Significance of Small Towns in the Process of Urbanisation of the Wielkopolska Region (Poland)

Abstract

A study is made of the significance of small towns in the process of urbanisation of Wielkopolska, a region situated in the western part of Poland. The analysis is conducted in both, a dynamic and a static approach, and covers two aspects of urbanisation: demographic and spatial. The basic period examined embraces the years 2000-2015. What is visible in the set of Wielkopolska towns is the depopulation of its core city, Poznań, accompanied by an increase in the population of small units located in its suburban zone. There is an upward tendency in the population number also in selected size classes of small Wielkopolska towns, which demonstrates that in this case we cannot speak of a crisis of small towns since they play an important role in the process of urbanisation of the region. In the recent years, increasingly important in this process, especially at the local level, has been the appearance of new towns set up as a result of the restitution of municipal rights.

Formal urbanisation in East-Central Europe

“…), and a closer look at the practices of postsocialist countries followed. Our analysis showed that in this region it was still -or again -becoming a noteworthy practice, with varying degrees of intensity, to elevate some constitutionally equal municipalities to a higher administrative level by individual and unquestionable decisions of central power (Konecka-Szydłowska, B. 2016;Veress, N.Cs.…”

Using Indicators to Evaluate Cultural Heritage and the Quality of Life in Small and Medium-Sized Towns: The Study of 10 Towns from the Polish-German Borderland

“…From the large number of literature sources, we extracted 22 studies focusing on the quality of life [16][17][18][19][20][21][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76], (see Table A1 in Appendix A). Since the empirical part of our research was aimed at towns located in the transborder area, we focused in particular on studies that are nationally recognized as important for Polish and German urban policy and research.…”

Dynamic Villages in the Hinterland of a Polycentric Region: Case Study of the Górnośląsko-Zagłębiowska Metropolis in Poland

“…In the countries of Western Europe, functional and spatial transformations of the suburban area began many decades ago, but in the Central and Eastern part, these processes began much later and are related to the systemic transformation [1]. However, it seems that at present, trends are similar all over Europe, and suburban areas are subject to intensive spatial transformations [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10], strong economic pressure [11][12][13][14] and landscape [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. The areas near metropolitan centres, where migrations exert strong pressure, are the most transformed in Europe [24,25].…”