A Tailor-Made Metropolitan Union. Is This a Good Solution of the Metropolitan Governance Problem in Poland?

Tomasz Kaczmarek

doi:10.3389/frsc.2021.724354

Abstract

The scale and dynamics of socio-economic and spatial processes in Poland in the last three decades, including territorial diversification of the pace of economic development and demographic and social changes, as well as processes such as metropolisation and suburbanization, determine new challenges in the management and programming of the development of large cities and their areas functional. The new processes require state and local authorities to take actions in the strictly political, legal and organizational and planning dimensions. In Poland, for almost 20 years, there has been a discussion on the introduction of specific forms of management of metropolitan areas. Failure to adopt systemic solutions at the level of the entire country (lack of political will for metropolitan reform and the creation of metropolitan self-government county) leads to the emergence of numerous grassroots integration initiatives of local governments (metropolitan associations of cities and municipalities). Since 2015, the EU cohesion policy instrument Integrated Territorial Investments has been implemented in functional urban areas. Since 2017, the first multi-task metropolitan union (Metropolitan Union of Upper Silesia—Górnoślasko-Zagłebiowska Metropolis) established by the parliament (special act) and the government (executive regulation) has been operating in Poland. The first—sui generis—statutory metropolis encourages local authorities of other metropolitan areas to adopt their own legislative initiatives (Kraków, Łódz, Tricity: Gdańsk-Gdynia-Sopot). Is the choice of the path for creating individual statutory solutions for each of the Polish metropolises in the form of a metropolitan union appropriate? Does diferrentia specifica for various metropolitan areas seem to be the most justified at the moment, taking into account the political conditions and the bottom-up and top-down approach to metropolitan governance in Poland? The article presents the complex path to solving the issue of management in Polish metropolitan areas and assesses the legitimacy of a solution based on a model tailored to each metropolis, introduced by a separate metropolitan act.

Highlights

The scale and dynamics of socio-economic and spatial processes, including territorial diversification of the pace of economic development and demographic changes, as well as processes such as globalization and metropolisation, pose new challenges for the management and programming of the development of large cities and their functional areas
The aim of this paper is to present the premises and the degree of development of integrated management forms in metropolitan areas in Poland and to propose an institutional solution in the form of a metropolitan union
Despite the creation of organizational and financial instruments supporting the cooperation of self-governments in functional areas (Integrated Territorial Investments), there is a continued need for legislative changes which would offer metropolitan areas a special status, sources of income and remit

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The scale and dynamics of socio-economic and spatial processes, including territorial diversification of the pace of economic development and demographic changes, as well as processes such as globalization and metropolisation, pose new challenges for the management and programming of the development of large cities and their functional areas. Works on several draft bills introducing new forms of the cooperation of self-government units have been conducted, especially concerning functional areas of large cities Their purpose was to achieve socio-economic and spatial cohesion and to create the basis for the effective and integrated management of metropolitan areas. In the face of new development problems, the cooperation aiming at their solution starts much earlier before the ITI instrument appears In these functional areas in which local government units have cooperated for years, the adaptation process to the EU’s new territorial policy is generally easier. An optimistic diagnosis may be such that even an instrumental approach to ITI can be a stable impulse for further cooperation between local governments in metropolitan areas

A SOLUTION TO THE METROPOLITAN QUESTION—DISCUSSION

Findings

CONCLUDING REMARKS