The transition to sustainable urban development requires both appropriate city management and local authorities that are aware of the implications posed by new urban sustainability challenges. The article aims to identify the priority policy/practice areas and interventions to solve sustainability challenges in Polish municipalities, as well as the factors that differentiate these priorities. Through an online questionnaire we surveyed 460 Polish municipalities, and conducted a multidimensional assessment concerning how mayors (and their executive teams) prioritise possible policy/practice areas and interventions related to sustainability. Our analysis implies that the mayors (and their executive teams) assign higher priority to policy/practice areas and interventions related to economic and social domains, and slightly lower priority to environmental ones. However, an important finding is that the priority policy/practice areas and interventions do not correspond well to some of the contemporary sustainability challenges in Polish cities. Effectively tackling urban environmental, economic and social problems would require the implementation of new approaches related to smart cities, the circular economy and/or cultural diversity. However, these less traditional policy/practice areas and interventions are quite low on the priority list of Polish mayors and their executive teams. Interestingly mayors and executive teams that prefer more participatory and solidarity-based management approaches are more likely to prioritise less traditional policy/practice areas and interventions to solve urban sustainability challenges in their municipalities.
In the face of the dynamic ageing of local communities, smart cities and smart villages programs should seek to ensure meeting the needs of the elderly and promoting solutions tailored to their computer literacy, digital skills, and perception capabilities. In this context we propose to approach local smart and age-friendly communities initiatives in a way that would provide responses to two contemporary megatrends: digitalization and demographic transition. We assumed that the deployment of such initiatives in local planning and governance depends on at least two conditions: demand for smart everyday products and services represented by older adults and the perspective of the local decision-makers. The paper aims to examine whether the smart city/smart village idea focused on meeting the needs of the elderly and seeking to shape age-friendly local communities and the environment could be implemented in the municipalities in Poland. The analysis of the elderly Poles’ capabilities to absorb the ICT solutions demonstrated that the smart and age-friendly community approach may face implementation difficulties, especially in the oldest groups of the Polish rural population. Results of the quantitative study conducted in 1236 municipalities revealed that local authorities perceive local policy goals, such as pursuing smart and age-friendly development as low priority ones. A citizen-centered approach of village heads and mayors to the local policy is critical for integrating these two priorities of being smart and age-friendly.
The principal goal of this paper is to investigate the views of local government officials on revitalisation priorities in Polish municipalities. To accomplish this, the perception of revitalisation objectives by local government representatives (who, according to Polish regulations, are responsible for revitalisation planning and carrying it out) was examined. A catalogue of revitalisation objectives, which were assessed by the respondents, was drawn up on the basis of a review of research on the conceptualisation and measurement of sustainable revitalisation and social sustainability at the local level. Exploratory factor analysis was the method used in the study. In total, the list of the examined revitalisation objectives includes 26 objectives related to the following revitalisation dimensions: infrastructure, community, economy, environment, space, co-governance, and inclusion. A survey of the executive bodies of 573 municipalities in Poland revealed a discrepancy between the sustainable approach to revitalisation advocated by the researchers and the perception of revitalisation objectives by the local decision makers. The study demonstrated that decision makers ranked objectives related to the physical dimension of revitalisation and selected objectives related to the social dimension of revitalisation and oriented at counteracting social exclusion by far the highest. The proactive objectives, related to the engagement, mobilisation and integration of the inhabitants, improvement of human capital, stimulation of the local economy and residential satisfaction, were viewed as definitely less important. The challenges facing revitalisation in Poland still fail to be perceived holistically by decision makers, which may hinder the building of strong and sustainable communities.
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