Studia KPZK

Geography versus spatial management. The aim of the article is to draw attention to substantive connections that combine spatial management with geography, first of all with socio-economic geography. Both disciplines are of a multidimensional nature and they expose physical space as a field of their interests. The convergence of disciplines is also reflected in the research methodology – a spatial analysis has been developing in socio-economic geography since the 1960s by the so-called spatial direction. Both disciplines are competitive not only on the scientific, but also educational and utilitarian (socio-economic practice) market. The article focuses on the essence and a cognitive sense of both fields, in general, and on their scope of competence. Spatial management should be developed as part of basic sciences, including geography as its professional specialization.

Circular economy – a new approach in the understanding of the human–environment relationship. The work presented the assumptions of the circular economy as a new concept of the economy functioning with the method of production “from cradle to cradle” constituting the opposition to the commonly used linear economy approach (take, make, dispose). Work discussed also the impact on the quality of human life and the management of environmental resources. Functional assumptions of the circular economy and its territorial dimension were presented, especially in urban areas where the green economy and sharing economy mechanisms are used. The potential for economic growth and the creation of new jobs was also emphasized due to the implementation of circular economy in the EU countries.

Socio-economic development as well as factors and determinants of development. The scientific language, as well as everyday and literary language, is in constant development. The effect of this development is the multiplication of flavored notions and concepts leading to many misunderstandings and ambiguities, which should not happen in the scientific language. The presented texts should be written in a language that is clear, simple, logical, unambiguous and understandable, and their interpretation should not cause problems. This article presents remarks concerning the interpretation of such basic notions of socio-economic sciences as socio-economic development, economic growth and factors and conditions of development, quite freely used in scientific texts. It also contains the correct interpretation of these notions, especially in reference to the language of socio-economic geography, regional economics and socio-economic and spatial development and planning. Only an unambiguously interpreted text can be a platform for mutual understanding, basis for scientific discussion and the way to the the real development of science.

Equilibrium, disequilibrium and adaptation. The inspirations for spatial economics. This paper is a part of author’s long-term research project related to dynamics and evolution of space economy. In the attempts of theoretical reconstruction of these processes the notion of equilibrium plays an important role, as well as related notions: disequilibrium and adaptation. In the analysis of equilibrium the author drew on the concepts elaborated by the neoclassical school of economics. In the analysis of disequilibrium the concept of physics turned out to be fertilizing, namely the concept of dissipative structures and self-organisation. The concept of adaptation is elaborated in depth in biology. These three concepts have been applied in spatial economics long since. Further research is necessary however, to make these application more relevant to spatial economics, and in this way more fruitful.

Contemporary changes of socio-economic development factors. The aim of the work is to determine the scope of contemporary changes of socio-economic development factors, paying attention to the consequences for their interpretation and mechanism of impact relating to the regional and local level. The main goal is specified by formulating the following research questions: (1) What major megatrends shape contemporary developmental transformations? (2) What is the direction and scope of changes in socio-economic development factors? (3) How are the conditions of development processes changing as a result of these changes and how they differentiate the processes of development in space? The article is a synthesis of the results of two research projects of the National Science Center: NN 306 79 19 40: Socio-economic development and the development of areas of growth and areas of economic stagnation (2011–2014) and OPUS 10 – 2015/19/B/HS5/00012: New challenges of regional policy in shaping the factors of socio-economic development of less developed regions (2016–2019) and the results of own authors’ research – employees of the Regional Analysis Department at the Institute of Socio-Economic Geography and Spatial Management of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

State Urban Policy – concept, Institutional scope and structure in integrative management of the development. The management of space, as a common good, closely linked with economic and social development in Poland – meets a number of barriers. One of the major barriers is flawed and inefficient system of spatial planning and the lack of explicit national urban policy. The causes of this situation are manifold and complex. There is a week understanding that spatial planning has regulatory function and that is a main measure of intervention in inefficient – by its nature – market mechanism of real estate development and location of new construction objects. The existing in Poland since 2015 formal document under the title “National City Policy” is in fact the part of cohesion policy. It formulates only very soft policy recommendations concerning spatial development which are identified in different cities and their functional areas, whereas financial measures go separately through sectoral programs. In the article author consider the future place of national urban policy in integrative system of development policy which combine economic, social and build environmental dimensions. Than he analyzes the relationship between national spatial policy and the urban polices at the national and local level. Finally he presents some general conclusions and recommendations. According to the author, because of complexity of the issues and challenges, the detailed formulation of state urban policies and its implementation must lie within the competence of a strong governmental institution (responsible for research, monitoring and evaluation, elaboration of visions and scenarios in a broad global context). The primary partner in the state urban policy, co-responsible for its success, should be adequately, provincial and local governments. Through the cooperation of state and territorial authorities, is the most strongly manifested multilevel model of “public governance”. The special role belongs to the local authorities due to their assigned competence in creation of local by law in respect of land use and building allocation. Efficient urban policy must have two dimensions; horizontal and territorial. Horizontal domain should belong to the state (national planning, passing the law, systemic intervention, etc.). Territorial dimension should belong first of all to local urban policies but formulated and implemented within the framework and measures defined by national spatial policy and operational state urban policies.

Public space in geographical and social aspects. Space as a scientific and social term has many interpretations. Work organizes mutual relations between various kinds of spaces. The paper focuses on the contemporary determinants of shaping a public space in cities regarding the popularization of information and communication technologies. Attention was also paid to the metric feature of social spaces because it is usually neglected while constructing such spaces.

Participation – Activity – Agency – step back or progress to develop civil society? The main aim of the article is kick-off discussion about phenomenon of participation in spatial planning and management. Background to the discussion are results of my, more than twenty years, research on citizens’ standards of influence to the local authorities. It is drive me to the question if is the public participation right way to create civil society, especially in the context of spatial management? What do we expect in that context? We would like to provoke Polish local communities to bottom-up initiatives or make citizens to participate “on the call of the authorities” in statutory forms of engagement in spatial management process? There in Poland do we want to create a “civil society” or a “society of civic organizations”? Public participation is a tool and action that provokes the processes of civil society development or part of a bureaucratic planning ritual to tame the “social demon of activity”? Listed questions provoke me to discussion about five, in my opinion, significant, though perhaps not the only, dilemmas accompanying the implementation of participatory processes in the spatial planning and management, especially large territorial units. These are: “institutionalization of engagement”, “formalization of civic engagement”, “erosion of civic engagement”, “diversity of forms of civic engagement”, “exclusion of groups of citizens through involvement”. The listed issues show that participation is not end of process, but only a tool on the road to building or a civil society or a society of instrumental activity.

The evolution of David Harvey’s scientific interests. David Harvey’s work is a significant example of evolution and differences in contemporary human geography. It is characterised especially by three features related to one another: a constant change in scientific and research interests, a tendency to bridge the divisions between geographical specialities and scientific disciplines and the inclination towards deep theoretical and methodological reflection. A temporal and problem analysis allows distinguishing two phases of his research interests. In the first, neopositivist one, Harvey discusses methodological aspects of geography, being part of the process of changes in the research pattern of the maternal discipline; in the second, as a confirmed Marxist and radical geographer, he critically analyses contemporary urbanisation and the ideas of postmodernism and neoliberalism. Along with the evolution of scientific and research interests, Harvey’s approach to the examined issues changes – from an inquisitive researcher, concerned with the state of a native scientific discipline, he becomes a critical observer and a reformer of the surrounding reality.

Concepts and methods in polish spatio-electoral research. At the turn of the 20th and 21st century spatio-electoral research in the world entered the phase of maturity and crystallization of research concepts and methods long ago, in Poland the stage of spontaneous development of research in this themes. As a result of the development of spatio-electoral studies in Poland, spatial approach patterns were developed, and the scope of using statistical analysis methods in a spatial context was extended. Another important aspect of this research was the discourse and the use of the notion of factors in building a theory or constructing pre-theory regarding the spatial differentiation of electoral behaviors. From a macroanalytical perspective concerning territorial patterns from the subregional level to the macroregional level, four groups of concepts of the influence of factors and conditions can be distinguished: a) concepts of historical and cultural conditions, b) modernization concepts, ie actions of some socio-economic factors, c) concepts related to competition and conflicts within the political system of the country; d) concepts of spatial and neighborhood influence, also called concepts of political topography.

‘Hard’ and ‘soft’ methods in analyses of territorial structures’. This article refers to two distinct approaches to investigations of territorial structures and their changes: the ‘intuitive’ of ‘soft’ approach and a more rigid, formalized or ‘hard’ one. The examples of analyzing the regional patterns in Poland over a almost 40 year span are called to illustrate these relations between two methodological standpoints. The conclusion states that both of them are valid and useful, however their strengths can be fully exposed when both are applied in an comprehensive way, supporting each other in a difficult process of investigation multidimensional and dynamic changes of the social territorial systems.

The K4 graph and the inertia of the adjacency matrix for a connected planar graph. A substantial history exists about incorporating matrix analysis and graph theory into geography and the geospatial sciences. This study contributes to that literature, aiding in analyses of spatial relationships, especially in terms of spatial weights matrices. We focus on the n-by-n 0–1 binary adjacency matrix, whose rows and columns represent the nodes of a connected planar graph. The inertia of this matrix represents the number of positive (n+), negative (n−), and zero (n0) eigenvalues. Approximating the Jacobian term of spatial auto-normal models can benefit from calculating these matrix quantities. We establish restrictions for n- exploiting properties we uncover for the K4 graph.

Strategic Choices of EU cohesion policy post 2020 in light of the European Commission programming documents. The aim of this study is to evaluate the conceptualization of European cohesion policy in the next programming period of the European Union and in the European financial perspective 2020+. Special attention has been paid to documents of European Commission, which is the leading institution in the dialogue of various stakeholders on this subject. It has been also described the unique significance of European cohesion policy for the socio-economic development of Poland (after the accession in 2004 and in the coming years). Against this background the most important assumptions of Poland's negotiating position has been determined as well as the necessary changes in the regional policy model in Poland.Strategic Choices of EU cohesion policy post 2020 in light of the European Commission programming documents. The aim of this study is to evaluate the conceptualization of European cohesion policy in the next programming period of the European Union and in the European financial perspective 2020+. Special attention has been paid to documents of European Commission, which is the leading institution in the dialogue of various stakeholders on this subject. It has been also described the unique significance of European cohesion policy for the socio-economic development of Poland (after the accession in 2004 and in the coming years). Against this background the most important assumptions of Poland's negotiating position has been determined as well as the necessary changes in the regional policy model in Poland.

Demographic challenges of regional development of Poland. The goals of the article are dichotomous. First of all, it is the recognition of the main problems of regional development in Poland, resulting from the current and forecast demographic and settlement situation, including depopulation and population aging. An increasing mismatch between jobs, housing, education and services, increasingly scattered and inefficient settlement and inefficiency of the administrative and territorial system in terms of income and expenditure balancing and ensuring an adequate standard of services resulting from the administrative hierarchization of the settlement network, territorial delimitation and spatial accessibility have been identified. Then, in the second place, an attempt was made to formulate remedial measures related mainly to the optimization of spatial development and stimulation of innovative economic growth based in particular on endogenous poles of growth. In the article, among others the results of the author’s research and analyzes were used, which were carried out for practical purposes for government diagnostic and strategic documents in the years 2000–2017 [incl. “Report of the spatial development of Poland”, “Concept of Spatial Development of Poland 2030”, “National Strategy for Regional Development 2010–2020”, delimitation of “State Intervention Strategic Areas: Growth Areas and Problem Areas” and “Responsible Development Strategy”].

Regional differentiation of economic growth in Poland between 1995 and 2015. The paper explores the regional differentiation of economic growth in Poland between 1995 and 2015 in terms of GDP per capita. The historically lagging-behind regions of eastern Poland has shown relatively high dynamics and reduced the gap vis-à-vis Western European regions. At the same time, they have not been catching up with the fastest growing metropolitan areas, which leads to increased inter-regional disparities in the country. The lowest rate of growth is characteristic of northern regions and western borderland, which is related to their social and cultural features, including poor human capital, and limited internal market. There is moderate correlation between regional economic growth and the quality of life. The least favourable situation in both respects is found in the German borderland.

The Settlement System of Poland: Patterns of Change. Poland’s settlement system has become a scene of accelerating metropolitan development over the last few decades. The trends observed and their policy implications are discussed in the article by focusing on sub-spaces, settlement structure components. Special reference is made to the formation of city networks and their role in spatial organization at the national level. A possible future course of the metropolization phenomena, together with some factors of their evolving intensity, is outlined against the background of selected European urbanization scenarios.

Management of metropolitan areas – foreign experience and their Polish implications. The aim of the article is to present problems of development of metrotopolitan areas as premises for creating various forms of territorial integrated management. The reference point is the Report “The OECD Metropolitan Governance Survey” (2014). The models of metropolitan integration were analyzed in both: “the top-down” legal and political solutions of European countries as well as “bottom-up initiatives” of building local government partnerships. The metropolitan reforms in Germany, France and Italy were discussed as good solutions. Against this background, the dilemmas of managing metropolitan areas in Poland, implementation of EU instrument – ITI and possible direction of metropolitan reform are presented.

Cultural, ideological and social sources of anarchy in spatial management in Poland. The article is an individual statement about the state of the steering sphere of spatial management in Poland. The author puts forward the thesis that for years there has been anarchy in it, which deepened in the period of systemic transformation. Despite the established legal framework of spatial management, consistent with European standards and the existence of spatial planning institutions at local, regional and national level, manifestations of anarchy are widely visible. This is an important, though not the only, reason for the widely observed and repeatedly documented disorder and even spatial chaos in the material sphere of spatial management in Poland. The sources of this anarchy are sought in a specific Polish culture, ideologies professed by professionals related to spatial management, and in old and new social divisions.

Systemic transformation in Polish surface transport: An evaluation. The purpose of this paper is to provide some insight into the processes of restructuring and privatisation among rail, road, urban-transport, and inland shipping companies after 1989. Where freight is concerned, carriage on standard- and broad-gauge railways can be evaluated as partly deregulated, while where the carriage of passengers is concerned – all carriers up to mid-2005 had originated within the PKP Group. The most common form of transformation of passenger carriers is communalisation of existing companies. The first private operator (the present-day Arriva) appeared as late as 2007. The disintegration of national road carrier (PKS) resulted in the founding of c. 40 new freight firms, the majority of which were closed-down soon. The most common form of privatisation of the PKS passenger enterprises has involved leasing by workers. The privatisation has involved not only Polish investors but also foreign ones (Veolia, later on taken over by Arriva, and Israeli Egged Holding via its affiliate Mobilis). However, the share of public-capital ownership remains substantial, resulting often in final bankrupcy of road transport companies. Among the operators in urban transport public owership remains dominant in various forms (local authorities, municipal, budgetary companies). On the opposite, in inland shipping small private firms are dominant. Moreover, systemic transformation plus Poland’s EU accession have given rise to the conditions underpinning the emergence of Europe’s largest shipowners (OT Logistics).

Identification of agriculture types in Poland with analysis of spatial associations. The aims of the paper were to identify and characterize contemporary agriculture types in Poland, and evaluate the suitability of the typology used. The analysis was performed on the basis of territorial units (communes, LAU2). The study involved a total of 68 variables characterizing agriculture. Spatial associations found in the data were identified. As the next step, an analysis of local spatial autocorrelation was performed and spatial clusters were identified by LISA and cluster analysis performed by the method of k-means clustering, which identified a total of five agriculture types. The study presented the spatial distribution of individual types of agriculture and their characteristics. Furthermore, the method was shown to be especially useful for investigating agricultural phenomena characterized by a large number of traits in relation to a large number of territorial units.

Spatial and time diversity of housing construction in Poland. Residential housing construction, as one of the most important elements of spatial development, a factor decisive for living conditions of residents, is the object of interest not only of architects, planners or local and state authorities, but increasingly also of geographers, who mainly analyze these issues in a spatial context. The article analyzes the development of construction in post-war Poland in three periods: real socialism, the transformation period and the last decade. The subject of the analysis is the number of completed dwellings/flats in total, by location (city, village) and by investors (housing cooperatives, developers, private constructors and others).

Inflow areas of Poles to Germany after the EU enlargement in 2004. The aim of this article is to analyse one of the important components of contemporary Polish-German relationships, i.e. migration of Polish population to Germany. The scale and dynamics of this process have intensified since Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004 and full opening of the German labour market to Polish citizens in 2011. The article focuses on spatial consequences of Polish-German migration seen from the perspective of the immigrant country. Its conclusions are based on unique statistical data and cartographic materials.

The Dilemmas of the Kaliningrad Oblast Today. The Kaliningrad Oblast is a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea neighbouring with the EU countries of Poland and Lithuania. On one hand, the Oblast belongs to the Russian political, economic and defence area, and on the other, it is separated from other parts of the Russian Federation. This specific location affects the nature of the local economy, the dependence on import and a drive towards cooperating with countries abroad. The economic situation of the Kaliningrad Oblast is strictly related to the economic situation of the remaining parts of Russia. Kaliningrad is subject to principles established by the federal centre, and Moscow decides about the most important issues of the region. At the same time, the Oblast makes efforts to provide conditions for social and economic development comparable to the development standards of neighbouring countries. The residents of the Oblast can be characterised by a sense of own identity, their openness to Europe, as well as activeness and entrepreneurship as compared to other Russian citizens. The greatest number of military units in Russia cluster in Kaliningrad Oblast. This potential is continually strengthened with the progressing modernisation of Russian military forces. Small border traffic, initiated in July 21 between the Republic of Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast of the RF, had a major impact on the animation, volume and the dynamics of cross-border relations and the promotion of Poland. In July 2016, the Polish side suspended the project.