Changes of spatial structure in the inter-urban scale. Evidence from Poland

Keywords: spatial structure, polycentric urban development, urban region, Poland
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

There is only a handful of systematic empirical studies on changes in the degree of polycentric development in intra-urban-scale and even less empirical studies examine the effect of socio-demographic and economic factors on the changes of urban form. For more than 20 years the literature on urban systems has emphasized that the monocentric model in which a principal city offers labor demand and the surrounding territory offers labor supply is fading away. Consequently, urban regions are assumed to evolve from urban systems dominated by a principal center into one spatially coherent and interlinked entity in which no center predominates. The changes of urban structures is a path-dependent process, determined by the local demographic, economic and institutional context and the initial form of the urban-region. Despite the already voluminous literature on polycentric urban development the longitudinal perspective has gained less attention. Taking the above arguments into account the aim of the paper is 1) to investigate the changes of chosen urban regions in Poland in inter-urban scale and different time periods; 2) to explore the effect of the initial form and demographic and economic developments on the heterogeneity in the dynamics of polycentric urban development; Assuming that the information on employment and commuting patterns is commonly used to examine the patterns of polycentric urban development and their changes over time, I use the data from the Central Statistical Office on the number employed in municipalities (gminas) and on the volume of municipality-to-municipality commuting flows in 1974, 1983. 2011 and in 2016.