Rozwój zrównoważony miast w kontekście współczesnej polskiej urbanizacji: aspekty przestrzenne
Sustainable urban development in the context of modern polish urbanisation: Spatial aspects

Summary/Abstract: Sustainable development is in fact an idea which is given a proper interpretation in a concrete situation. With reference to a city, sustainable development means, on the one hand, a model of its socioeconomic development, and on the other, a model of its spatial structure. It should be emphasised that the issue of sustainable urban development, both in its cognitive value and practical measures involved, should be considered in terms of the urbanisation processes in progress. The starting point of reflections presented in this paper is showing the essence of sustainable development of a city, a man-made spatial unit as well as a specific territorial social system which tends to a state of partial equilibrium (in its subsystems) and overall equilibrium (the city as a whole). Those two types of equilibrium are transitional anyway, because perturbations in the operation of the city disturb its equilibrium, and the fluctuations produced by those disturbances lead to the formation of a new equilibrium, but with reference to other city structures. one of the major factors upsetting the equilibrium of an urban system (as well as that of its surroundings /environment, i.e. its suburban zone) is suburbanisation. It disturbs primarily its spatial balance, and this shows in chaotic development, parasitic land use, the particularism of property owners and investors, and first of all in an increase in the social costs of the city’s operation. Factors favourable to suburbanisation are especially imperfections of the law concerning spatial management and the short-sightedness of the local governments of communes of the suburban zone. It is suburbanisation that makes cities, which are generators of development and civilisation-related changes, the chief units suffering the effects of suburbanisation and bearing its cost. Both the present economic crisis and the observed trends in spatial development indicate that the suburbanisation process upsetting the sustainable development of the city and the entire agglomeration will not stop. What is more, it is likely to become even more pathological in nature, which will mean a situation in which the sustainable development of the city and its agglomeration as shown in their ordered spatial development pattern will only be a promising and nice-sounding slogan

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