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Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Gołębia 24, 31-007 Kraków, Poland

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Dynamika ludnościowa miast Polski i Białorusi – studium porównawcze

Andrzej Zborowski

Geographical Studies, Issue 154, 2018, pp. 71 - 92

https://doi.org/10.4467/20833113PG.18.008.8760

The development of settlement systems in Poland and Belarus has many common features such as intensive processes of industrialization and urbanization, a centrally planned development of cities, a rapid growth of importance of big cities in settlement systems.

On the other hand, one can observe significant differences: a faster transition of Polish cities to the post-industrial phase, earlier deindustrialization and gentrification processes in large cities, advanced processes of decentralization and suburbanization, as well as socio-economic development of small and medium cities in metropolitan areas. The aim of the article is to explain the impact of metropolization processes on the demographic development of the urban settlement network in Poland and Belarus. Based on the population dynamics analysis in the period 1970–2014,trends characteristic for the settlement development processes in the researched countries were distinguished. The classification of population development of Polish and Belarusian urban centers was constructed, and 4 types of urban development were distinguished: population progression, moderate growth, depopulation, and shrinking. Both countries have a positive population dynamics in small urban centers within the boundaries of functional urban centers. However, in Poland we observe a decline in the population of the central city and a concentration of population in suburban centers, while in Belarus the impact of a large urban center (Minsk, Brest) does not lead to decentralization of the population in the core of a functional urban area. In the investigated countries, unfavorable demographic trends and the occurrence of dense areas characterized by depopulation were observed in peripheral cities as well as in post-industrial centers.

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Population trends in Polish cities – stagnation, depopulation or shrinkage?

Andrzej Zborowski

Geographical Studies, Issue 130, 2012 , pp. 7 - 28

https://doi.org/10.4467/20833113PG.12.017.0658

The authors attempt to diagnose the contemporary situation of demographic development in Polish cities after the fall of socialism in 1989. The paper focuses on selected issues and processes related to major urbanisation tendencies during the period of Poland’s centrally planned economy. The depopulation of cities and urban shrinkage are presented in the context of suburbanisation, some aspects of internal migration (job migration in particular) as well as international migration. Special attention was paid to rates of population change in cities, which allowed the authors to distinguish several types of rates. Moreover, a variety of factors underlying demographic changes are also discussed.

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