Abstract Inter‐municipal cooperation (IMC) is increasingly becoming a tool municipalities use to achieve development goals and increase public service quality. However, in Central and Eastern Europe ...countries, including Poland, such a modus operandi is less common due to administrative and legal considerations. This article analyses one bicycle‐sharing project carried out jointly by 14 municipalities of the Gdańsk‐Gdynia‐Sopot metropolitan area in Poland. Based on a series of in‐depth interviews, the study aimed to consider what builds inter‐municipal cooperation at the local level. During the analysis, it proved that the various actors had different levels of commitment to cooperation based on substantive premises. Positive opinions about cooperation in the project resulted from partner and non‐hierarchical relations, fair and equal treatment without domination towards smaller municipalities. The study showed that in addition to the assumed effects of cooperation, the applied cooperation model allowed many added effects to be achieved, beneficial for all project partners.
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Deprivation and the Rural‐Urban Trap Dymitrow, Mirek; Biegańska, Jadwiga; Grzelak‐Kostulska, Elżbieta
Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie,
February 2018, Volume:
109, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Departing from the idea that cultural mechanisms are capable of allowing for conceptual dichotomies to create oppression, this paper challenges the engrained tradition of using ‘urban/rural’ as ...guiding labels in societal organisation when seen through the prism of deprivation. Two Polish deprivation‐ridden estates – one ‘urban’ and one ‘rural’ – were investigated. Having taken account of the residents’ everyday lives in the socio‐economic, material and discursive dimensions, our findings indicate that the notions of rurality and urbanity imbricate and leapfrog meaningful territories at the local level. Realising the danger of deploying stereotypes as beacons in governance, from this richly contextualised account we draw that many problems today are space‐independent and cannot be attenuated by following development paths reinvented in the name of empirically questionable yet culturally sustained and politically ontologised spatialities. This, then, calls for rethinking both the discursivity and the elusiveness of rural‐urban thinking in the context of deprivation.
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The purpose of study was to find out how electric bikes are perceived in Poland, a country with a high level of motorisation and a low cycling culture. A key question was to investigate whether ...differences in perceptions between traditional (unassisted) and electrically assisted bicycles could bring about greater interest in bicycle transport. The analysis was based on the results of a CAWI survey analysing the perception of the electric bicycle in comparison with the traditional bicycle and the car. Its undoubted advantages are marginalised (only 14% of respondents considered it more practical). The position of the electric bicycle seemed to increase in the opinion of the surveyed only when used by elderly people with poorer fitness, as something that can encourage them to cycle. In general evaluations, it was the traditional bicycle that was seen as better for health. The presented results may serve as a signal that electric bicycles need more promotion in Poland, especially in terms of the benefits of using this mode of transport and the advantages over conventional bikes. The electric bicycle, due to its still low popularity in Poland, may be treated as a certain novelty, which is approached with some distrust and reserve.
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Although it is generally accepted that innovators and early adopters have a particular influence on the uptake of electric bikes, other groups, whose reactions to innovation have not been studied, ...are perhaps wrongly marginalised. Such individuals, often relying on stereotypes, also need to be included in researchers’ scope of interest. Therefore, the aim of the CAWI survey was to determine the attitudes of respondents, both users and non-users of electric bikes, and on this basis to classify by k-means analysis the attitudes towards the e-bike compared to the traditional bicycle and the car. The results obtained show a large variation between the designated classes. What most of them have in common is a strong attachment to the private car, which is typical for the cycling culture of this part of Europe, but the psycho-physical characteristics of the surveyed remain the strongest differentiating factor. Therefore, in the light of the opinions collected, it seems that the group Gadget lovers 1 and 2, whose share was about one-quarter of the total number surveyed, may be the most inclined to change their transport behaviour. This means that the e-bike, as an innovation, can overcome a critical discontinuity stage on the innovation diffusion curve in the Innovation Adaptation Lifecycle (IAL).
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The dynamic process of suburbanisation in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland, causes changes in the scale of the construction activity, mainly in the communes surrounding ...large cities. Although, in Poland, suburbanisation processes were initiated with the system transformation, and the first spatial planning law was adopted only in 1994. In addition, building permits were issued in an unplanned manner, regardless of future consequences. As a result, housing development, despite its high intensity in suburban zones, is dispersed and chaotic. The aim of this study is to juxtapose the construction activity with the guidelines governing this sphere contained in strategic and planning documents, with the example of the suburbs of Toruń. On the basis of the statistical data, and the planning and strategic documents at different levels, it is shown that construction activity, because of its interference in space, is indeed an important element shaping suburban zone development; there is a burning need for the appropriate, i.e., sustainable and long-term, planning of this process. This planning may be boosted by considering the potential development scenarios for the analysed communes belonging to the Toruń suburban area set out in this study.
1989 was a turning point in the socio-economic development in the former Eastern bloc, initiating a systemic transformation that affected the society at large. It also contributed to the ...crystallisation of certain cultural landscapes, hitherto largely illegible due to the inhibition of spatial processes encountered during socialism. In Poland, after a quarter-century of a free market economy, the focus on social problems began to expand to the spatial realm as well. It became apparent that the progressive social polarisation that followed was most prominent in environments striated by a particular landscape type – the former State Agricultural Farm (PGR). Considering PGRs as ‘the epitome of rurality’ subject to ideas informing about the direction of contemporary ‘rural development’ prompts a different way of looking at the problem. In this paper, we investigate the concept of rurality in the discursive tenor of implemented policy and contrast it with contextualised empirical examples. Our findings suggest that an efficient policy should be confronted with the expectations of residents at the local level, and introducing top-down actions usually ends in failure as in the case of post-PGR estates.
The purpose of this research was to explore the realization of the pro-environmental initiative in the Faroe Islands in which tourists were involved as volunteers. The research was aimed at ...understanding how this influences tourists’ perceptions of a destination. We were interested in filling the research gap regarding the importance of tourists’ direct involvement in pro-environmental initiatives in terms of how this experience stimulates their perceptions of a destination image. The quantitative research method was adopted, whereby surveys were conducted among volunteering tourists and regular tourists visiting the Faroe Islands archipelago. The latter group was divided into two subsamples of arriving and departing tourists to understand how their perception changed after the visit. This study challenges the assumptions of the destination image theory, according to which only “accidental” information can affect the organic image of a destination within the mind of a tourist. The study reveals that tourists who tangibly experience a green marketing initiative have a positive opinion about the destination in terms of environmental protection. The organic image itself can be changed through purposeful action on the part of destination managers. We show the importance of the direct involvement of tourists in a volunteering project that is considered valuable in promoting the destination’s environmental image.
Poverty and social deprivation remain some of the biggest concerns in the face of obtaining social sustainability. In this respect, the continuing immense spatial differences between individual ...localities of seemingly similar characteristics have puzzled social scientists for decades. In quest for a better understanding, this article highlights the role of spatial heterogeneity as a factor conducive to the formation of functionally derelict areas, which in turn play a crucial role in the formation of spatial mismatch. Using two case studies from Poland, one from a big city and one from a small village, we explore the relationality between the phenomena of spatial heterogeneity, functional dereliction and spatial mismatch, whose mutual reinforcement seems to lead to a specific kind of deprivation in terms of scale and intensity. Special attention is paid to the role of spatial heterogeneity, which under certain conditions is capable of changing from being a developmental stimulant to becoming a destimulant. We argue that taking greater account of the intricate historical contexts responsible for the resistance of some pressing socio-economic problems is key to breaking the deadlock in the implementation of ineffective sustainability policies .
Historical parks and palace and park complexes deserve special protection for their potential and as the embodiment of national heritage. Most of them are impressive estates that bear witness to ...their times and reflect the dreams and aspirations of their owners. However, because of the entangled history of post-socialist countries including Poland much of the cultural heritage they represent has been irreversibly destroyed. The aim of the study was to assess the concept of culture-led regeneration as applied to palace and park complexes situated in rural areas at risk of marginalisation in a post-socialist country, Poland, using the case of Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship. Its findings show that culture-led regeneration is a valuable instrument for protecting historical palace and park estates, which saves the areas from further devastation and boosts local development.
The paper aims at determining the role played by funds from the European Union in the development of renewable energy sources in Poland in the context of European Union cohesion policy. We have ...derived data from the official European Funds Portal for the size of projects and the financial support obtained from the European Union for the use of a specific renewable energy source. We have analyzed all (928) projects related to hydro- and geothermal energy, biomass (together with biogas), wind, and solar energy implemented in all 16 voivodships (administrative regions of the second order, NUTS 2). It must be mentioned that, in the programming period 2007–2013, the available European Union funds made it possible to obtain the largest support for all investments in renewable energy sources in Poland so far. The total value of the projects co-financed from these funds has amounted to 2 billion euro. Analyzing the value of investments in technologies based on varied renewable energy sources, an evident disproportion in either the size of particular installations or the costs of investments is observed. We demonstrate that large wind farms constitute more than 60% of the total value of investments in renewable sources subsided by the European Union. Small projects have also been subsided, but mainly those related to solar energy. Generally, the wind energy investments are established in northern and western parts of Poland, including Zachodniopomorskie, Pomorskie, Dolnośląskie, and Łódzkie voivodships, while the solar energy investments are found in the eastern and southern parts of Poland.
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