Integrated forms of planning and managing local development are seen today as essential for implementing a successful development policy. This is emphasized by the high priority of these forms in EU local development approaches. In his analysis, the author contrasts the Polish and the German planning system in order to evaluate the compatibility of the Polish spatial planning system with the requirements of integrated local development planning and management. The analysis concerns the areas defined as having key importance for integrated form of local development, i.e. the organization of planning and participation processes, the role given to planning documents in spatial management, and the availability of operational planning tools. The identified major differences between the two systems lead to the assumption that the Polish planning system hardly sustains integrated forms of planning and managing local development, as it is solely oriented towards regulating spatial development schemes.
Sustaining the development at the local level is associated with many different issues. One of the major ones is the urban growth policy. This can be justified by the importance of space as one of the most important environmental assets, which has to be treated as non-renewable one. At the same time it is necessary to remember that the shape of this policy is influenced by many factors, i.e. legal regulations and current paradigm of urban development. Along with introduction of the sustainable development concept this paradigm evolves. Currently as some of its most important components one should mention urban regeneration of the degraded areas and limiting urban growth to the areas already urbanized. As far as urban regeneration is discussed, it is possible to mention a number of issues that have to be taken into account. At the same time one can regard the inside growth of cities which means reusing degraded areas – as real alternative to the on-going suburbanization and encroachment of urban structures to the areas still remaining its agricultural or natural character.
This article is an attempt to compile the existing knowledge from many fields about the aesthetics of Polish urban space: the conditions of its creation, its perception, and the problems it currently faces, of which a pressure for absolute aestheticisation appears to be the most dangerous. Through a multidisciplinary literature review as well as an analysis of public discourse and interviews with experts, the author attempts to answer the question about why there is such a large discrepancy in the assessment of the aesthetics of urban spaces in Poland, as well as how this is influenced by cultural, legal, administrative, and historical conditions.
The paper discusses urban renewal projects implemented in Polish cities in the framework of Cohesion Policy 2004?2006. Renewal projects constituted only a small portion of the intervention under the Cohesion Policy programmes in cities. Relatively small outlays and a small number of projects resulted in a clear diffusion of the intervention, which undoubtedly affected the scale of results. Most undertakings classified as renewal projects were not comprehensive, i.e. they did not consist in restructuring of spatial, social and economic structures, but were rather repair and modernization investments. The general influence of the projects classified as renewal projects at the domestic level was small, even though most individual projects had a definitely positive impact on their direct surroundings or even the whole city (especially the projects concerning larger public spaces).
The article describes the important problem of increasing regional competitiveness through the international (interregional and cross-border) cooperation. Activities supporting the competitiveness of companies and whole regions are described in the article using the examples of transregional projects carried out by different partners dealing with logistics. The first project ECO4LOG carried out in the framework of interregional cooperation programme INTERREG III C promotes the usage of the intermodal infrastructure located in the transport corridor along Polish and German border and further through Austria, Hungary and Slovenia to the Adriatic sea. One of the main tasks of this project is the improvement of cross-border cooperation in goods transport among bodies which are interested in such cooperation (also public authorities). Another important target of ECO4LOG is the increase of effectiveness of the existing transport network through the improvement of information flows. The second project has the acronym CORELOG and is carried out in the framework of INTERREG III B CADSES. Its target is the development of logistics solutions favourable for enterprises, logistics operators and the whole region – propagating co-ordination of activities of different organisations, feasibility studies of developed co-operation models. Analysis and evaluation of the most important factors influencing the strategies of supply chain management and evaluation of activities carried out by administrations (of the national, regional and local level) affecting transport development and economic growth in the region will provide background for the implementation phase. Several pilot actions will test the ideas for coordinated regional logistics development.
The main purpose of this paper is to present selected methods of spatial-economic research with a special focus on Michalski`s method. The enlargement of the European Union by new countries is an important opportunity to carry out comparative studies, making it possible to analyse and assess the competitiveness of regions as well as spatial and regional diversity of growth centres. The presented visualisation methods are the authors` modest contribution to literature on this subject. This contribution includes collecting domestic methods, their implementation in research and some modifications. The purpose of these methods was to examine spatial processes (in such areas as: economy, demography, agriculture, quality of life or building) in different spatial sections, in the years 1990–1992. There are many methods of examining similarity (dissimilarity) of regional structures. All of them fundamentally depend on the concept of structure. In this paper, two different approaches of this concept and the relevant measures shall be presented. Furthermore, various methods of visualisation of the obtained measures shall be presented.
This paper includes the general overview of the architectural and urban order issue in respect to Polish space. It focuses both on the problems of large cities as the peripheral and rural areas. Also the problems of rural areas losing their traditional character are discussed. Special attention was paid to the historical reasons staying behind the urbanization processes and their influence on the current situation. In this respect both the diagnosis of the current situation as well as the proposal for building the complex upgrade strategy were presented. Also the set of available implementation instruments were presented as a part of this proposal. Finally, the concept of urban regeneration was discussed. This concept can become the key element in the process of upgrading the condition of the Polish space. As a summary, a set of conclusions concerning the possible actions leading to desired change in the spatial order was presented.
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.
The question as to whether Warsaw is becoming a Third World city may be regarded as a metaphorical question, which expresses concern about whether the changes being wrought now are moving in the right direction and how the city’s spatial values are adhered to. Shaped as a traditional city, Warsaw lay in ruins in consequence of World War II. Imposed on it was an order of a total character, which, in chosen places, gave rise to forms dominating over the city huge areas which might be described as having a blurring and diluting effect. In the years of transformation, the spatial values leading to the expected balanced development, whose result would be the order of freedom with due regard for the sprit of the place, were not reasserted, and were not incorporated in the public dimension.
The aim of the French territorial reform from December 2010 was to change the structure of the French local political and administrative system thanks to institutional solutions that would strengthen the biggest agglomerations and lead to their progressive metropolization. The announced changes were meant to adjust the model of territorial organization to the requirements of contemporary economy and to enhance national economic growth of the country in stagnation. The introduction in the law of metropolises as new local-government territorial units that took over the most important competences of municipalities and departments was meant as a “territorial revolution”. Unfortunately, it failed. Meanwhile, the regulations that would make it possible to create a rather loose form of interterritorial cooperation, a so-called Metropolitan Pole, that were inserted into the project at the last moment, gave results unexpected by the legislator. This situation shows the growing importance of flexible solutions regarding competences and territory, solutions that use multilevel governance as an effective tool for inter-territorial management in the situation of inertia of the classical territorial structure and obstacles to its reform.
The aim of this study is to assess the impact of foreign investments on the development of one of the poorest Polish provinces – the Podkarpackie region. The article shows the location, structure and spatial variation of direct foreign investments in the region. The institution method was used to compile data: the number of employees and the size of investment were assigned to places where they were made, but not where the company`s headquarters are located. Results suggest a rather positive impact of foreign investments on local and regional development in the Podkarpackie province, especially in manufacturing industries. The influence of FDI on growth of socio-economic disparities in the region should be rated unfavourably.
The paper focuses on the most significant space management instruments, i.e. local zoning plans. The authors’ purpose is to determine whether and to what extent spatial development is constrained by environmental and nature protection provisions included in local plans. The research has been conducted on the planning documents from the area of the West Pomeranian region. The contents of all local development spatial plans from 2013 have been analyzed, i.e. 92 plans, including 78 adopted in rural and rural-urban communities, and 14 in towns with county rights.
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 quality of the delivery system along with theoretical underpinnings, development strategy and country`s institutional system has decisive influence on EU regional policy implementation. Analysis of the management system of the Integrated Regional Development Programme shows that there is more weak than strong points. Main weaknesses can be described as: not transparent, politically sensitive project selection and time consuming procedures, unclear allocation of responsibility, high costs imposed on beneficiaries, low managerial skills, and, finally, conflicting solutions with existing legal distribution of powers between regional government and regional representative of the central government. Implementation effects of 2004-2005 confirm that delivery mechanism fails to meet expectations.
The main objective of the study was to identify regularities related to selected aspects of stability of cross-border cooperation on the example of Polish borderlands. The basis for the analysis was a comprehensive study of cross--border cooperation projects Interreg, ETC, ENPI, ENPI implemented in 2007–2013 and 2014–2020. The study covered a total of about 1500 projects in terms of stability of the subject of cooperation and stability of spatial structures of cooperation. The analysis allowed to find partial stability in relation to selected thematic categories of implemented projects and spatial stability in terms of distribution of cooperation beneficiaries by locality.
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.
This article investigates the theoretical background (definition, function, types) as well as practice of evaluation activities in the European Union. The analysis has been led on three levels. The first one is the evaluation use by national administration for the purposes of national public programmes. Second level is the use of evaluation within the EU Institutions (namely European Commission). The last one, is the evaluation of European interventions at the country level. Accent has been put on this last level (the most developed one) that is the practice of structural funds. Author also concludes that despite the evaluation boom in Europe (that has taken place due to the requirements of EU regional policy), the real evaluation utilization and impact on the EU management are poorly recognized. There is a significant gap between number and scale of performed evaluations and the scientific attempts to recognize the real effects and the real utility of evaluation in improving the management of EU programmes and policies.
For some time local governments and urban politics have been undergoing significant changes related to the change of the traditional welfare state model. These changes have concerned economic, political and management dimensions. While describing these processes numerous authors refer to the notion of New Public Management. This article discusses three theories which have been created to help in interpretation of on-going processes. New Political Culture theory by T.N. Clark stresses value and economic changes and underlines their implications for changes in styles of local politics. Local governance theory developed mostly by Peter John concentrates on shape of local government institutions. Another T.N. Clark’s theory of the “city as an entertainment machine” focuses on evolving mechanisms of local economic development and their impact on policies adopted by urban governments. The paper formulates questions and initial hypothesis about applicability of these concepts to Polish environment.
The article presents a comparison of the dynamic for the increase in the number of enterprises as set against the population of working age in the private sector in the years 2001–2004 (the immediate pre-accession period) and 2004–2007 (the immediate post-accession period). The study was conducted with regard had to the main sectors of economic activity (agriculture, industry, lower-order services and higher-order services), as well as the functional diversity of gminas (urban and suburban categories, transportation corridors, tourism, etc. – in total 16 categories). The research points to decline, inertia, spatial polarization and a mosaic like spatial structure to the dynamic for the development of private enterprises.
New Public Management – inspired reforms have influenced implementation of management principles in local government, the marketisation and outsourcing. These reforms were mostly visible in the United Kingdom but appear also in other European countries, for example: Ireland, Sweden, Germany, the least in France (among described in this article). There is a risk that NPM-led reforms may come to lose sight of the underlying social purpose of public services. NPM has not became a new, universal model of public sector management. The debate about public service reform has moved (particularly in UK) beyond the concerns of NPM to an emerging concept of networked community governance.
The paradigm of analysis of the reality and its management, based on vertical hierarchic structures, cannot be used to characterize situations of resources concentration in the hands of many social actors. Nowadays, the paradigm seems to be less popular. First scientific diagnoses of the described situations seemed to prove their chaotic and ungovernable character, but they were gradually replaced with approaches which allowed to penetrate and govern composed systems. The notion of ‘governance’ (i.e. a multi-layered network process whose participants have different statuses and resources, and which results in a consensus achieved in an interactive play of all partners) has a high heuristic value. France is a perfect illustration of this phenomenon. The process can be observed especially in metropolitan areas that create their own compounded authority systems.
The aim of this paper is to examine the process of issuing decisions on building conditions and land management in rural-urban areas located in the outer zone of the Szczecin Metropolitan Area, and to determine whether the individual municipalities adopt a similar policy in this case. We also study the possible reasons for the differences. In the research, covering the years 2007–2010, we examined four rural-urban municipalities located in the outer zone of the Szczecin Metropolitan Area. We specified the number of decisions regarding the building conditions in each year and in each municipality, we counted the motions which were denied and the decisions to establish the locations of a public purpose investment. In the latter case, we also studied the purpose of such investments. Moreover, in the total number of the decisions issued for economic purposes, we defined the percentage of those made in favour of legal persons and those made in the city’s area.
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.
In the early 90’s public authorities in Poland considered all kinds of planning as a remaining of the socialist economy, unnecessary under the free-market rules. As a consequence, the chaos became a dominant characteristics of the Polish space at the beginning of the XXI century. This applies also to the situation in Warsaw Metropolitan Area, that exists as a real system of functional relations, but not as an administrative or planning unit. In effect, we observe the “wild urbanization” of the suburbs, and lack of development in the central part of the city. Recent centralization of local government in Warsaw has made the situation even worse, by blocking the investment and planning decisions. All these processes may lead to further marginalization of Warsaw as an European metropolis.
The objective of this paper is to assess the advance of planning works in the area of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. The authors determined the degree to which districts were covered by local land development plans at the end of 2007. The assessment was done on the basis of plans which were carried out and those that still await implementation. In the assessment, we used one essential indicator of the demanded covering, which accounted for use intensity and the amount of existing functions.
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”.
The subject of this article is historical urban development, localization-specific and cultural urban heritage of the Georgian capital city of Tbilisi. All the urban development periods, from the very beginning until today, are described in a chronological order. Also, the author discusses general legal principles of urban space development applicable in this country. In all the cases, the author seeks to clarify the legislation problems and to discuss some examples of urban management of the twenty-hundred-years-old urban space. The text is based on the: (1) urban rehabilitation and revitalization documentation of Tbilisi, prepared in 2000 within an international project financed by the European Council and The Georgian Cultural Heritage Foundation, published in Strasburg in Georgian, French and English languages (Tumaniszwili 2001), (2) empirical documentation prepared in 2003–2006 within the international Project AIA and (3) historical documentation gathered in Georgian and foreign libraries in 1998–2008.
Due to the progress in information and communication technologies urban space is more and more under the influence of its virtual representations existing in cyberspace. The concept of a digital shadow of the city is multidimensional and difficult to analyze. One of the methods is „cyberscape” – digital layers forming a palimpsest of the place. An analysis of two streams of social media data from Twitter and Flickr during four months of 2012 showed that Poznan’s cyberscape was highly dynamic during that time and strongly influenced by the Euro 2012 mega event. Additionally, it was possible to pinpoint relatively stable locations in the cyberscape that are probably a result of an underlying socio-spatial structure of the city.
This paper provides a review of structure and contents of Local Economic Development (LED) programmes. It also offers a list of data and information necessary to develop and implement such programmes. The author emphasises the difference in approach to LED by the researchers (theorists) and the practitioners, dealing with LED on every day basis. This gap, according to the author is in part a legacy centrally managed economy and is typical for the countries in transition period.
The article was published in Polish in "Studia Regionalne i Lokalne", 1/2005
Metropolisation is one of the most dynamic processes of contemporary world, changing the existing settlement patterns and creating new relations between large cities. In the recent years, metropolisation has also come to include Central and Eastern European countries. The paper looks at the role of these countries in the European metropolitan network, and describes the process of the emergence of Polish metropolises, in addition to their social and spatial transformation.
Metropolization is one of the most dynamic processes of contemporary world, changing the existing settlement patterns and creating new relations among large cities. Recently, metropolization concerns also Central and Eastern Europe. The article evaluates the position of CEE cities in the European metropolitan network and describes the process of creation of Polish metropolises and their social and spatial transformation.
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.
During the last few years Polish financial sector has been expanding in a very dynamic way, also in a spatial context. In cities banks displace other forms of urban activities from their previous locations. The aim of the paper is to examine spatial distribution of banking services in Warsaw at the beginning of 2009. The author, based on her own research, presents main current features of spatial structure of the phenomenon, resting on Proudfoot’s conception of principal types of city retail structure. Special features of the structure related to the specifity of banking services were also considered.
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.
The aim of this paper is to define the relationship between the level of human potential and economic efficiency of companies in different voivodeships. For the purpose of this paper, a synthetic indicator was constructed to evaluate the economic efficiency of companies as well as a synthetic indicator of human potential in a region, based on previously selected set of diagnostic variables. All 16 Polish voivodeships were included in the research. The TOPSIS method, Ward’s method and the PAM method were used in the research to classify different voivodeships. Moreover, correlation analysis and spatial autocorrelation analysis were carried out. The main criterion when selecting variables was their completeness and their accessibility for all objects in the research between the year 2009 and 2013.
The purpose of this paper is to determine whether connections within cyberspace are in any way related to borders in the geographical sense. The author assesses the connections between the websites of local authorities and destinations that can be reached by hyperlinks. He analyzes 29 counties in Lower Silesia and shows that the activity of local self-government units in cyberspace covers their real-life territory. On the whole, it can be said that connections existing in cyberspace largely reflect actual borders. However, the main functional node dominating cyberspace is the country’s capital city.
The aim of the following article is to review the literature on financial evaluation of local governments and to emphasise the need of creating new methods of evaluation in this sector. The author makes references to the indicators applied by the financial institutions to business sector and points out the possibilities of adapting those experiences in assessing local governments.
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.
Local spatial development is affected by various authorities, including environmental authorities. The purpose of this article is to identify the extent to which national parks (on behalf of which the directors of national parks act) affected spatial development in municipalities in Poland in years 2008–2011 based on the arrangements made by them. In addition, an attempt has been made to verify whether in this period of time there were spatial conflicts between the intended space-related maintenance and development of national parks and other, occurring at the local level allocations. The article analyzed the data obtained from thirteen Polish national parks.
This article is devoted to socio-spatial transformation of Berlin and the attempts to reintegrate the city that remained divided for 50 years. Rearrangement of the Potsdamer Platz area was of crucial importance for this reintegration process, both for practical and symbolic reasons. To what extent was this project successful? The answer, or at least part of it, can be found in the article.
The aim of the present research is to describe the role of the Warmia and Mazury University in the formation of the functional macroregion in the Olsztyn agglomeration. The main criterion used to delimitate the macroregion of Olsztyn is the range of educational services of the biggest university in Warmia and Mazury. The authors use data relating to the place of living of the candidates who registered during the recruitment process in 2011 and 2012. They also analyze the impact of selected factors on the size of the area of Olsztyn university’s spatial influence. The research results show that the functional macroregion of the Olsztyn agglomeration covers, apart from the Warmia and Mazury voivodship, also the neighbouring districts of the Podlaskie and the Mazowieckie voivodships.
The risk and the threats of modern world became the problem of day-to-day life of millions of people. They are tightly linked to different dimensions of globalization. In the sphere of nature we have greenhouse effect together with its all real and assumed consequences. In the economic dimension we have financial flows causing the threats to the stability of international economy, in technological dimension there is oversensitivity for terrorist attacks or simple breakdown of the computer systems. The political dimension brings the threats of war and terrorism. Number of these threats is related to spatial economy. These specific types of risk are discussed in this article.
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 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 work has two goals: 1) to identify the dominant charges in complaints to administrative courts regarding land use plans for municipalities (gminy), to assess their legitimacy and effectiveness, and to classify the complainants; 2) to show that the court rulings are related to the diversity of municipalities, i.e., their character (morphology, social and economic functions, etc.) and characteristics of socio-economic development. All the judgments of voivodship (regional) administrative courts issued in 2010–2019 concerning complaints about municipal plans were analysed (531). The problem turns out to be the undefined scope of such plans, which, however, does not affect the extent to which these instruments are challenged by property owners. A high concentration of complaints in the regional capitals and their suburban areas is also demonstrated.
The 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 article provides a comparison of the dynamic increase in the number of enterprises relative to the working-age population in the private sector in the years 2001–2004 (the immediate pre-accession period) and 2004–2007 (the immediate post-accession period). The study was conducted with regard to the main sectors of economic activity (agriculture, industry, lower-order services and higher-order services), as well as the functional diversity of municipalities, or gminas (urban and suburban categories, transportation corridors, tourism, etc., for a total of 16 categories). The study indicates a decline, inertia, spatial polarisation and tessellated spatial structure of the development dynamic of private enterprises.
The notion of a network is one of the key terms used to describe the contemporary world. The role of cooperation networks is also stressed in the context of innovation and its spatial aspects. In this particular case, most attention is given to metropolises as major networks of flows not only of people, capital or goods, but also of information and knowledge. The paper discusses selected spatial aspects of collaborative networks in Polish science. The discussion of examples is preceded by a theoretical introduction intended to outline various aspects of innovation networks at national and regional levels, with particular emphasis on the role of metropolises in collaborative networks.
The article presents the analysis of spatial planning process in communities at the end of 2004, based on information by Ministry of Transport and Construction and Central Statistical Office survey. Briefly discussed are the most important indicators reflecting the advancement of planning works. As a result of the research carried out, the practical conclusions for the regional politics were formulated. The research helped to identify and judge the state of the preparation of planning works in relation to the forming of spatial structure in the country. The analysis shows that the state of the planning works in the municipalities especially in relation to local plans, is unsatisfactory especially in urban areas. The planning predictions, contained in Priorities and Conditions… should be also critically judged. They are unrealistic, inconsistent with the real socio-economic situation. In the future it is necessary to develop a detailed monitoring system for the spatial planning on a regional, sub-regional and local scale.
The paper presents the principles regarding the protection and shaping of rural settlement landscape, drawn up on the basis of literature analyses. The authors confront the principles with the provisions of local planning documentation and the actual changes in the commune that have taken place since the plan was adopted. Finally, the authors determine the degree of implementation of the provisions. They identify some irregularities and shortcomings in the provisions and some differences between the provisions and actual spatial development. They also indicate the main directions of changes of local spatial policy.
The quality of the delivery system – along with theoretical underpinnings, development strategy and the country’s institutional system – has a decisive influence on EU regional policy implementation. An analysis of the management system of the Integrated Regional Development Programme (IROP) shows that there are definitely more weak than strong points. The main weaknesses include: strong centralisation and ‘red tape’, far exceeding the usual practices in the EU; not transparent, politically sensitive project selection and time-consuming procedures; unclear allocation of responsibility, high costs imposed on beneficiaries, low managerial skills, and, finally, conflicting solutions with existing legal distribution of powers between regional government and regional representative of the central government. Implementation effects of 2004–2005 confirm that the delivery mechanism fails to meet expectations.
Sustainability of municipal finance implies steady revenue generation. Pinpointing their determinants creates the necessary background in their management and policy creation. Great municipal dependence on central government finance remains a serious challenge in the process of fiscal decentralisation. So far, studies have been focusing on the expenditure side, while revenues were treated mostly marginally. A random-effects Generalized Least Squares (GLS) panel regression for the period of 2015–2019 is estimated for targeting revenue determinants of municipalities in North Macedonia. Own and total tax revenues are modelled separately through the impact of capital expenditures, salary expenditures, active transparency index, municipality type, and local government’s ideology. The general results indicate that capital expenditure, municipal transparency, and the level of development are significant determinants of municipal revenues in both estimated models. Using such knowledge on municipal revenue reactions can help governments formulate policies that provide sustainable and effective fiscal decentralisation, lowering the pressure on central governments in developing economies.
The paper provides a comparative analysis of so-called land management and spatial development studies of the biggest Polish cities regarding the scope of functional and morphological delimitation and zoning. Due to the lack of detailed regulations, individual cities developed their own zoning methodologies. The authors of such studies take into account three factors: functional, morphological and administrative aspects. The zoning in the analysed cities is determined by individual factors which vary from city to city.
The paper explores the application of the gravity model, namely the delineation of the urban predominant influence areas via the generation of the multiplicatively weighted Voronoi diagram, to the socio-economic regionalisation and administrative territorial division of Ukraine, including the existing state of affairs and several proposals on their improvement. The research uses quantitative statistical data on interregional migration and rail passenger traffic within the country, processed via the Statistica analytics software, and a subsequent spatial analysis conducted by GIS. The findings suggest that the gravity model can serve as a tool for optimisation the administrative territorial division, as well as for the delineation of the planning regions and urban hinterlands. At the same time, it has certain limitations and should not be treated as a panacea for regional planning and development.
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.
Globalisation – characterised by dynamic economic growth, increasing exploitation of the natural environment, and deepening social inequalities – brings negative consequences and is strongly perceptible also in local communities. A new approach to development policy based on the idea of sustainable development must be incorporated into local governments’ strategies, programmes, and actions. We adopted exploratory approach to determine the level and identify the spatial patterns of sustainable development of Polish poviats. The aggregated (synthetic) indicators of economic, social, and environmental development were developed to analyse the spatial patterns of the poviats’ development trends. Our research shows that in Poland there are overwhelmingly more poviats characterised by lower development than those better developed in all three analysed categories. Hierarchical analysis using the Ward’s method revealed that Polish poviats can be divided into three relatively homogeneous clusters in terms of development levels. The largest group consists of poviats characterised by the relatively lowest level of sustainability in economic and social areas, and the highest – by environmental development. Analyses using the Moran method made it possible to determine the so-called spatial regimes of clusters. The captured spatial relationships indicate that selected poviats have a significant impact on the level of development in the neighbouring poviats.
The purpose of writing the article is to study the effectiveness of water resources management in the Black Sea region of Ukraine in the context of sustainable development under the conditions of military operations. The theoretical approaches to defining the essence and functions of water resources management through the prism of sustainable development goals have been considered. The main problems of water resources management in the regions of Ukraine are systematised and the ways of their solution at the present stage of the reform are outlined. The author’s approach to evaluating the effectiveness of water resources management in the context of the model of sustainable development is proposed using the example of the Black Sea region of Ukraine. Methodical approaches to assessing the effectiveness of regional water resources management that includes the main stages, the criteria for assessing, indicators for each criterion, and a mathematical apparatus for their calculation have been developed. In accordance with the author’s approach, a diagnosis of the effectiveness of regional water resources management was conducted based on the example of the Black Sea region.
Human resource management (HRM) studies have been continuously developed to serve as a reference for enhancing the quality of public services. This includes the case in local government where it is important to have highly competent resources, because civil service personnel are the door that deals directly with local communities. Using bibliometrics and analysing previous research coherently, this study focuses on identifying the development of HRM discussions on local governance at the global level, both in developed and developing countries. As a result, although in general, the topics raised included managerial and personnel issues. There are certain issues raised by developed countries, such as innovation to contemporary social issues. Meanwhile, in developing countries discussed challenges faced by local governments in managing their resources. This study contributes to the development of HRM concern-mapping in local government globally and can be used as a reference for increasing the capacity of human resource management in local government.
This article aims to present the rarely examined process of rural gentrification in Poland via the example of the vineyard sector, which is a new and dynamically growing segment in the local agriculture. This paper uses quantitative data collected from public statistics, a spatial analysis conducted by GIS, and an authorial survey conducted among vineyard owners. The research findings have revealed that ‘vineyard gentrification’ does not match the classic rent gap theory; furthermore, being a non-socially severe preliminary rural gentrification performed mostly by high-class representatives, it differs significantly from the traditional pattern in Polish farming.
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.
The accident at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant was one of the largest in human history. It is often referred to as a global event because its effects were felt not only by Ukrainians but also by the populations of Belarus, Russia, Central Europe, the Balkans and the Scandinavian Peninsula. 2022 marked the 36th anniversary of this terrible occurrence, when the history of Ukraine in the late twentieth century was divided into two parts: before the tragedy of 26 April 1986, and after it.
Today, it is important for Ukrainian society not only to recognise the significance of the catastrophe and remember its victims but also to find ways to overcome its grave consequences. This requires comprehensive research useful for developing new approaches to minimising the environmental and socio-demographic problems caused by the Chornobyl tragedy. Thus, this research has practical scientific, humanitarian and socio-political significance. The novelty of the obtained results lies in the study’s critical rethinking of the achievements of predecessors and its analysis of historical sources concerning the environmental and socio-demographic consequences of the accident at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant as they manifested from 1986 to 2022.
The methodological basis of the work is empirical cognition. The use of logical-analytical methods of grouping and typology allows us to classify homogeneous events and coherently present the material of the article. The study additionally uses comparative judgment, historical-statistical and problem-chronological methods. The principles of objectivity and impartiality also play an important role in the work.
The purpose of the study is to investigate the consequences of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident on the environmental and socio-demographic aspects of the population of Ukraine from 1986 to 2022 based on the identified set of sources. From a historical perspective, the level of pollution in the territories of Ukraine is traced, the demographic situation is monitored, and parallels are drawn between the Chornobyl disaster and the increase in incurable diseases and mortality.
In conclusion, the authors note that although 36 years have passed, the echo of this catastrophe remains tangible for the population of Ukraine. Several issues still must be solved. The first is the return to life, namely, the safe living and management of areas that have been exposed to radiation contamination, as well as the continuation of work aimed at restoring agricultural soils. Second, purposeful work must be conducted by the state to minimise social and demographic problems resulting from the Chornobyl catastrophe. In our opinion, the government should increase expenditures aimed at providing quality medical services to the population of Ukraine, as well as conduct constant monitoring of the health of those people who are at high risk in order to better detect diseases in their early stages.
These groups of people include liquidators of the consequences of the accident and migrants. Such measures can stabilise the demographic situation by increasing birth rates and reducing mortality, as well as improve the health and living standards of the population of Ukraine.
The article presents a model of functional-spatial structure in the strategy of supra-local development, which is an attempt to translate the assumptions of the new planning paradigm, referred to in the world literature as strategic spatial planning, into Polish ground. In this regard, the new legal regulations set forth in the Act of July 15, 2020 on amending the Act on the principles of development policy and certain other acts were used, which, due to their high generality, allowed the authors’ approach to their interpretation and implementation. The paper presents the various dimensions of integration of strategic and spatial planning undertaken in the Polish legal system over the years up to the present day. In addition, the role of supra-local development strategies in integrated development planning in Poland is defined, and different types of functional areas are described, which are the starting point for differentiating the scope of the functional-spatial structure model. Then the description of the most important elements of the model was deepened, and other elements of the spatial dimension in the new supra-local development strategies were presented. The added value of integrating the spheres of strategic and spatial planning was pointed out, which is important for improving their effectiveness and efficiency, as well as for increasing public acceptance of the measures taken.
Structural funds – instruments of cohesion policy – are aimed to support local and regional development and to speed up regional convergence. For the last few years they have been the main source that enable realization of different activities and investments on local level in Poland. In the light of systematic extension of financial resources provided within structural funds effective absorption of those funds becomes a matter of great importance. Experience of previous implementation period gives some clues on the perspective of use of structural funds provided for Polish regions in 2007–2013 period. The results of previous research showed that effective absorption of pre-accession and structural funds depends on many both material and untouchable factors but the most important for effective absorption is adequate institutional system with procedures of programming, financial management, monitoring, evaluation etc. This paper presents the results of research conducted in 2008. The authors focused on three main areas: experience of 2004–06 period of implementation – identification of successes and barriers of structural funds implementation system, practical use of these experiences to improve institutional system for 2007–13 period and finally priorities of 16 Regional Operational Programmes realized in Polish voivodeships.
The aim of the paper has been to determine the reasons for technological in effectiveness of the economies of Polish regions (i.e. voivodeships). In order to do so, we have used the modified method of non-radial Data Envelopment Analysis, which allowed us to determine partial indexes of technological effectiveness separately for the labour factor and the material capital factor. As a result, we have been able to state that the main source of tech nological ineffectiveness of technologies used in regional economies lies in relatively lower and spatially differentiated technological effectiveness compared to the technological effectiveness of the material capital factor. In view of the results, we have extended the study over three sectors of the economy and considered the substitution processes occurring between them. Adapting such a research objective has made it possible to identify the reasons of the ineffectiveness of the analyzed economies and of those characterized by a relatively low technological effectiveness. A technology has been proposed which will help to overcome the technological inadequacies in the most effective way.
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 presents the evaluation of Cohesion Policy impacts on diffusion of development processes from cities to their regional hinterlands. We evaluated two things: a) the indicators illustrating metropolitan and regional concentration of population, enterprises, employers, and local governments revenues, and b) the impact of EU funds on the development of municipalities located in the surroundings of large cities (based on local governments survey results). For the first type of analysis, we delimitated the regional surroundings into two zones: metropolitan area and regional hinterlands (the former was only applicable in case of capital cities of voivodships). The outcome of the analysis in this dimension indicates a lack of any significant impact of Cohesion Policy on agglomeration processes in the analyzed spatial scales. However, the studies in the second dimension allow us to identify the thematic categories of public intervention that have the largest relative impact on spread effects from developing large cities to their regional surroundings.
Municipal authorities should implement measures in order to balance their ecological, economic and social development. In order to do that, they need a method of assessing the environmental impact and a decision regarding the environmental conditions. The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of such a decision, issued by the municipal executive authorities, on the local development management. The author attempts to explain all of the above-mentioned problems: he analyzes the number and object of decisions regarding environmental conditions in twenty-three municipalities. In addition, he carries out a survey among the representatives of municipalities in order to assess the impact of the decision on the system community management.
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.
Internet shops are becoming an increasingly popular form of trading. In 2006, their turnover in Poland reached 1.3 billion zlotys, or about 1% of total retail trade in the country. According to different experts, the sales and turnover indices are on an upward trend as the numbers of shoppers buying on-line and also e-shops are still increasing. Interestingly, a lot of research show that the central points of e-business concentration are metropolitan areas although the administration of e-shops is possible from virtually any place in the world. This indicates that economic, technological and social factors have an impact on the growth and concentration of e-shops.
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.
The paper uses the advanced spatial shift-share method to examine the tendency of some occupational diseases to occur in particular regions and sectors of the economy. The analysis, conducted in the years 2003–2010, concerned groups of diseases, and was based on regional data on occupational disease incidence in Poland according to disease groups. The analyzed variables were relative increments (of rates of changes) of the number of diagnosed occupational diseases, whereas the reference variable was the share of the diagnosed occupational diseases (in particular regions and groups of diseases) in the general number of diagnosed occupational diseases in the country (regional weights). The results of that research were then used to compare classical and non-classical methods of shift-share analysis.
Competitive advantage of a region, beside its natural resources, is determined to a large extent by the quality and competence of local and regional authorities. In order to benefit from region`s full potential, it is essential to involve the authorities into efficient information policy. It is reflected by the results of a Poland-wide research, where 67% of respondents perceived that it was the creation of an information system enabling fast and accurate decision-making that was the key factor determining efficient management of a company. It is therefore important to analyse how the Western Pomeranian companies see the role and activities of local authorities in this aspect. Local governments play a unique part in information delivery as they represent a group of entities which should actively affect development conditions for companies in the region, within existing legal and administrative system. The paper presents results of the research on information policy in local governments in Western Pomerania.
The article presents the classification of municipalities in Poland, divided into urbanised and non-urbanised based on their spatial dimensions. The spatial distribution of urbanised municipalities and their basic characteristics are discussed. The classification was performed using the k-means clustering algorithm on the spatial data from Corine Land Cover databases. The comparison of the administrative and land-use driven classification of municipalities in Poland indicates that the widest differences occur between the functional areas of cities and along dynamically developing transport routes, when identification of urbanised areas in terms of land use is taken into consideration.
The authors put a hypothesis of positive net agglomeration effect in Polish subregions in 2000–2005. The net agglomeration effect is a relatively new theory explaining spatial differences in economic activity. A production concentration function suggested by Ciccone and Hall is used in analysis. The hypothesis was verified with econometric methods. Multiple scenarios gave ambiguous results. Panel methods appeared to be ineffective, as opposed to pool methods. Cumulated number of patents was used as an approximation of the level of technical development. Among pool scenarios, domestic patents allowed to reduce problems connected with co-relation of explanatory variables. This approach gives conclusions about positive net agglomeration effect.
The Integrated Regional Operational Programme (IROP) management system in a weak manner prevents possibility of administrative and political corruption. Particularly susceptible to corruption are procedures of choosing projects and new public procurement system. We could list following reasons, why IROP management system is vulnerable to corruption: (1) system is very complicated, (2) division of competences between various public authorities is incorrect, as well as between politicians and civil servants, (3) some institutions are wrongly designed (particularly regional steering committees), (4) blur regulations, for instance not clearly supporting transparency of administrative procedures, (5) lack of special anti-corruption regulations, (6) Polish administrative and political culture. Decision makers preparing a new system for regional programs (2007–2013) should take into consideration conclusions of this paper and revise this system from the point of view of preventing corruption.
The paper refers to sublocal units within metropolitan governance, focusing on Wrocław in the context of multi-level governance and good governance. In Poland, such units function as ancillary units of municipalities (gminy). The paper describes their legal status and functioning within the Polish territorial government and discusses selected urban districts (powiaty). The analysis is based on legal acts and interviews with people involved in the local and sublocal government in Wrocław. The organisation of metropolitan governance based on smaller units is an efficient solution applied in cities worldwide, however, in the case of Wrocław, the borough model leaves a broad potential to develop this element of municipal management structure. Currently, a clear concept of their role in the city is needed.
Public space of the post-modern epoch is a conglomerate or blend of discontinuous functions, a collection of loosely connected fragments, increasingly more frequently unrelated to a city. People compose for themselves their own town from individual trajectories that are outlined by means of motor roads. Neo-liberal logic of city development recognizes the rule of spontaneity wherever the interest of big capital groups dominates, pushing onto the sidelines the more important task of contemporary urban planning – the protection and development of public spaces. Due to the crisis it is undergoing at present (commercial pressure), the efforts are taken to regain its social and spatial significance. The purpose of these transformations is bonding public spaces with broader surroundings (with open terrains, waterside zones, promenades, playgrounds, etc). Such recomposition is part of a regeneration process that unites the city and reconstructs the identity of the place where relationships of inhabitants with their urban environment were not completely abandoned.
The reforms driven by New Public Management (NPM) led to the introduction of management principles in local governments, marketisation and outsourcing. They made the greatest impact in the United Kingdom, but were also put in place in other European countries such as Ireland, Sweden, Germany, and – to the least degree – in France (compared to other countries discussed in this paper). There is a risk that NPM-inspired reforms may come to lose sight of the underlying social purpose of public services. NPM has not however become a new, universal model for public sector management. Issues tackled in the debate concerning the reform of public services have moved (mostly in the UK) beyond the concerns of NPM towards the emerging concept of networked community governance.
The aim of this paper is twofold: to demonstrate development challenges of large Polish cities and to assess the extent to which Cohesion Policy in the 2004?2006 programming addresses these issues. The analysis covers different aspects of EU intervention: sums assigned for particular categories, types of beneficiaries as well as types of large cities. The results allow us to formulate the following observations. The thematic structure of the intervention only partially addresses challenges related to contemporary informational economy, which is due to the cities’ relatively low support for innovativeness and their metropolitan functions. In the analyzed period, the bulk of EU Cohesion Policy funds was devoted to the development of basic technical infrastructure (transport and water management), which was the result of huge underdevelopment in these fields in former years. However, EU intervention had some successes: thematic fields were well adapted to types of cities. Furthermore, most funding was allocated to the largest cities because of the strong involvement of their authorities in EU funds projects, while in smaller cities a significant share of the funds was given to large industrial plants.
The aim of this article is to outline growth tendencies and growth factors in the subregions (NUTS 3) of Central and Eastern Europe in the period 1998–2006. A wide range of complementary research methods has been used in order to triangulate results, starting with classical beta and sigma convergence analysis, to kernel density estimation, transition matrices, spatial autocorrelation and multi-dimensional comparisons. Some rarely discussed aspects of the influence of capital regions on growth processes have been taken into account. An additional analysis of the data in relation to country averages produced results independent of the country context. As a result, we have been able to answer the following questions: do the analysed countries experience regional convergence or rather divergence/polarisation processes? What factors determine the dynamics of regional growth? What are the main dimensions of spatial disparities in Central and Eastern Europe?
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.
Public space of the post-modern epoch is a conglomerate or blend of discontinuous functions, a collection of loosely connected fragments, increasingly more frequently unrelated to a city. People compose for themselves their own town from individual trajectories that are outlined by means of motor roads. Neo-liberal logic of city development recognizes the rule of spontaneity wherever the interest of big capital groups dominates, pushing onto the sidelines the more important task of contemporary urban planning – the protection and development of public spaces. Due to the crisis it is undergoing at present (commercial pressure), the efforts are taken to regain its social and spatial significance. The purpose of these transformations is bonding public spaces with broader surroundings (with open terrains, waterside zones, promenades, playgrounds, etc). These changes use programmed connections, contacts, passages, links, connecting areas and other relations that invest new sociological and cultural meanings into public spaces. The integration process gives positive results in numerous cities of Western Europe. One of them, perhaps the most essential, is development of more attractive and deeper relationships of inhabitants with their urban environment. Although the task fails to be easy (integrating tendencies compete with inclinations for disintegration), it is an important step towards the enhancement of urban life quality. The evidence can be numerous discussions and conferences on the issue of public space.
The main question of the paper concerns the way the eurozone crisis has affected cohesion policy. In particular, the author intends to answer the questions related to the phenomena observed in the crisis in the eurozone (2010–2015), but in relation to the field of cohesion policy. Did intergovernmental management and the informal role of the largest and richest Member States become more visible in this policy? Did the European Commission’s powers grow, but without increasing its autonomy in relation to the EU intergovernmental institutions? Did the crisis lead to the emergence of a “two-speed Europe” (one segmented into the eurozone and the rest of the EU) in cohesion policy? Or maybe is there another dividing line in this policy?
This paper focuses on the changes in transport accessibility at the regional scale in terms of individual car transport due to the introduction to the regional road network of the bypasses of Łódź in the meridian course. The changes are determined on the basis of measures of the time and potential accessibility of the network, conducted before and after the ring roads were implemented. The results are presented in both relative and absolute terms for each of the 4956 settlement units and 177 communes of the Łódź region. The author determines that the construction of motorways and expressways, especially those representing bypasses of large urban centres, helps to increase the cohesion of a region and increase accessibility of peripheral areas, while the size and spatial extent of the impact of road investments are clearly differentiated.
The article discusses the differences in the mayors’ political strength in European countries and the implications of their role in horizontal power relationships for the operation of the local government scene. First, it shows how the role of the mayor is measured, taking into account various institutional settings such as the election system, the scope of competences vis-?-vis the legislative body and possibilities of recall before the end of the term of office. Second, it demonstrates how such dissimilar contexts of the mayor’s political strength impact on several selected aspects of their activity, including the propensity to be formally affiliated with a political party, perception of the mayor’s autonomy in their day-to-day management of the municipality and the possibilities to keep the mandate for several terms in a row.
Along with time-related changes in the migration of Poles to Germany, the invisibility that has been ascribed to them has also evolved: from intentional hiding to deliberate merging into local social and spatial structures. The city of Berlin, perceived as an open, modern and multicultural metropolis, is an exceptional laboratory of transformations and diversity of social behaviours shown by Polish migrants. It attracts new citizens who not only want to make a living here, but also – and more frequently – to achieve self-fulfilment. While the invisibility of the economic migrants is mainly a result of their alienation in a new country, the representatives of lifestyle migration deliberately merge into the culturally diverse society of Berlin and they try to identify with other social groups. The aim of this article is to identify the existence and forms of every-day functioning of Polish migrants in Berlin in the context of invisibility.
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.
Spatial planning is one of key tasks of regional (voivodship) local government in Poland. A spatial development plan for a voivodship includes many aspects which need to be decided upon. However, the implementation of this plan is largely independent of the will of the local government. The theory of planning (including spatial planning) emphasises that implementation of the plan is an inherent aspect of planning. Therefore, the article analyses to what extent regional spatial planning can actually be considered planning.
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 rising costs of educational tasks due to the decreasing number of students force municipal authorities to take cost-saving measures, including the most radical form, that is closing down schools. Such decisions are not popular with the local residents and in all the examined municipalities have caused conflicts between the stakeholders of local educational policy. The aim of the article is to present actions taken by municipal authorities to reduce the negative effects of conflicts arising in connection with the liquidation of schools. The authors focus on the activities of municipal authorities to curb the negative consequences of the conflict, but turn out to be financially ineffective. The article was based on the analysis of the subject literature, as well as the results of empirical research conducted by the authors. The theoretical framework draws on selected concepts of conflict management and the polarity management model.
The article is based on the statistics of intercommunal data matrix concerning employees who commuted to work in 2006, compiled on the basis of the taxpayers’ tax deductions provided by the Central Statistical Office of Poland (Urban Statistics Centre in Poznan). The author identifies directions, intensity and catchment areas of commuting flows to Warsaw and calculates other basic characteristics, providing a basis for further studies into occupational mobility in relation to the development of the labour market. It has been demonstrated that Warsaw plays a significant role in the spatial structure of the voivodeship in terms of the number of workers who commute to the city. It is the result of its function as the capital and of the development of the labour market in the transition period.
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 article attempts to identify and analyze the actions undertaken in the cities of the Wielkopolska Voivodeship in the area of urban renewal in the 1999–2005 period as well as the direct and indirect effects of these actions. In order to reach this objective, we analyze the local renewal programmes as well as other strategic documents launched in the investigated cities. In addition, we employ the survey technique and conduct numerous in-depth interviews with the local actors of the renewal process in order to get better insights into the economic, societal and spatial context of the renewal process. As a result, we show that the actions undertaken by the cities of the Wielkopolska Voivodeship in the realm of urban renewal are hardly integrated (they are not comprehensive and do not complement each other in a given area) and dominated by infrastructural investments. In contrast, the economic and social projects remain rare and their consequences ambiguous. We also identify some unexpected, positive as well as negative, consequences of the renewal process, such as increasing engagement of local property owners, entrepreneurs and associations in the renewal actions as well as the problem of profiteering on the renewed areas.
The paper includes the most important results of the project of the same title, carried out as part of a larger project “The Development Trends of the Mazovia Region”, implemented for the local government of the Mazowieckie voivodship in 2010?2012. It primarily concerned demographic and settlement issues related to the evolution of functional relations and linkages, spatial availability, as well as infrastructure and land use conditions. The main objective was to formulate the conditions which would ensure development, and to identify the factors and conditions that affected easy flow of development stimuli and better efficiency of the suburban zone and spatial cohesion of the Mazovia region. The horizon time of the project concerned the period after 1990 (diagnosis and retrospective study) and 2030 (forecast). The paper has a survey character, it reports on selected topics only, and its aim is to disseminate important research results.
Competitiveness is a key factor determining the development of a region and hence the standard of living of its inhabitants, and human capital is one of the most important factors enabling improvement of regional competitiveness. The aim of the presented research is to analyse the spatial differentiation of the level of human capital in the regions of the European Union (EU) in relation to their level of competitiveness. The results show significant disproportions in this respect, especially between the so-called old and new EU. The higher levels of human capital in the old EU regions were also generally accompanied by a higher level of competitiveness. In the long run, this will lead to an increase in regional disparities in development.
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.
Quality of life is discussed in the paper in the context of human needs. In this conceptual framework, sexual needs are considered as well as their relations with the concept of pathology in social sciences and theology. Prostitution is analysed as a special form of sexual pathology and a social service that fulfils human needs and influences quality of life. The location of prostitution in the city of Bydgoszcz is analysed in details, as well as models of spatial distribution of ‘social agencies’ in the city.
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).
The goal of this article is to investigate the spatial allocation of human capital investment at the local level in Poland. In particular, this analysis refers to the funds within the Human Capital Operational Programme (POKL 2007–2013). The study is divided into the following parts: extrapolation of the algorithm for allocating the POKL funds between regions to the local level; comparison of the allocation based on the data from the period before the programme with the hypothetical allocation of the same funds based on the measurement done after the end of the programme (the „before-after” method); and a comparison of the intentional allocation of POKL funds with the observed actual absorption of funds at the local level in 2007–2015. The analysis carried out in this article proves that the final effect of POKL allocation at the local level is not a simple extension of the government’s plan of division expressed by an algorithm. The absorption of funds per capita differed between municipalities within individual voivodships, but more funds did not necessarily go to the areas that were particularly structurally burdened (according to the governmental algorithm). The „before-after” analysis leads to the conclusion that, in the period under study, development disparities increased, and development gap between eastern and western Poland deepened. The situation is particularly difficult in the territories of the so-called internal peripherals.
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 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.
The paper discusses the role of commuting as one of the main indicators of functional linkages and a criterion used in governmental classifications and delimitations of areas, e.g. in the US Metro and Non-metro Classification by US OMB, in the Canadian Census classification, and the ‘Rural and Small Town’ classification. The above methods are presented in the light of selected research findings on the social and economic phenomena which, as either a reason for or a result of commuting, justify the use of the three main parameters, i.e. direction, catchment areas, and intensity, as tools of classification and delimitation of areas.
The main purpose of this paper is to analyze depopulation processes of rural areas in Lower Silesia in the years 1995–2015. The authors intend to determine the scale, durability and spatial distribution of depopulation in rural areas, as well as to analyze the factors of population changes which contribute to population loss. It helps them to identify depopulating rural areas and to draw up their typology according to the specificity of contemporary demographic changes. With reference to the scale of depopulation, four types of rural areas are distinguished (developing, stagnating, depopulating, intensively depopulating), and according to the durability of depopulation five types are identified (constantly developing, episodically depopulating, temporarily depopulating, prevalently depopulating, constantly depopulating). The analysis shows that depopulation is a problem in the rural areas of the Sudety Mts., Sudety Foreland, and in peripheral areas, in main urban centres. What is more, the processes of depopulation in Lower Silesia should not be associated exclusively with villages located in the Sudetes. In depopulating rural areas of Lower Silesia, the population decline is compounded by negative demographic trends (low birth rate, increase in post-working age population).
The concept of resilience has gained much attention in recent academic and political discussion. However, its application to specific sectors, such as retail, is rather scarce. The aim of this paper is to present the concept of resilience and to analyse its applicability to the retail sector within the context of the town centre. The paper proposes a possible analytical framework for adaptively resilient retail centres that links the performance of retail centres to underlying development paths, the pre-shock position in the adaptive cycle, and other factors that drive their evolutionary reorganisation. The proposed framework has a practical application for spatial and urban planning and can be beneficial to various stakeholders and practitioners, including retailers, policy makers, and town centre managers.
The paper focuses on problems related to modelling the development of maritime economic space. This entirely new issue has emerged from the recent changes in the intensity of use of marine areas. First, the economic significance of maritime space is discussed, followed by a simple model based on maritime spatial rent which aims at explaining the patterns of its development. This model encapsulates the interplay between both market and public choice factors that affect the development of maritime space. The paper also includes a discussion of attempts to obtain a monetary value of maritime spatial rent for key offshore maritime sectors in Poland. The paper concludes with suggestions on further developments in this field.
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 aim of the article is to identify in spatial and thematic terms the so-called special areas in strategic and planning documents at the national and regional levels, and a quantitative and qualitative description of spatial delimitations (comprising the communes categorised in particular special areas). The analysis included documents at the national, supra-regional and regional levels, i.e. 10 country-wide strategies (including 7 industry-specific strategies), 5 supra-regional strategies and 16 regional strategies and voivodeship spatial development plans. All the special areas were vectorised or assigned to the relevant municipalities, and then such issues as the number of special areas within them were examined. The analysis demonstrated significant over-regulation of strategic planning (in one of the communes 87 different categories of special areas at the national or regional level were identified). This article expands the issues examined in the project carried out in 2015-2016 at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organisation PAS for the Ministry of Development, entitled “Identification of the state intervention strategic areas, including problem areas” (Śleszyński et al. 2017a, 2017b).
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 problem of centralization and decentralization is very interesting and important in management science, political science, sociology, political economy, economics and regional sciences. The discussion over the centralization versus decentralization is a never-ending one. It is an age-old battle of standardization versus autonomy, corporate efficiency versus local effectiveness and pressure on costs and resources versus accommodation of specific local needs. The advantages of each model are, in essence, the disadvantages of the other. Decisions to decentralize or centralize must be derived from a careful cost–benefit analysis. The debate over whether to centralize or decentralize is not so much over which type of strategy is more effective but the degree to which each strategy is used in combination with one another.
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 aims to discuss the major trends in changes of regional differences of economic wellbeing and the resulting spatial mobility of population as well as some regional consequences of these processes. The research is based on an empirical methodology, and visual analysis of mapped data is the main research method. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, fast decrease of employment in industry and agriculture has damaged, first of all, peripheral regions and, later, resulted in mass emigration, which is still evident in most Lithuanian municipalities. The decrease of the number of jobs in these sectors and its increase in those located in different places meant that most residents of non-metropolitan regions had to find new jobs outside the localities in which they resided. This resulted in growing mobility of the population, expressed by growing foreign emigration, inner migrations, and commuting, which continue to shape the social structure of the country to the present day, as spatial structures change more slowly than modes of production. Differences in wellbeing, which appeared at the end of the 20th century, played a role in accelerating emigration processes, which are still damaging local labour supply and economic development in many regions.
Tri-City, with the suburban area, like other Polish urban centres with metropolitan aspirations, has real chances for becoming metropolitan area of European importance. According to some European concepts, Tri-City is recognized as a member of the group of European metropolises and regarded as a link in the zone of high dynamic development in the Baltic Sea Region. The main problem for the functional efficiency of Tri-City agglomeration is cooperation and competition between cities and municipalities. The lack of common activities can be the reason of efforts and effects to squander in the field of spatial planning, programming of regional development and functioning of the whole settlement system of the metropolitan area. Pursuing the integration of Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot and thus creating an integrated metropolitan space of the highest ability to compete in the global economy, is a real challenge for the Tri-City.
The article attempts to indicate the hypothetical spatial extent of the process of rural gentrification. To this end, using the extended case method, the author elaborates on the rural gentrification index that has been developed by describing demographic, social, economic, and spatial changes. This approach made it possible to identify areas where the phenomenon in question is the most active. It turns out that the potential range of gentrification in Poland mainly includes counties located near large cities – especially those located in central, northern, western and, south-western parts of Poland – which could be described with the English-language term as city’s countryside.
The article discusses the political and legal aspects and the dynamics of Ukraine’s interaction with the EU and its Member States in the field of integrated border management in order to improve interagency and international cooperation, introduce joint control at checkpoints, organise joint patrols, improve the level of security and openness of state borders and enhance their integration function. The issues of construction and modernisation of checkpoints, implementation of European border standards, customs and other types of control at the state border of Ukraine and the EU countries have been researched. The perspectives of Ukraine’s entry into the integrated border management system at the present stage have been outlined. The mechanisms of in-depth cooperation in the field of integrated border management under conditions of implementing the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU have been elucidated.
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 article seeks to identify socio-economic conditions that affect the demand of individual consumers for cars and to analyze spatial differences in these conditions. To achieve this objective, econometric modelling is conducted. The analysis was conducted in all poviats in Poland and covered the years 2010-2015. The findings show that the demand for new cars is stimulated by incomes of potential consumers and by a net in-migration, while the level of unemployment together with prices of complementary goods (especially petrol prices) negatively affect the demand for cars. Moreover, geographically weighted regression shows that the identified conditions differ across the country, which may explain the noticeable differences in the level of motorization between poviats.
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.
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 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.
Apart from traditional fashion trade fairs understood as specialist events addressed to a limited number of business clients, a growing popularity of B2C fashion fairs has been observed in recent years in Poland, in particular in large cities. Such events provide opportunities for purchasing unique clothing, offering possibilities for cultural distinction but also for spending leisure time, engaging in social interactions, and participating in urban arenas. They are in line with broader phenomena such as the festivalisation of urban space, the development of the experience economy, and the ecologisation of consumption. The aim of this article is to show the scope of this phenomenon in the Polish context. Proposing a typology according to this sort of fashion events as well as places where they occur, the authors attempt to show the intraurban and interurban specificity of fashion fairs, pointing to main centres and important factors of their location.
As a form of spatial and social organization, the city has been in deep crisis in the recent years. Nowadays in Poland, we can observe the renaissance of urbanity, as evidenced mostly in the increasing activity of social movements and the growing importance of civic participation. This paper discusses the role public consultation on spatial planning can play in urban policy. The analysis is based on a case study of active and innovative approaches to public consultations carried out during the process. The authors describe the potential of such sociological intervention in solving the crisis of urban communities.
Over the past few decades, voivodeship-level spatial planning has been the subject of numerous theoretical studies and legal regulations. During this period, the authorities of the Lublin voivodeship prepared a number of spatial development plans, sometimes referred to as regional plans. In theoretical dissertations, this spatial planning (especially the regional one) was usually seen as a plan of the future spatial structure and of activities aimed at achieving it, whereas regulations on spatial planning and its practice increasingly shaped voivodeship plans as documents defining only the desired spatial structure – first of all its socioeconomic and environmental functions. A strong impact of political and legal conditions on the practice of voivodeship-level spatial planning is undoubtedly the reason for this difference.
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 aim of the study is to indicate the importance of rural areas in the system of inter-communal migrations in Poland. Internal migration in rural areas was analysed for the years 1995–2019, with particular focus on the state of migration registered in 2019. The study used basic indicators determining the intensity of migration, which made it possible to conclude that rural areas play an important role in the system of internal migration in Poland, contributing to the spatial redistribution of population. However, this influence varies due to the fact that, on the one hand, there is a strong influence of suburbanisation on migration processes in rural areas in suburban zones of large and medium-sized cities in Poland. On the other hand, migration outflows caused by an unfavourable socio-economic situation are visible in the case of external and inner peripheries.
The aim of the article is to measure the sustainable development of rural areas of the Wielkopolska region and define the role of the Rural Development Programme for 2007-2013 in reinforcing developmental changes. The conducted research measured sustainable development for the year 2015 (in three dimensions: economic, social and environmental), and shows the spatial variations of the analysed phenomenon. As the next step, the awarded funds were measured and their impact on sustainable development was assessed. The measurements were carried out with the use of a synthetic measure, while the relationship between the level of development and the level of the awarded funds was assessed using analysis of variance. The research comprised rural and rural urban municipalities in the region. The findings demonstrate significant variations in the level of sustainable rural development in the Wielkopolska region.
The study discusses the processes of reactivation of passenger rail traffic in Poland in the years 2000–2020. After the reductions of the railroad network carried out before 2000, a renaissance of passenger transport could be observed. In the period under study, 63 sections of the railway lines were reconstructed. The total length of the reactivated routes was 1992 km, of which the electrified sections covered 549 km of the network. The largest areas of the concentration of reactivation activities were identified in south-eastern and northern Poland. The average speed on most routes was 65 km/h. The transport offer for 55% of the lines was based on more than six connections per day. Inconsistencies were also identified: out of 63 routes, passenger traffic was suspended again in 20 sections. Three types of reactivated routes can be identified, most of which are blindly terminated routes. The identified processes of reconstruction of traffic systems after 2000 represent yet another phase of railroad operations in Poland, after the previous phase of intensive regression and underfunding.
The JESSICA initiative was set up to provide a more sustainable and efficient response to the needs of urban areas, as compared to non-repayable grants. Anchored in the literature on place-based policy and territorial cohesion, this paper addresses the question how the JESSICA funds were allocated among Polish cities – whether, intuitively, only to key urban centres, or to smaller cities as well. The results illustrate that the repayable assistance of JESSICA was dispersed throughout the regions, although the degree of dispersion remains mixed across them. Almost half of the JESSICA funds was transferred to small and medium-sized cities. It was also found that the bulk of the assistance went to the projects that were implemented in cities situated within metropolitan areas of the regional capital cities.
The main aim of the article is to test Richard Butler’s model of tourist destination lifecycle in relation to Benidorm – one of the most important Spanish seaside resorts. Benidorm is an example of extreme changes in the landscape caused by a large number of skyscrapers. The analysis of Benidorm’s history from 14th to 16th century and its photographs allowed us to identify phases of this resort’s cycle. Supply and demanded features, infrastructure, the degree of landscape change and management priorities were also taken into consideration. Particular attention was paid to the reorientation stage. Using statistical data, the authors verified how effective the reorientation of Benidorm’s tourism economy was. Moreover, in order to show a wide background of the issues discussed, the main characteristics of development stages of mass tourism were presented (based on ten examples of second generation seaside resorts).
The paper focuses on issues related to the impact of quality management in local government at the municipal level on the use of EU funds supporting local development. Poland is one of the greatest beneficiaries of structural funds provided for regional development and strengthening cohesion within the Community. Local governments are one of the groups which absorbed most of the funds for 2007–2013. The paper describes how and to what extent the implementation of New Public Management tools in local government administration can guarantee efficient use of EU funds. Three areas of such impact are taken into consideration – the amount of acquired funds, efficient implementation of the projects co-financed by the EU, and the quality of these projects.
The article is discusses the new concept of harmony limit as an instrument for strategic management of tourism development in tourism destinations. In the author’s opinion, that concept can be used as a basic instrument in creating tourism development strategies, which would help to start or continue the process of developing sustainable tourism. Furthermore, the concept is based on three interdependent elements: pillars of sustainability, multi-stakeholder responsibility and the sphere of needs. The author draws attention to the problems associated with the new concept and offers certain solutions, thereby demonstrating its application value.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss cyberspatial visibility of Polish cities and their connections. The visibility of cities is determined based on the results obtained by Googling phrases connected with cities. The connections in cyberspace are approximated using the analysis of co-occurrence of terms (shared presence) connected with pairs of cities. On the basis of the research, it can be stated that the position and the connections between the cities in cyberspace are closely related to those found in the real world. The research indicates that the information analysis of Web resources can be applied to determine the significance of cities and connections between them.
What we today call the social space, what we can see in our houses and outside of them, was initially established by the Old Testament. The people of Israel governed and changed it, creating the patterns that exist till our time. It’s easy to find the systems of town building in the Old Testament. Also the division of space into centre and peripheries and between the sphere of sacrum and profanum are clear. Moreover, the Old Testament shows us the process of spatial transformation – from the unnamed to symbolic places.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze cities’ promotion and information policy regarding the development of economic activity. The study was carried out in the form of electronic audit and evaluation of the official websites of 306 cities in Poland. On this basis, promotion and information policy was assessed and its spatial diversity analyzed. The analysis revealed significant diversity of actual involvement of local self-governments in enhancing investment attractiveness of cities. It seems that in most cases such policy either does not exist at all, or is hardly implemented. The study also shows a lack of cohesion as well as temporariness of marketing activities undertaken.
The aim of the article was to characterise ESPON as a network-based international research programme and the evaluation of capacity of network analysis in studying scientific cooperation. Results of the study show that institutions involved in ESPON projects create a dense, closely interconnected network of cooperation. The network is dominated by a limited number of institutions, which are involved in large share of the projects and have the most expanded cooperation network. Spatial analysis proves, that there is significant lack of institutions from Central-Eastern Europe in the Programme. Network analysis allowed to identify the most efficient methods for improving the presence of Polish institutions in the ESPON Programme.
This paper is based on data collected during a study (questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews) conducted in selected Polish gminas and focused on selected road corridors. On this basis, social perception of the accessibility of selected services is assessed as well as changes in frequency of road use, quality of life, and road safety. In the case of three road corridors (highways A1 and A4; express road S8), changes in accessibility have occurred as a result of road investments.
The article was published in Polish in "Studia Regionalne i Lokalne", 4/2004
The paper discusses regional disparities in Poland in their many dimensions and aspects economic, social and political. Individual phenomena basically have a similar spatial representation, which can be seen as a corroboration of the well-known thesis on the existence of a strong interdependency of many phenomena in the development process. The historical underpinnings of these disparities prove once again that they are the products of "long duration` processes. Both characteristics of these differences, showing their complexity and historical factors suggest caution as to what can realistically be expected of regional policy because it can change the objective reality only gradually and only to a limited extent. The paper ends with some recommendations for regional policy.
The aim of the paper is to analyze the level of economic development and its dynamics in the cities and towns in the eastern region between 1995 and 2015. The objects of the study were 54 cities and towns of the region. The source of the data for the analysis was the Local Data Bank of the Central Statistical Office. Taxonomic analysis, no-pattern method was used for the study. Ten variables were analyzed during the studied period. They were divided into those referring to budgets of municipalities/communes, national economy entities, and the labor market. As a result of the analysis, it was discovered that 50 cities and towns showed signs of development in the period. It was observed that the diversification of the level of economic development of cities and towns of the eastern region in the spatial layout did not decrease. It was also stated that the accession of Poland to the European Union had an impact on the growth of dynamics indexes of changes for the towns and cities.
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 article presents selected results of studies presented in the Report of the State and Conditions of Planning Works as at the End of 2006. The report was prepared in the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences, for the Ministry of Construction in autumn 2007. In this article attention is focused on the analysis of the Local Development Spatial Plans coverage and agricultural land changes in 2004–2006. In the studies, delimitation and classification based on the administrative-settlement structure, routes of the transport corridors and land use kind and intensity were taken into consideration.
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.
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the activity of local governments’ planning and investment service in the environmentally valuable areas of Podlaskie Voivodeship. Spatial planning at the local level is extremely important, especially in the environmentally valuable areas. It makes it possible to preserve the natural environment for future generations and to maintain ecological processes. However, protective measures should not disturb municipal investments. One of the appropriate solutions is the introduction of local land development plans – a framework of rational management of natural resources and of marketing development. This is particularly important in the areas of municipalities which, beside ecological functions, play an important role in the development of tourism and transport, and are situated in suburban areas.
The article presents innovation issues in public administration in the Podkarpacie region. In the situation of progressing territorial development, widely understood innovation is the ability to create, put into practice and disseminate it. This ability is the condition to raise competitiveness of the regional economy, while increasing the opportunity to achieve success in the escalating competition between the regions. Taking into account that local and regional authorities play the major role in the modernizational and developmental processes, the analyses and characteristics included in the article are concentrated on the diagnosis of the competence of public administration employers. The range of the above mentioned competence is the management of the local and regional development and the economy development based on the knowledge. Identification and description of the restrictions and barriers of innovation in the council and government administration were considered as well. The study is based on the results of the empirical research which aim was to recognize attitudes and actions of public administration in the Podkarpacie region, realized within the confines of the purposeful project of the Science and Informatics Ministry: "The Regional Strategy of Innovation of the Podkarpacie Province".
The article presents an overview of changes and relevant problems that have occurred in Moscow in the period of post-Soviet transformation. Authors briefly discuss historical and contemporary studies on capital city of Russia in the field of social geography. On this background authors comment on contemporary hypothesis related to metropolisation processes including social and spatial polarization observed in global cities.
The article discusses the results of empirical research conducted in ca 50 municipalities located in four Polish regions. The authors conduct desk research of official documents, questionnaires and in-depth interviews with local government staff and politicians, and present differences and similarities in opinions on various Operational Programmes. The article discusses all stages of applying for EU grants: from selection of an Operational Porgramme to the final decision of the Managing Authority on the list of selected projects. It refers to issues arising from formal procedures, the passionate character of the competition for funds in individual Operating Programmes, as well as informal mechanisms of influence on the outcome of the selection processes. Unlike earlier research, the article discusses the changes in the Programmes implemented within the 2004-2006 and 2007-2013 perspectives.
Strengthening economic cohesion of regional economies is usually considered as one of the major goals of regional policy. At the same time, metropolitan cities are recognized as main centres of economic growth, influencing the development perspectives of more peripheral areas. It is therefore important to know the range and the mechanism of spillover of socio-economic development from metropolises to their surroundings, as well as to identify the areas which are economically lagging as a result of missing functional links with metropolises. The authors apply the local spatial correlation measures (local Moran’s statistics – LISA) in the analysis of municipal revenues in order to delimit the diffusion and polarization of economic development in Poland.
The main objective of this paper is to analyze the reasons of development of the Integrated Territorial Investments in the new 2014-2020 period in the context of EU reforms, and to describe the creation process and the threats this experimental approach may encounter in Poland. The Author’s main thesis is that the experimental ITI concept causes additional conflicts between management authorities and beneficiaries who are used to the fact that declared and implemented intervention aims are different. The Author also assumes that there exist important factors that could potentially hinder the radical reforms and re-establish the status quo (or “domesticate” the policy). The main methods (desk research and involvement in preparatory works as a Ministry expert) determine the structure of the sources used. The paper offers some conclusions.
The aim of the paper is to present spatial variation of social capital in Poland, especially in relation to historical differences between various regions (resulting from the country’s partitions and border changes) and the level of urbanization. Previous studies indicate that such variation exists. However, they were carried out on the basis of declarations, an approach which has its drawbacks. This study uses a novel approach to assessing social capital: observing the behaviour of a study group using experimental economics, used in conjunction with a questionnaire which enables us to study the intention-behaviour gap. The study group consisting of 1540 individuals indicates very little variation between the regions. However, there are differences concerning the gap between declarations and behaviour in questions related to trust, trustworthiness, and cooperation, and our results confirm the conclusions from previous studies only weakly.
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 aim of this article is the description of growth tendencies and growth factors in subregions (NUTS 3) of Central and Eastern Europe in 1998–2006. Wide range of complementary research methods has been used in order to triangulate results – starting with classical beta and sigma convergence analysis, through kernel density estimation, transition matrices to spatial autocorrelation and multidimensional comparisons. Rarely exposed aspect of influence of capital regions on growth processes was taken into account. Additional analysis of the data in relation to country average allowed to obtain conclusions independent of the country context. As a result, it appeared to be possible to answer the following questions: do the analyzed countries face regional convergence or divergence/polarization process?; what factors determine the dynamics of regional growth?; what are the main dimensions of spatial disparities in Central and Eastern Europe.
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.
Poland has significant, though not researched and depicted in depth asset in the form of manors, palaces and castles. They differ in many ways: by location, technical state, quality of architecture, ownership, function played nowadays. Their contemporary state has been determined by a number of complex economic, political, legal and social factors. Utilisation of those objects for the needs of dynamically developing culture tourism calls for changes in national heredity protection and tourism development strategies. Proposed changes in particular should decisively introduce market mechanism into heredity management. Otherwise those rich assets shall remain troublesome and costly souvenir of the past.
Endogenous growth theories presume knowledge plays the key role in economic growth (1). Yet, new economic geography along with empirical findings suggest the possibility of divergence occurring in development processes (2). Combining (1) and (2) indicates the importance of studying knowledge factors’ distribution. To obtain the fully fledged picture of a given economy one shall go beyond simply analyzing knowledge factors but include also their spatial location. The article touches upon this issue. It is devoted to Germany and examines three territorial and administrative levels: one referring to former country division (DDR & BRD), the second relating to NUTS 1 (16 Bundesländer) and third represented by 41 Regierungsbezirke (NUTS 2). Results are obtained by investigating 5 factors (e.g. expenditure on R&D, human resources in S&T, patent applications) and applying 4 measures (Gini, Rosenbluth, Ellison–Glaeser and Herfindahl–Hirschman Coefficients). This paper is meant to supplement earlier studies as well as a good starting point for further research devoted to country’s knowledge landscape.
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 purpose of the paper is to point out the characteristic features of spatial development in cities of the Metropolitan Union of Silesia (GZM), located in the central subregion of the Upper Silesian region. The specificity of its development is the result of both historical conditions arising from the exploitation of natural resources, which were taking place for many centuries, as well as the contemporary economic and social impacts that are affecting the functioning of highly integrated territorial units that co-create the GZM. The presented research results refer to a selected area of interest in urban morphology. In this case, it is the comparison of a combination of building types located in the GZM cities with buildings in other cities of the Upper Silesian region and all other Polish cities.
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.
The paper gives an appraisal of Polish cities in the context of processes and problems observed in cities of highly developed European countries. These last cities, in particular those situated in the hard core of EU, enter a new development stadium. Interconnected by networks of multifarious links, they create an integrated urbanised space of the highest ability to compete in the global economy but lose at the same time the character of relatively closed and spatially distinguished socio-economic systems. The paper, pointing at the processes that lead to this phenomenon, stresses that they are already visible in Poland but not advanced. Poland is a country of a delayed urbanisation and cities the economic base of which is not competitive in Europe. These cities possess a not bad human but rather weak social capital and the urban space is of a low quality. The paper outlines the main challenges Polish cities are facing in the era of European integration and presents also the most frequently discussed visions of XXI century European city described through development goals and strategies.
Identification and delimitation of metropolitan areas, as well as measuring their actual metropolitan potential, are complex research problems. They become even more complicated in the case of a metropolis shaped around a polycentric core, consisting of cities which rank similarly in the national or transnational urban network. The paper is an attempt to identify and analyze the crucial problems of internal integration within the Tri-City metropolitan area which significantly hamper the metropolitan discourse and undermine the cooperation indispensible for metropolitan development.
The paper’s main objective is to introduce into the topic of regional development in the postindustrial regions Ruhr and Upper Silesia taking aspects of economic and spatial planning under consideration. The region Ruhr has lived through a difficult period of development. A lot of self-given objectives could be accomplished. Anyway various long-term problems like the relative high unemployment rate, the demographic challenges or industrial waste lands are still present and are awaiting solutions. In some problem areas Upper Silesia might orient oneself to the strategies conducted in the Ruhr agglomeration and adapt strategies which delivered positive results and prevent failures which resulted by middle-rate measures.
The article presents an analysis of citations of the Polish scientific journals and series of geography and spatial economy in 1991–2010 years, developed on the basis of information service Google Scholar. Bibliometric analyzes showed generally weak, but the variation impact on the publication. Demonstrated the dominant role of several titles, including Geographia Polonicaand Regional and Local Studies. The latter title has grown rapidly in the last decade citations.
The article aims to identify the geographical dimension of social (in)justice in the context of the existing permanent differences in the level of socio-economic development in Poland from the geographical and historical point of view. It also discusses the consequences of these inequalities for development policy on regional and local levels. The study consists of two essential parts. The first one presents synthetic deliberations on the geographical aspect of the social justice discussed. In the second part, an attempt was made to exemplify a geographical dimension of social (in)justice through the analysis of the spatial distribution of the socio-economic development level (a synthetic indicator) and selected partial indicators. In addition, the presence of dependencies of the socio-economic development level and the degree of political support for political fractions proclaiming the slogan of “social justice” was verified. The results of the conducted research confirm the existence of considerable developmental differences in the Polish space. Their strength is historically determined and, despite the passage of time, their pattern invariably corresponds to the former partition boundaries. These disparities are not minimised and the influence of economic growth on the income rise remains limited, especially in economically weaker areas, which leads to growing social dissatisfaction. As a result, one can conclude that in Poland those differences constitute the geographical dimension of social (in)justice.
