How metropolitan can you go? Citizenship in Polish city-regions

ABSTRACT

This article deals with questions of metropolitan citizenship and political orientations in Polish city regions. The study is based on three case studies of the Gdańsk, Wrocław, and Poznań metropolitan areas. The description of their institutional arrangements and socioeconomic conditions is followed by an analysis of empirical data sets deriving from face-to-face surveys conducted with the inhabitants of core cities and suburban zones. The results are confronted with three main hypotheses regarding fragmentation and structure of the city-region, differences between citizens of core city and suburban areas, and individual-level variables (age, education, and so on). The main finding of the study is that city-regionalism understood as mobility, interest in supralocal public affairs, and autoidentification is relatively well developed in Polish regions, while public support for politico-administrative city-regionalism based on institutional solutions is less common.

Notes

1. We refer here to the distinction of two governance types by Hooghe and Marks (2003). Type I is a conventional politico-administrative system, in which territory is divided into a limited number of jurisdictions with clearly subscribed tasks. Type II reflects a situation where territory is covered with numerous (and fluctuating in number) single-purpose jurisdictions with overlapping memberships.

2. By region, we mean an area equipped with a political apparatus, governed by its inhabitants (Latin rego meaningto govern).

3. NUTS and LAU: Territorial units used in European Union for statistical reasons. There are three levels of NUTS (nomenclature de unites territoriales statistique); and two of LAU (local administrative units).

4. Unfortunately the elaboration by the Union of Polish Metropolises (UMP) gives no precise methodological note on the research, except that it was conducted among the inhabitants of the core cities and suburbs.

5. We use the two terms city-regional and metropolitan synonymously.

6. Head of the regional self-government in Poland.

7. Gdańsk, Wrocław: shopping, culture and administrative services. Poznań: shopping, culture, entertainment, business, leisure.

8. In this context we use recreation as a general term for such activities as hiking, cycling, picnicking, visiting tourist attractions, dining in restaurants, and so on. Suburban areas are often used for outdoor activities by residents of core cities and many also have second houses there.

9. Both terms were used in the questionnaire. In case of Poznań, suburban respondents who claimed stronger identification with the core city than with their own municipality were also treated as having stronger identification with the whole metropolitan area.

10. Since 2002, mayors in Poland are directly elected by the citizens.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marta Lackowska

Marta Lackowska is Assistant Professor at the University of Warsaw, Department of Local Develop- ment and Policy. Her research interests include metropolitan governance, intermunicipal cooperation, territorial identification, Europeanization, urban politics and policies, rescaling, internationalization of local policies, and local policies of adaptation to change. She has published in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, European Urban and Regional Studies, and Lex Localis.

Łukasz Mikuła

Łukasz Mikuła is Assistant Professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. He has two master’s degrees in spatial management (2005) and law (2007) and a PhD in human geography with a doctoral thesis on metropolitan governance in Poland (2009). His main research areas are spatial planning, local government, and territorial management. He is the author of strategy reports and development plans for metropolitan areas in Poland. Since 2010 he has been the chairman of the Urban Planning Committee of Poznań City Council.