Among the features of globalization and metropolization of development, a growing number of mega-events can be observed. Among them are large sport events, as for instance UEFA 2012 in Poland and Ukraine (in preparation). What impact may such an event have on development? The main aim of this article is to present available conclusions of research on the cost-benefit analysis of previous events of a similar type. The data presented lead to a conclusion that – like in many discussed examples – the balance of EURO 2012 will be most likely negative.
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.
The paper shows the basic problems of implementation of the cross-sector cooperation, in the frame of area-based partnerships, for specified rural areas in years 2001-2004 in Poland. In this period partnerships were created with international sources support and with appreciable participation of non-government organisations. The main obstacles to their actions were: the insufficient financial resources, the lack of legal form of self-governments, NGOs and entrepreneurships cooperation with equal rights, tendencies for leaders` domination in group`s actions, weak organisational structures and the lack of long-term strategies. The first effects of cooperation are little; they deal with social affairs and tourist promotion, but they show the positive role of such type coalitions in local development.
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 author of this essay argues that, in a longer time perspective, four major processes have been taking place in the countryside and changing its character in Polish as well as in other countries in Western and Central Europe: de-ruralization, de-agrarianization, development of a new model of agriculture (peasantization/ de-peasantization) and re-stratification. These processes are affecting 1) the place of the countryside in society, 2) the place of agriculture in society and in national economy, 3) the structure of the countryside as a social subsystem. These changes have been taking place throughout the last two decades, albeit with different speed in different time periods. Three of them, de-ruralization, de-agrarianization and re-stratification, are continuations of processes which took place before 1989. Their dynamics does not differ from that in Western and Central-Eastern Europe. The fourth, more original process can also be detected in the development of a new agrarian model: the adjustment of the post-communist structure of agricultural production to the market economy.
The article is based upon the results of National General Survey conducted in December 2002. It is focused on differences in professional activity and the levels of unemployment among various subregions in Poland. Considering this issue two subregions were pointed - the "Central" and the "West". They both vary in levels of economic activity of inhabitants. There are more ownership and self-employment in the "West" region, but nevertheless there is higher rate of unemployment. The reasons lay in character of enterprises - they are very small, vulnerable and unstable. They produce the streams of inflows and outflows from unemployment to job and vice versa.
The article deals with the evolution of the regional policy in the UK whose traditions in this respect are the richest among West European countries. Its genesis is linked with attempts to reduce unemployment in industrialised regions. It is commonly agreed that state interventionism in regional development began with the publication of the Special Areas Development and Improvement Act of 1934 which covered Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and northern England. The article focuses on the assumptions behind the regional policy, its objectives, scope, instruments used, and institutions responsible for its implementation indicating changes made by subsequent Conservative and Labour governments. While the former restricted the scope and volume of support in aid of assisted areas, the latter did the opposite. The regional policy defined and modified by the European Community plays a significant role in determining its shape as much as deregulation, reinforcement of the regional tier itself, predominance of social matters over economic ones as well affective and selective nature of support.
In Western Europe, the model of local government has been changing in the previous decades: from a council-committee model to more executive-oriented ones, like the parliamentary and the presidential models. Political leadership lies at the heart of many of the recent institutional reforms of local government. An explicit aim of these reforms has been to strengthen the executive power, and to provide strong, visible and effective leadership. For example, the position of the mayor in Britain and Germany and of the board in the Netherlands has changed. The direct election of mayors is one of the ways to strengthen the political executive. Not all countries are undergoing such kind of transformation. In some of them, changes have been restricted to few municipalities. Others have been relatively immune to this international trend towards institutional reforms.
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.
Warmia-Mazury region, one of the poorest in Poland, faces the deepest (as compared to all regions of the EU) labour market crisis. The mixture of social and economic problems represents a huge challenge for regional authorities. The chances for fast improvement are limited by several factors, such as low quality of transport infrastructure, low innovation potential and productivity, large share of unskilled labour force, etc. One necessary condition of the improvement is the reform of public finances at country level. Nonetheless, regional authorities should undertake the activity in order to increase the potential of human capital in the region, e.g. by improving the quality of schools. While directly fighting unemployment more effort should be put on stimulating the demand side of the labour market and co-operation with NGOs.
In most European cities industrial districts and, later, consumption areas have emerged supplementing the areas of exchange, which had always been existing within the cities. At present, the cities are almost free of production (especially of industrial production), which has been replaced by the areas of entertainment. This is due to the fact that the metropolitan class - which lives in the cities and moves between them as the most precious part of the tourist community – has demonstrated growing demand for culture and entertainment. The influences of the media, mostly of television, make this demand more and more uniform, which results in globalisation of culture and entertainment. It is therefore quite obvious that big corporations engage themselves in undertakings that shape the urban areas in order to advertise their products and brands. As a result, the public parts of the cities are appropriated by individual interests and privatized in a specific way.
The 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 following article shows the problem of environmental pollution in contemporary world as an side-effect of economic development. The main aim of the article is to present two political theories of an environmental protection extend – Green Political Theory and environmentalism and ecological modernization as a possibility of solution for the environmental protection problem in the process of development. Action is complex and guided by the state. The role of context is pointed out, which is proved on the example of USA, Germany, Norway, Great Britain, socialist states, Poland and European Union. Additionally, article analyses the directions of environmental policies – ecocentrism, technocentrism, ecoliberalism and ecocollectivism.
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.
Big cities in Poland as well as abroad are the focus of many scientists of different disciplines. The authors of this study join these researchers and concentrate on a previously neglected segment of the Polish big cities’ political actors – city councillors. The aim of this paper is a socio-demographic description of the big city elite. The authors analyze its main characteristics: gender, age, occupational position, and local government experience. They also try to compare the big city elite with other parts of the political elite, especially with the simultaneously studied medium city elite. The paper is based on survey research conducted by the authors in the 12 biggest Polish cities.
The article, referring to the elaboration offered in 2005 by Swianiewicz, presents the very recent development of the theoretical concepts used in urban political research. It concentrates on the rescaling concept, which assumes the need for territorial reorganization of urban research and practice. Reteritorialization implies an increase in the importance of the sub-state levels, i.e. the levels most affected by globalization. Globalization has forced big cities to compete internationally, which also influences their organization. The debate on metropolitan governance has changed significantly in comparison to the one of the old regionalism – less attention is paid to administrative solutions, more to conditions and mechanisms of international functioning of metropolises. Metropolitan governance has moved from vertical, redistributive and coordinative relations within the state towards a horizontal competition with other metropolises. New relations, cutting across the traditional levels of organization, are being created within the current stable institutional framework. One of the biggest challenges for contemporary urban political studies is the elaboration of conceptual frames for those relations. The challenge is especially important as institutional solutions to metropolitan areas still leave a lot of questions and doubts.
The global Post-Fordist economy based on permanent flows changes the way we use space. It modifies the processes of functioning of cities, some of which take the role of global hubs or regional networks. It is an open question whether and how the changes concerning territorial and competence range of cities influence institutions and institutionalizations of contemporary city authorities. Although it is difficult to establish a general answer to this question, the author bases his reflection on the case of the evolution, unprecedented in the French conditions, of the local government system of Grand Lyon Urban Community. On 1st January 2015, after 45 years of its existence, Grand Lyon became a Metropolis of Lyon, establishing a new unit of local government with extended range and new competences, combining the prerogative powers of municipalities, an urban community, and a department.
The article provides the analysis of bottlenecks related to public private partnerships (PPP), and the methods of avoiding them. The study is based on the history of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in Great Britain, and the changes introduced to this programme in the last years. It is shown, that there are similarities between PPP in today’s Poland and PFI in the UK at the beginning of 90’s. British experience can be helpful in creating better environment for PPP, to avoid (or at least minimize) the potential threats.
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.
