Sustainable Economic Development and Cultural Landscapes: Some US-Poland Comparisons and Connections, with Global Context

Abstract

AbstractThis paper discusses some US-Poland comparisons (with global context), emphasizing energy and environmental problems. The paper builds on prior research by Saskia Sassen and others, including Jozef Hernik, and also interprets original site-specific empirical research by us about Poland and the US. This paper proceeds from the following ideas. (1) Urbanization is a major factor in globalization. (2) Urbanization and globalization in their main current forms damage the environment, including rural environments, tend to marginalize and subordinate rural compared to urban development, and are inconsistent with sustainable development. (3) Sustainable development is a defensible concept/value. (4) Economic and environmental policy must address problems of energy policy to align itself with sustainable development. (5) “Cultural landscapes” initiatives that are explicit in Europe have analogues in the US; whether in Europe or the US, cultural landscape initiatives should show themselves to be consistent with sustainable development. (6) Cultural landscape initiatives in Europe and their US analogues must be subjected to critical examination that takes account of both economic development issues and environmental/energy issues, and contributes to reconciliation with sustainable development. In this paper, we analyze in a comparative discussion selected areas in Poland (Małopolska) and the USA (Oklahoma). We use prior research by Józef Hernik about the importance of economic development for protection and improvement of rural or quasi-rural cultural landscapes not far from Krakow, Malopolska, in Poland, particularly the still quasi-rural setting of the municipality of Miechow. This research by Hernik is supplemented by field work and information gathered by Sankowski, Harris, and Hernik, particularly about Pawhuska, (Osage County), Oklahoma, not far from Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the US. Two other sites in Malopolska and Oklahoma are also discussed much more briefly. Most generally, we aim to put the comparison of US and Poland sites in the context of certain basic conflicts about energy and environments within current globalization.KeywordsSustainable developmentCultureLandscapesEnergyEnvironmentGlobalization