Abstract
This paper investigates the phenomenon of spatial chaos in Poland resulting from urban sprawl. The phenomenon is particularly visible in the case of suburban small cities which, in contrast to cities in the EU-15 countries with similar populations, are expanding excessively, causing a growth of urbanized areas exceeding several times the growth of their population. Suburbs of these cities increasingly resemble a badly played Tetris game. The selected study area consists of several cities in the Warsaw suburban zone where an increased dynamic of these processes can be observed. The paper presents detailed studies concerning the selected representative small cities. The morphology of urban tissue was studied as a marker of spatial order including: development intensity, street grid, plots parameters, presence of technical infrastructure, and distance from the functional city center. The analyses were performed based on cartographic archives, the data of the Central Statistical Office of Poland, topographic database and Kernel Density Estimation. ArcGIS ESRI and AutoCad software was used to present the study results. The conducted studies intend to diagnose the changes in the spatial layout in the context of the objectives of spatial order and sustainable development, and to define the indicators which should be taken into account in spatial planning documents drawn up for the studied areas.
Highlights
Polish cities, compared to Western European cities, are experiencing specific problems due to their historical conditions
In Poland, cities are classified according to their population size: a small city is up to 20,000 inhabitants, a medium-sized city ranges from 20,000 to
This paper investigates the phenomenon of spatial chaos in Poland resulting from urban sprawl
Summary
Polish cities, compared to Western European cities, are experiencing specific problems due to their historical conditions (lack of an independent Polish state for a period of more than 100 years, numerous warfare activities, socialist economy). In Poland, cities are classified according to their population size: a small city is up to 20,000 inhabitants, a medium-sized city ranges from 20,000 to. According to data from the Central Statistical Office from 2020, there are 944 cities in Poland, 726 of which have a population of less than 20,000 inhabitants and 108 have a population between 20,000 and 40,000 inhabitants. These medium-sized cities are inhabited by approximately 22% of the total urban population, i.e., 13% of Poland’s population. The main challenge for small cities is the outflow of young and educated inhabitants, Land 2020, 9, 461; doi:10.3390/land9110461 www.mdpi.com/journal/land
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