MODELE PRZESTRZENI MIEJSKIEJ ZŁOŻONYCH UKŁADÓW OSADNICZYCH – NA PRZYKŁADZIE KONURBACJI KATOWICKIEJ
URBAN SPACE MODELS OF COMPLEX SETTLEMENT SYSTEMS – A CASE STUDY OF THE KATOWICE CONURBATION

Summary/Abstract: Processes occurring in the complex settlement system of the Katowice conurbation and in the inner-town space of its selected centres are the subject of the present study, whose aim is to show the effect of selected processes on shaping the relationship within the spatial structure of a town, between its functional, morphological and demographic and social dimensions in the context of maintaining a relative balance or the appearance of disharmony. Apart from that, an attempt has been made to develop a model approach to the space of a complex settlement system – which is relatively structurally balanced as well as structurally diverse. In the first part of the paper, an analysis of transformations of the inner-town space has been carried out. The transformations take place both in processes of historical changes and in those initiated by economic and political transformations, such as: liquidation and restructuring of industrial plants; appearance of new business activities and their preferred locations; differentiation of changes in the central areas of towns; appearance of divided and unwanted spaces; creation of centres which are leaders of transformations and occurrence of the phenomenon of suburbanization. At the same time, differences in the course of those processes have been pointed out. They emerge in the centripetal formation of the settlement system of the Katowice conurbation, bipolarity of the leading centres dominating over their neighbours, abandoning of the central areas of the towns and great significance of the internal suburbanization. In the second part of the paper, a model of shaping the inner-town space of complex system centres in conditions of multi-faceted changes caused by such processes, has been proposed. The model of the relative balance of the urban space is to maintain a relatively harmonized system of relations in the spatial structure of a town in functional, morphological, demographic and social terms. A model of the structurally balanced space of the entire conurbation system and a model of the structurally diverse space of the system have also been developed.

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