Ruchy miejskie w poszukiwaniu wartości i idei kluczowych dla rozwoju miast
Social urban movements in search of the values and ideas which are crucial to urban development

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to analyze what values and ideas are crucial to the vision of urban development from the perspective of social urban movements in Poland. Five different values/ ideas were chosen to elaborate: inter-city solidarity, justice, culture instead of economy, sustainable development and participation. The paper tries to explore what these values might mean for urban activists and what are relations between these values and typical values of new social movements. Furthermore, the author hypothesizes that making some values more popular among, both “ordinary” habitants of the polish cities and local/ national government representatives, is one of the cultural consequences of urban movements in Poland. Researchers who aims to observe and understand changes in human consciousness should conduct empirical studies on urban movements, firstly, to verify which values are declared and put by them into practice in daily urban life, and secondly, to find out what priorities urban activists assign to these values. Conclusions and hypotheses in the article were given on the basis of: 1. The secondary data analysis of Urban Movements Congress website and Urban Movements Agreement website; 2. An observation of the actions of urban activists on the national level; 3. Empirical studies conducted by the author in 2011 among participants of the “Social Movement Respect for Lodz” – local activists from Lodz in Poland.

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