ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to identify the existing possibilities for classifying territorial units, and to make a comparative assessment of their applicability in geographical research. The empirical sample constitutes three functional classifications of small towns in Poland. They differ in terms of basic formal assumptions and substantive scope, and allowed for the identification of the impact of these aspects on empirical results. The most balanced representation of types occurs in the mixed classification. However, their results are also relatively difficult to interpret qualitatively. Additionally, the effect of the modifiable areal units problem (MAUP) is identified as exceptionally strong as well.

Competitiveness is now considered one of the basic economic mechanisms. The phenomenon, which is originally associated with enterprises, has evolved beyond the initial research framework for many years. Currently, the competitiveness of regions or cities is considered a natural law of the modern economy. This phenomenon is primarily compared to the largest cities in terms of urban competitiveness. Competitiveness rankings identify the competitive position of capital cities, metropolises or global cities. It is less common for the scope of research to focus on the competitiveness of medium-sized and small towns. These entities also play a socioeconomic role in the local and regional systems, which should be considered in the context of competitiveness. The purpose of this study is to assess the level of general competitiveness of small towns. The territorial scope covered 112 small towns in Poland. The time scope of the research included three research periods: 2004-2006, 2011-2013 and 2017-2019. To achieve the research objective, an approach was proposed that is based on the constructed Local Competitiveness Index (LCI). The results presented in this article provide a general approach to small towns’ competitiveness. It aims to identify the types of competitiveness of small towns based on sub-competitiveness scores. Based on the degree of integration of the social, economic and environmental aspects of competitiveness, eight types of competitiveness of small towns were identified. The results of the study indicated an improvement in the competitiveness of small towns and an increase in their integration. During the first adopted research period (2004–2006), there was a clear predominance of small towns in types representing partial or complete non-integration. In small urban centers, low integration was observed, regardless of their location in a particular part of the country. Between the years 2011–2013 and 2017–2019, favorable shifts were observed towards the types of partially integrated competitiveness (Types II, III, and IV) and integrated competitiveness (Type I).

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into healthcare presents transformative opportunities, but patient perspectives, particularly from digitally excluded populations, remain underexplored. This study aimed to analyze the awareness, acceptance and concerns regarding the use of AI in healthcare among primary care patients in rural and small-town regions of Poland. This is characteristic of the country, as over 60% of its population lives in such regions. It also sought to identify the demographic and psychosocial determinants of trust in AI. A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a paper questionnaire distributed to 545 adult patients in three primary care facilities in towns with populations below 20,000. Demographics, digital literacy, and attitudes towards AI were assessed. Statistical analyses included non-parametric tests and ordinal logistic regression. Most of the respondents expressed neutrality (43%) or a negative (31%) attitudes toward AI. Only 12.7% had direct experience with AI, and full trust in AI-assisted diagnoses was low (5.9%). Education was the strongest predictor of a positive AI attitude (P < 0.001); age was also significant (P = 0.04), while gender and place of residence were not. Most patients (86%) emphasized the importance of medical staff support.Patients in areas of low digital literacy approach AI with cautious optimism, valuing its potential but requiring human oversight. To foster an equitable adoption of AI, communication and education efforts must address patient concerns and expectations.

Background/Objectives: In this study, we aimed to validate and psychometrically evaluate a tool for examining sleep disorders in Polish children. Methods: This study involved a randomly selected sample of 348 children aged 6 to 15 years, sourced from preschools, primary schools, and secondary schools in a city with a population exceeding 100,000, in addition to two smaller towns in Poland. Parents were asked to complete the Sleep Disorders Scale for Children (SDSC) in conjunction with a sociodemographic survey. The tool’s reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha (α), and correlations among various domains were evaluated using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (Rs). Results: The study demonstrated excellent internal consistency for the SDSC, with a Cronbach’s α value of 0.9. The individual subscales also exhibited acceptable reliability values, ranging from 0.69 to 0.83. Considering T-scores over 70 as indicative of a problem, we identified at least one sleep disorder in 65 participants (18.68%). The most common issues included sleep hyperhidrosis (SHY; 7.47%), disorders of excessive somnolence (DOES; 7.18%), and sleep–wake transition disorders (SWTDs; 5.75%). Students in secondary education were more likely to experience disorders of initiating and maintaining sleep (DIMS), disorders of arousal (DA), and DOES. Conclusions: Based on our findings, the Polish version of the SDSC may be considered a reliable and effective tool for assessing sleep disturbances in school-age children and adolescents.

The effort to reduce the intensity of car traffic in city centres is among the core objectives of sustainable development. One important means of achieving this aim is the creation of Park-and-Ride facilities. This article examines the challenges encountered during the planning and construction of a Park-and-Ride designed to ease the transport burden of a larger city, yet situated on the edge of a small historic town in Poland. Using a research-through-design method, the study identifies the project’s challenges. The article highlights the overlooked issue of locating Park-and-Ride schemes within sensitive contexts. The accompanying interventions enabled the realisation of an undertaking, originally conceived as a strictly engineering investment fulfilling global policy objectives, but ultimately adapted to manage local priorities. The pursuit of sustainable transport development thus became an opportunity to foreground the dual role of transport spaces: both as organisers of movement and as educators in conveying cultural meaning. The project serves as an example of how local problems may be addressed through investments framed as advancing global political goals. The Park-and-Ride in Stary Sącz also provides material evidence of the significance of decisions made by local authorities to resolve local challenges while contributing to global goals.

The aim of this study was to analyze long-term trends and spatial variability of PM10 concentrations in Poland during the period 2019–2024, based on data from the European Air Quality Monitoring System (EAQ). The analysis covered nine locations representing three types of areas: large agglomerations (Warsaw, Kraków, Katowice), medium-sized cities (Wrocław, Poznań), and spa towns (Ciechocinek, Lądek-Zdrój, Świnoujście). An integrated statistical approach was applied, including Welch’s ANOVA, Linear Mixed Models (LMM), Generalized Additive Models (GAM), and Quantile Regression (FDR–BH). Mean PM10 concentrations in the analyzed period ranged from 17.43 µg/m3 in Świnoujście to 31.16 µg/m3 in Kraków, with 30.17 µg/m3 in Katowice and 27.90 µg/m3 in Warsaw. The largest differences between locations were observed during smog episodes —the 90th percentile values reached 56.61 µg/m3 in Kraków, 49.99 µg/m3 in Katowice, and 29.19 µg/m3 in Świnoujście. In most locations, a downward trend in PM10 levels was recorded over time; however, regional differences persist. The GAMs confirmed strong seasonality (winter maximum, summer minimum), while quantile regression indicated that the highest risk of smog episodes occurs in southern Poland. The novelty of this study lies in the integration of three complementary modeling approaches (LMM, GAM, and Quantile Regression) in the analysis of the spatio-temporal variability of PM10, as well as in the innovative comparison-unique in the literature-of agglomerations, medium-sized cities, and spa towns in Poland based on a uniform, reference EAQ dataset. This approach made it possible to reveal persistent environmental disparities of significant relevance to the national anti-smog policy and enables a more realistic assessment of environmental risk within the European research context.

Small towns of up to 20 thousand inhabitants account for roughly 80% of towns in Poland. One can distinguish among them the ones that have achieved a success in terms of socio-economic development. They are characterized by a positive course of the socio-economic processes, shaping high level and quality of life of the residents and stimulating the development of the spatial structure, featuring the above-average achievements against the background of the population of towns in Poland. The purposes of this report are to identify and characterize these towns of success and to attempt to cognize the opinions of their administrative authorities on the subject of selected development challenges, faced by them in the perspective of more than a dozen years to come. A set of diagnostic features was used to identify the success towns. On the other hand, the establishment of the opinions, concerning the development challenges, was performed on the basis of a questionnaire, addressed at the representatives of urban authorities. The study has shown that the successful centers concentrate in the vicinities of a couple of regional capitals. The output from the questionnaire-based survey generally indicates the optimism of the representatives of the analyzed towns, featuring a positive opinion as to the direction of the proposed socio-economic and environmental trends and a positive opinion on the potential influence thereof on the town.

Air quality significantly influences the development of tourism functions, especially in spa towns. As indicated by the presented research results, there is still a research gap concerning the environment’s impact on tourism, considering the role of air quality in this process. The issue of air pollution and its consequences for tourism development are particularly significant, becoming a key factor in deciding on destination choice and length of stay in spa and tourist resorts. One of the main motivations for traveling is to escape the ordinary environment and find a place with a pleasant location where one can unwind from stress and psychological pressure. Given these initial assumptions, this theoretical-empirical publication aims to examine the influence of selected factors (here: air quality) on decisions regarding choice of stay. It is worth noting that due to volume constraints of the publication, the research and analysis were limited to spa towns in Poland, where measurements of benzo(a)pyrene pollution concentrations are conducted. Importantly, on one hand, this limitation did not affect the quality of the research and the conclusions drawn from it; on the other hand, the results and ensuing conclusions serve as material for further research expansion, for example, to include all tourist and spa resorts in Poland.

Abstract In recent years, there has been a growing scholarly interest in the cultural and political significance of joyful, positive and nostalgic memories and forms of remembrance. Without downplaying the role of trauma and oppression in the mnemonic makeup of contemporary societies, memory scholars have increasingly pointed to the co-existence, or parallel existence, of brighter recollections of the past, and to their role in bringing about hope and social mobilization (Katriel &amp; Reading 2015; Keightley &amp; Pickering 2012; Rigney 2018; Sindbæk Andersen &amp; Ortner 2019). Engaging with these streams of thought, my article will offer a closer look at the interplay between memories of friendship and mutual care, and remembrance as a form of caring (Till 2012), which enables the continuation and/or formation of solidaric bonds, practices, and ideas. Empirically, the article departs from Nowa Huta, a district in Kraków, which was founded in 1949 as the “first socialist town in Poland”, and which eventually, in the 1980 s, turned into one of the main bastions of the oppositional Solidarity movement. After 1989, Nowa Huta became fertile ground for memory work of different kinds: commemorations, exhibitions, nostalgic venues and paraphernalia, along with numerous heated debates on the matter of remembrance. While divisive in the public sphere, memory has simultaneously served as a creative and cohesive force for many of the local communities, of different orientation, which put their mark on contemporary Nowa Huta. Drawing on ethnographic field work, my article will illustrate the role of memory in sustaining care and friendship within a few of these communities. It will also show the wider entanglements of these communal memories; how they relate and sometimes serve as corrections to diverging representations of the past and how they move from their ‘original’ confines to a younger generation of locally involved inhabitants in Nowa Huta. In that way, they function as a kind of springboard, a resource, for continuous place-based caring and solidaric action within and for the neighborhood.

The aim of this study is to identify relationships between population aging in small towns and the level of their economic competitiveness. These analyses are a continuation of research on the economic competitiveness of small town in Poland. The territorial scope comprised 110 small towns, while the timeframe covered the years 2004–2006, 2011–2013, 2017–2019, and 2020–2021. In this paper, the Perkal method was applied to construct a synthetic measure for the progression of the population aging process in the case of residents of small towns. In turn, the typology method was used to identify types of dependencies between the level of economic competitiveness and the degree of population aging for residents of small towns. In view of the advanced aging of inhabitants in the analyzed towns within the framework of the distinguished types, in the most recent investigated periods, most small towns were assigned to two types. They were the types comprising economically competitive towns, but with aging populations, and economically uncompetitive and aging towns, respectively.

Abstract A critical component of climate change mitigation policy is to develop a sense of responsibility for climate change in children and young people. This study assesses the level of awareness among young people in small towns regarding climate change. The study also explores whether local climate change programmes involve urban communities in educational activities related to climate change and if these programmes have a real impact on the climate change awareness of young people. The research reports on a survey questionnaire of 195 young people in three types of secondary schools in the small town of Staszów, Poland. Findings suggest that there is no correlation between the type of school and the level of climate change awareness. Additionally, the study found that young people have a high level of awareness regarding local environmental activities.

Different faces of urbanity of new towns in Poland and Slovakia

Purpose:The study aims to determine the level of investment attractiveness of small towns in Poland in terms of labour resources.Design/Methodology/Approach: The study spanned over period 2017-2019, and relied on the Hellwig method which allowed to structure a synthetic metric for small towns and order them linearly.The research covered 705 small towns in Poland.Quantitative data retrieved from the Local Data Bank of the Central Statistical Office was used in structuring the metric.Findings: It was proved that from the perspective of investors small towns in Poland are diverse areas in terms of labour resources and the size of small urban centres has no influence on their attractiveness.Spatial analysis conducted as part of the research showed, i.a., that the most attractive labour resources were found in small towns in the central part of the country (the Wielkopolskie and Mazowieckie voivodships).Practical Implications: The above studies may provide some guidance for local governments and public aid managers in Poland.This allows to draw an important conclusion on future measures to be taken in small towns.If they are supposed to fully perform their key functions, a dedicated development policy for the smallest Polish towns must be put in place.This is of particular importance in view of the situation of small towns in Eastern Poland and of small towns located far away from large cities.Originality/Value: The results of the analysis and theoretical considerations in the article complement previous research in the field of small towns.

Evaluation of the safety policy of seaside tourist and spa towns in Poland

Motives: In urban governance processes involving local communities, green infrastructure (GI) is an important proxy for the local quality of life. In this paper, the authors focus on GI in small and medium-sized Polish towns, which attracts much less research interest than that in large cities. The study covered 97 towns, and it included desk research and a questionnaire survey of local authorities and NGOs.Aim: The aim of the study was to determine whether residents are involved in the management of urban GI, whether local authorities and communities have identified the need to develop new GI, and whether they are taking appropriate measures to maintain and preserve the existing GI resources. Another objective was to examine the priority of existing GI resources in governance policies.Results: The levels of citizen participation and GI management in small and medium-sized towns were ranked. The general observation is that green spaces are not an effective participation tool in small towns. The situation has gradually improved in medium-sized cities and towns within metropolitan regions, but this does not seem to be a determining factor.

Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is a decision-making tool that is often used in the area of urban planning. At the same time, many other data sources with great utility potential, such as Big Data, can be identified. The aim of the paper is to present the possibility of using mobile Big Data collections with data from Polish SDI, for the purposes of local spatial planning on the example of the tourist town, Mikolajki in Poland. The publication also focuses on assessing the quality of data, as well as the decision-making process supported by these sources. The draft of the local spatial development plan was verified based on integrated data sources. The results showed that the visualization of Big Data as a heat map may be used in urban tasks and as the thematic layer integrated with vector and raster data sets from the SDI in the geographic information system software. The contribution is the practical example how information about users of mobile devices and some information from behavioral profiles may be analyzed for the purposes of verifying planned land use.

The article critically examines the implementation and impact of the Digital Urban Waste Tracking System (DUWTS), a ‘smart’ waste management technology deployed in several towns in Poland to enhance urban waste segregation practices. By integrating critical discard studies with critical data studies, the article introduces the concept of ‘waste data reflectivity’ to investigate how data representation in DUWTS influences perceptions and responsibilities within waste management. The study highlights how DUWTS employs advanced dataveillance technologies to monitor waste disposal, creating distorted reflections that obscure the complexities of municipal waste management. These distortions are analyzed through the metaphorical lenses of three mirrors – concave, kaleidoscopic, and ceiling – which reveal the illusory effects on municipalities, waste disposal companies, and residents. Additionally, the article discusses how DUWTS exemplifies ‘technologies of (un)knowing’, which systematically obscure or misrepresent waste management issues, leading to the marginalization of true responsibilities and challenges. The findings demonstrate that while DUWTS represents a technological advancement, it can also perpetuate the existing challenges in waste management by masking the true nature of waste issues and obscuring the responsibilities of different stakeholders. The article concludes by emphasizing the socio-technological consequences of such systems and the importance of a critical analysis in evaluating the effectiveness and ethics of data-driven waste management technologies.

Purpose:The research aimed to assess the financial situation of small-town households relative to those in larger cities Design/Methodology/Approach: The study drew on unpublished microdata from the Household Budget Surveys (HBS) conducted between 2015 and 2022 by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) in Warsaw, Poland.Representative samples included approximately 30,000 households each year.Urban households were categorized by the size of their residence area.The relative advantage of each class was computed for each dimension of the financial situation and then synthesized into a relative index for each analyzed year.Findings: The research revealed that, at the start of the study period in 2015, small-town households had relatively the worst financial situation.During the pre-pandemic years (2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019), a clear convergence emerged among urban households of different classes.Notably, the financial situation of small-town households experienced the most significant improvement.However, the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020 reversed this trend, causing a deterioration for households in small, medium, and large cities.In contrast, very large cities and metropolises saw a relative improvement.Throughout the pandemic years (2020)(2021)(2022), changes in the financial situation of the analyzed household classes were minimal, with the most notable being the continued improvement for small-town households.PracticalImplications: Diagnosing the financial situation of households is crucial for assessing economic activity, crisis management, household economic development, and national economic growth.This study also highlights the developmental potential of smalltown households.The improvement in their financial situation relative to other urban households indicates better living conditions in economic terms for small-town households.Additionally, it shows the impact of the pandemic and government protective measures on the financial situation across different size classes.The findings can assist local or central authorities and financial institutions in better managing urban development and maintaining economic stability, ensuring appropriate living conditions for city residents.Originality/Value: The added value of this research lies in using a relative synthetic index to assess the financial situation of urban households by city size classes.The index synthesized various dimensions of the financial situation for a selected class relative to all

and relied on the TOPSIS method which allowed to structure a synthetic metric for small towns and order them linearly. Quantitative data retrieved from the Local Data Bank of the Central Statistical Office were used in structuring the metric. Findings: While small towns witnessed an improvement in economic competitiveness, they also became more heterogeneous in that respect. The study found differences between regions, including small towns from the eastern part of Poland being poorly competitive compared to their peers from other parts the country. The above studies may provide some guidance for local governments and public aid managers in Poland. This allows to draw an important conclusion on future measures to be taken in small towns. If they are supposed to fully perform their key functions, a dedicated development policy for the smallest Polish towns must be put in place. This is of particular importance in view of the situation of small towns in Eastern Poland and of small towns located far away from large cities. Originality value: Small towns should improve their competitive position, but without increasing their economic scale beyond a certain size that is within the limits of environmental feasibility.

Taking care of water resources and minimizing water losses in water supply networks requires a broad approach to identifying and neutralizing operational problems. The correct selection of water meters to minimize apparent losses requires knowledge of the characteristic flows that may occur in the facility to which water is supplied. The research aimed to develop tools in the form of mathematical models and water consumption curves along with hourly water consumption coefficients to facilitate the process of selecting water meters for engineers and creating computer models of water supply systems. The research involved monitoring the flow of 76 single-family and multi-family buildings in four towns in Poland, followed by data analysis and development of tools supporting the selection of water meters and the construction of computer models of water distribution networks. High correlation coefficients of the studied variables indicate the results’ usefulness. Four models were developed to determine the maximum flow values in multi-family buildings (three models) and single-family buildings (one model) in the range of water meter diameters DN15-DN40. Characteristics of the average hourly peak coefficient (HPC) values were also developed, along with the range of changes in HPC values for single-family and multi-family buildings.