Urban Sprawl in the Context of Cracow City Limit

Abstract

Urban sprawl is one of the biggest problems of the contemporary spatial planning. Since the 20th century there has been discussions amongst theoreticians and practitioners, devoted to delimitation of urban functional areas, agglomerations, or metropolises. The example of Cracow demonstrates that the attention of researchers should be also directed to the accuracy of city limits. A comparative analysis of the functional and spatial structure of Cracow and of its northern suburbs demonstrated that the rural areas examined exhibit a much higher degree of urbanity than – for example – a considerable part of Nowa Huta, which was incorporated to the city in 1951. Building permit decisions issued in Cracow in the period 2014-2016 regarding residential buildings illustrate uniform development, with the exclusion of the western wedge of green areas and the eastern industrial areas. Multi-family investments are located within the radius of ca. 6 km from the Main Market Square. One-family buildings are developed within the ring between the 6th and 10th km. This ring goes beyond the administrative limits of the city only towards the north (communes of Zielonki, Wielka Wieś, and Michałowice), which entails a question regarding the rationality of the city limits of today. Shortage of potable water hindered the development of northern outskirts of Cracow in the mid-20th century. The launch of a new water main in 1974 overcame this development obstacle. Over subsequent decades the priority of protection of soils of a high valuation class against land development grew weaker. After the economic transformation, due the development of local governments the policy relating to the areas discussed was directed towards liberal transformations of arable lands into para-urban structure. New residents live an urban lifestyle, taking advantage of the social infrastructure and services offered by the city. The absurd northern city limit, present there for nearly three decades now, has not interrupted the natural process of the city development, but it has prevented a rational spatial policy consistent with the idea of balancing development.