergence of places where immigrants concentrate and a relation between their places of residence with other types of concentration; factors that determine the places of immigrants’ residence and how migrants operate in the urban environment, as well as a relation between the places of immigrants’ settlement and their economic activity and its localization, cultural characteristics and the adapted acculturation strategies. To study these problems the authors use the example of the population of the Vietnamese and Ukrainians possessing a permission for settlement in the Mazowieckie Province. The article discuses differences in the patterns of settlements of both groups and shows the emergence of small clusters in the case of the Vietnamese.

Referring to three case studies, the author makes an attempt to understand the basis of conflicts concerning changes in school catchment areas in rural districts of Poland, and the importance of the implemented changes for local authorities, parents, and rural communities. The research shows that such conflicts arise from misunderstandings between parents and local authorities concerning the essence of new assignments to catchment areas, irrespective of the fact whether schools were closed or not. Additionally, changing school catchment zones resulted in each of the cases in the parents’ increased activity when choosing a school, and made them feel that rural areas were marginalized.

The article provides the analysis of bottlenecks related to public private partnerships (PPP), and the methods of avoiding them. The study is based on the history of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in Great Britain, and the changes introduced to this programme in the last years. It is shown, that there are similarities between PPP in today’s Poland and PFI in the UK at the beginning of 90’s. British experience can be helpful in creating better environment for PPP, to avoid (or at least minimize) the potential threats.

Financial self-sufficiency of the local government units, which means an ability to design their own financial policy in accordance with the applicable law, is one of the preconditions for sustainable local development. Metropolises – the largest towns with county (poviat) rights – because of their high demographic and economic potential are characterised by a high average level of financial self-sufficiency. Various processes and phenomena, including the economic crisis and the phenomenon of suburbanisation, affect the level of financial self-sufficiency of the largest cities. The main aim of the article is to assess the level of financial self-sufficiency of the metropolises in Poland in 2007-2015. The study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, the analysis was based on the development of the basic indicators of financial self-sufficiency of the metropolises, while in the second stage of the research, a summary assessment of the financial self-sufficiency of the metropolises was conducted using the TOPSIS method. The empirical basis of the study was provided by the data from the Central Statistical Office database (Local Data Bank).

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.

The article describes the phenomenon of urban space in Lodz being transformed by graffiti and wall-writings. The graffiti samples selected for analysis may be described as conveying a message that is easily understood by every local. This seemingly meaningless composition of wall-writings is highly influential in fact and transforms the surrounding city space. The author, by analysing the content of the graffiti, its graphical form and space context in which it appears, explores the way in which graffiti transforms urban space in the city of Lodz. The subject of the research is photographic documentation made in 2006 and 2008 in the city centre and some of the residential areas situated on the outskirts of the city.