The paper focuses on the institutional solutions adopted in various Polish metropolitan regions due to the requirement to create structures facilitating the operation of Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI) in the 2014-2020 EU financial perspective. This phenomenon is analysed in the light of the process of the launching and functioning of metropolitan cooperation and of the concept of Europeanization. Our considerations are based on the assumption that past attempts to institutionalize metropolitan cooperation influence the process of the creation and functioning of ITI cooperation. Our research has confirmed this proposition. We found various reactions to the top-down incentive in all of the investigated metropolitan regions. In general four main types of situation are identified depending on past metropolitan cooperation and its relation to the ITI institutions. On the national level an interesting "double top-down" pressure was discovered, as the EU guidelines have been made much stricter by the Polish government, turning an incentive for local actors into a must. Finally, Integrated Territorial Investment has enlivened metropolitan governance in Poland, which is interesting to follow in the future, especially as it has no connection to other national regulations proposed for metropolitan regions.

Abstarct Islands, especially small ones, are commonly studied as microcosms of natural and social processes. In this article, La Digue island (10 km2) in the Seychelles archipelago was treated as such. An attempt was made to analyse the significance of the natural environment for the features of spatial development under conditions of intense globalisation. For this purpose, functional micro-regions were determined, along with their genesis and evolution. Spatial dynamics and individual features of space are presented as chorème (Brunet 1986). The analysis was based on data from a library query and field observation and field studies in July 2018. Twelve functional regions were determined. Analysis of the distribution and evolution of their functions reveals a high dependence on natural environmental features, especially topography, and thus confirms (at the scale in question) a geographical determinism.

In this article, we seek to analyse and compare the modalities of suburban governance in Polish and Lithuanian municipalities looking at the territorial development trends typical for the Central Eastern Europe region. The theoretical elaborations on suburban governance are evolving towards the analysis of constellations of diverse actors, institutions and processes that define the politics and design of suburban spaces. We assume that there are similarities and differences in suburban governance in the analysed localities compared to Western countries in terms of networks, actors and territorialisation of local politics. Despite both suburban municipalities showing similarities in suburban development patterns (growing middle-class population, economic capital accumulation, suburban sprawl and interconnectedness with the metropolitan zone), the analysis reveals the main differences in terms of composition and importance of horizontal and vertical networks, the role of local stakeholders and collective action. The article concludes that both localities represent a specific approach to suburban governance marked by low stakeholders’ participation, dependence on the top down vertical state and regional networks and the creation of urban-suburban policies within metropolitan areas.

No abstract

No abstract

This article deals with social problems experienced by people who exclude certain groups of products from their everyday diet. These exclusions stem from various reasons and involve a range of everyday material and social practices. They evoke particular kinds of social interactions within the household, among hosts and guests, and also induce different reflexive interpretations of the participants. The aim of this paper is to explore the problem of how elimination diets are practised and explained on an everyday basis, and to describe particular strategies and techniques undertaken by food excluders in shops, in their kitchens, and at the table. The empirical basis for the qualitative investigation is a set of eight participant observations combined with in-depth interviews conducted with urban residents with higher education living in northern Poland.

No abstract

No abstract