Abstract
The aim of the article is to identify which groups of factors (economic, social, and spatial) significantly determine the condition and development of the sports and recreation infrastructure of the city of Poznan and shape the needs and expectations of its residents. Standardized interviews among 39 service providers and 1159 service recipients made it possible to collect primary data on the presentation of the pace and directions of changes taking place in the sports and recreational facilities of the city, paying special attention to identifying and prioritizing factors determining this development. In order to establish the hierarchy of factors analyzed in the paper and operating within the same research problem for both groups of respondents (service recipients and service providers), the Anderson-Darling test was used. The test results were referenced to the already existing “Sportowy Poznan” (“Sports Poznan”) program. The assessment made by service recipients shows that the factor having the strongest limiting effect on the use of sports and recreation services is the economic factor. In the assessment made by the respondents using their services, the efforts of city authorities to make Poznan sports clubs operate in a professional manner gained the lowest score. The results of the Anderson–Darling test show that the social factor of preparing infrastructure for the residents of the city of Poznan was the most important for the respondents, obtaining a test value of 0.886.
Highlights
The issue of determining the position and importance of sports and recreation in the development of cities and regions is unquestionable
In the opinion of the surveyed service recipients, the strongest limiting impact has an economic factor. This is indicated by the average value (X = 5.475), and by the description of the shape of the distribution and the skewness coefficient contained in Table 1 (SK = −0.321), the result of which means that this factor was of great importance for the majority of surveyed service providers
In the majority of European Union countries, citizens are satisfied with the efforts of local authorities to ensure that local residents have the possibility to engage in sports and recreation activities [14], but Polish respondents believe that local authorities do not do enough in this area
Summary
The issue of determining the position and importance of sports and recreation in the development of cities and regions is unquestionable. An example of such reasoning is the concept of the city as an “entertainment machine” created by T.N. Clark [1]. The author maintains that aesthetic factors currently prevail in the development of cities, which allows for the creation of appropriate conditions for sports and recreation. As an example, supporting his concept, Clark gives the case of Chicago, where the number of employees in the broadly understood sports and recreation (entertainment) sector has long exceeded the number of residents employed in the industry [1].
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