Ośrodki wojewódzkie w Polsce – ujęcie alternatywne. Część 1

Date of release of the digital version under CC-BY-SA licence: August 2024

Voivodship centres in Poland – an alternative approach Part 1

This monograph, the first in the series “Urban Research”, highlights results of studies on various aspects of the functioning and status of voivodship (province) centres, i.e., cities which are sites of voivodship self-government and its organs [voivodship parliaments, self-government authorities, and the voivodes (province governors) who are local representatives of state administration charged with supervising the integrated state administration of the voivodship]. In addition, those cities which house at least one of the self-government organs are considered the voivodship centres. The self-government authorities and the voivodes are supported by or associated with numerous other bodies: state institutions, non-governmental organisations and non-public entities providing public services. Taken together, they constitute the voivodship centre administration, an important component of the centre’s economic base contributing to its political standing and attractiveness for investors and potential residents.

The studies presented have focussed on 18 (chapters 1-3) or 13 (chapters 2 and 5) cities. Two chapters disregard the smallest voivodship capitals which have not formed agglomerations and failed to develop distinct suburban zones, and thus have not become metropolitan areas. Individual chapters divide the cities studied into 3 groups, based on various indicators of city functioning and standing.

Chapter 1 (Voivodship centres in the settlement system of Poland), is an introduction to the first two parts of the monograph. Marek Dutkowski and Tadeusz Bocheński address the specificity of the set of voivodship centres analysed, its internal diversity and consequences of this diversity for individual voivodships. The cities studied are classified based on their population size and its share in the population of the voivodship.

The next three chapters concern transport issues, approached in a manner differing from that usually followed. The transport problems are analysed in their external (accessibility and transport links) and internal (urban and agglomeration-wide transport) contexts.

and distances between metropolitan areas in Poland in 2011 and 2016), Jacek Rudewicz discusses results obtained when applying a method, alternative with respect to those commonly used, to measure distances and duration of road transport between 13 voivodship centres which have formed metropolitan areas. The materials were collected in 2011 and 2016 from a publicly available mapping portal using real-time data from several hundred thousands GPS car navigation devices and the AutoMap technology. Data were collected at road system nodes situated at intersections of the inter-city and urban transport networks. The study addresses the following questions: Which of the cities studied is the most “peripheral” in terms of the road transport? How did the duration of transit between those cities change? How can the “metameric” measurement be useful in estimating the transit duration and distance? The results showed the duration and speed of transit between the road nodes analysed to have improved. The geographic peripherality index, calculated based on the results, allowed to single out cities (metropolitan areas) with the longest averaged duration of transit “from” and “to” the remaining cities studied. The methodology used, coupled with upgraded programming and real-time reporting tools, may be treated as an alternative to models constructed from transport speed parameters for individual sections of the road network. The average duration of transit between the cities studied allowed to divide them into 3 peripherality groups: high (Białystok, Rzeszów, Szczecin), moderate (Gdańsk, Kraków, Lublin), and low (Bydgoszcz, Katowice, Łódź, Poznań, Toruń, Warszawa, Wrocław).

Chapter 3 (Voivodship centres in Poland as transport nodes) by Tadeusz Bocheński evaluates the transport node function of the Polish voivodship centres. A centre’s or an agglomeration’s role as both domestic and international transport node is one of the metropolisation criteria. The analysis focuses on mass transit connections and addresses links of the voivodship capitals with networks of major roads and railroads as well as with airports and marine harbours. Thus, the accessibility level of a centre, as evaluated based on the type and quality of transport infrastructure, is assessed. Mass transit (buses, trains, airplanes) connections between the voivodship centres in Poland and between the centres and 30 selected cities abroad (capitals of the neighbouring countries and their administrative regions, Brussels as the capital of the European Union, as well as Vienna and Budapest) are explored using a dedicated transport connection index based on the number of connections between the centres. In addition, the modal structure of connections between the voivodship capitals is analysed. The transport connection index was based on a connection’s functioning, regardless of the number of connections per day. Then, the cities were grouped by the magnitude of the index. The analysis show Warszawa to perform best with regard to the transport connection index, also with respect to all the partial indices. Warszawa differs clearly from the remaining centres, which indirectly stems from its being the country’s capital. The analysis showed Warszawa to be followed by Wrocław and Gdańsk. The intermediate group contains Kraków, Katowice, Poznań, Rzeszów, Łódź, Bydgoszcz, Lublin and Szczecin. The group of centres with the poorest transport connection performance, both in terms of the partial indices and the overall index, contains Olsztyn, Gorzów Wielkopolski, Białystok and Kielce. The lowindicator group features also Opole, Zielona Góra and Toruń.

Chapter 4 (Urban transport in voivodship centres in Poland), also by Tadeusz Bocheński, is an attempt to evaluate and compare the cities studied in terms of the status of their local mass transport. Attention was paid to the functioning of various means of urban transport in individual cities, a system of change nodes with “park and ride” parking lots as well as the development of the city bicycle-based transport infrastructure. Infrastructural and organisational underpinnings of urban transport are analysed, with a reference to agglomeration- wide connections. The level of infrastructural and pricing integration of the urban and agglomeration-wide transport is addressed as well. To this end, the author has applied an urban transport status index he developed. In addition, he highlights the major challenges the cities studied face with regard to their urban and agglomeration-wide transport. The index allowed to divide the cities studied into three groups. The group with the best urban transport status, much better than that in other cities, consists of Warszawa and Wrocław. The intermediate urban transport status includes Gdańsk, Kraków, Opole, Poznań, Szczecin, Katowice, Toruń and Rzeszów. The poorest status is seen in Olsztyn, preceded slightly by Gorzów Wielkopolski and Zielona Góra.

The analysis of voivodship centres should not disregard their surroundings. Particularly important for the development of modern cities is the process of suburbanisation. Issues associated with the process are widely treated in the scientific literature, both worldwide and in Poland. However, economic consequences of the process for Polish cities have received little attention so far. In his contribution to filling this gap, Jan Smutek discusses Financial consequences of suburbanisation in voivodship capitals in Poland (Chapter 5). Suburbanisation greatly affects the contemporary spatial processes in Poland. While suburbanisation is common, it is concentrated in a relatively low number of municipalities. The chapter reviews relationships between suburbanisation and municipal finances. Generally, the status of a suburban municipality’s finances in Poland is improving because of the influx of new residents and businesses. However, the improvement concerns a small percentage of municipalities rather than the entire metropolitan area. The author demonstrates also that the affluence of numerous suburban municipalities is not associated with suburbanisation, but has other causes, e.g., the presence of a military training centre or a coal mine. According to traditional thinking, the metropolitan hubs are considered to be adversely affected by suburbanisation. There has been, however, no evidence for a decline in the income of the Polish metropolitan cities, although some studies point to problems of “free-riding” between suburban municipalities and the metropolis. Moreover, it is difficult to assess any coupling between municipal finances and socio-economic phenomena such as suburbanisation, since a response to suburbanisation in a local budget may be highly complex.

Translated by Tertesa Radziejewska