Differences Between Small Towns and Larger Villages in Poland According to the Concept of the Rural-Urban Continuum = Zróżnicowanie zbioru małych miast i większych osiedli wiejskich w Polsce w ujęciu koncepcji kontinuum wiejsko-miejskiego

Summary: The theoretical and methodological premise of the present paper is the concept of the rural-to-urban continuum. The concept is based on the assumption that a certa­in transitional sector between villages where farming dominates and fully develo­ped urban estate exists within the structure of the country's settlement system. Using the "polar" model of the continuum, based on the ideal types defined earlier, the author was able to build scales of rurality to urbanism, and to place settlements here depending on the intensity of the indices of urbanism. The most important conclusions of the study carried out are as follows. Two stages of the urbanization processes taking place in Poland at present were distinguished and described as urbanization sensu stricto and urbanization sensu largo. They differ in the intensity of indices. Some qualitative differences also appeared in the considered aspects of urbanization. Urbanization sensu largo is a more general process and does not lead to the urbanism of a settlement. It is related to transformations characteristic for highly developed societies. Urbaniza­tion sensu largo, being mainly a consequence of modernization and the populatio­n's resignation from fanning, manifests itself in the change of style and conditions of life, appearing in technological-infrastructural and morphological transforma­tions of settlements. It can be found in places where the urban way of life becomes widespread, and therefore all settlement units can be subject to it, regardless of the size, population structure and location in the settlement scheme. Urbanization sen­su stricto, however, covers only sites in non-urbanized or urbanized space, and is a process which can lead to full urbanism. Particular types of urbanization changes lead to the creation of characteristic settlement forms. Five attributes describing urbanization sensu largo were identified: 1. econo­mic attribute (employment outside farming), 2. social attribute (a change in lifesty­le), 3. demographic attribute (changes in population structure), 4. infrastructure and technological attribute (equipment of homes and residential areas), 5. morphological attribute (non-rural buildings). Transformations in these areas lead to urbanized settlements. Taking into account the fact that urbanization is a more general notion than urbanism, possessing the attributes of urbanization sensu largo is a necessary (but not sufficient) requirement for urbanism. Therefore, a town should fulfill additional criteria that are not required in the case of the urbanized settlement. Ten attributes of urbanization sensu stricto are distinguished, which can be understood as a working definition of the notion of urbanism (cf. chart). It is equivalent to the assumption that total urbanism means that a given settlement unit possesses all the required attributes. The attributes: 1. economic, 2. social, 3. demographic, 4. infrastructural and technological ones are similar to those of urbanization sensu largo; however, the specification values of the coefficients describing the attributes can grow. As regards the 5. morphological, attribute qualitative changes appear requ­iring a consideration of the urban character of the landscape (including spatial structure). Apart from the above attributes, at least 5 other elements play an impor­tant role at the stage of urbanization sensu stricto, namely: 6. the attribute of func­tionality (meaning mainly differences in the economic basis and employment struc­ture), 7. the attribute of centrality, 8. the attribute of social consciousness (regar­ding the settlement as urban by the local community), 9. the attribute of space (density and uniformity), 10. the attribute of scale (settlement's size). The urbani­zation indices and the global urbanization index based on particular indices cover a large part of the contents of the mentioned attributes: at the present stage of urbanization in Poland, the indices representing individual stages of urbanization are described by the characteristic, usually easily recognizable types of statistical distribution; the settlement dichotomy, which existed over the ages, is regarded as an anachronism today from the analytical point of view, because each of the analysed the settlement continuum, analyzed from the point of view of indices of urbanization sensu stricto, is usually characterized by a clear triplicity (rural, urban and transition sectors); however, due to differences in indices of urbanization sen­su largo an urban sector is not usually distinguished. The results of the verification of the fragmentary hypotheses included in successive chapters of the paper, confirm or modify the facts we know on urbanization processes taking place in Poland (cf. fig. 42). The intensity of all the analysed aspects of urbanization depends on the offi­cial status and administration position of the settlement, this factor being usually very strong and positive. This means that urban complexes in general form particular urbanization features in the best way, villages with commune status more poorly, and remaining hamlets the least well. The last category is therefore the least predestined to achieve urban status. The influence of the administrative fac­tor on the centrality is particularly strong; however, the relationship of administra­tion status - dynamics of population change is relatively weaker. The second factor stimulating urbanization processes (although to a smaller extent than the administrative factor) is the size of the settlement. Thus the conclu­sion that the larger the settlement, the higher the probability of its developing urban features, is justified. In a certain sense, quantity transforms into quality (cf. Sombart 1916). Some aspects of urbanization show a clear dependence on the historical factor. The influence of location on the former annexed lands is the highest as concerns the sphere of technology and infrastructure, lower in the functional sphere, and the lowest as regards centrality. As concerns the latter this influence occurs only in the group of hamlets. Such dependence does not occur in small towns, thus confirming the existence of economic universal regularities, regardless of the regime, governing the rank and distribution of the central sites. The distance of the settlement from the capital city of the province, its position in every zone of its functional interaction, was verified as a second factor of urba­nization processes (in terms of space). The influence of the regional centre on the settlements situated within its sphere is generally very low, and in the case of very small provinces often unnoticeable. In particular urban regions this influence is either positive or negative. A big city interacts, usually in a negative way, with other towns in its vicinity. Such a phenomenon is called the „shadow of a big city". The dynamics of population change is an exception. It is stimulated in a positive but weak way by the neighbourhood of large provincial centres. Other conclusions following the verification of the hypotheses formulated at the beginning of the paper are as follows. Urbanization sensu stricto does not keep up with employment outside farming, which means that changes of the functions of the work place and services are delayed, thus increasing the dispersion of settlements on the continuum scale. In general, large differences appear between urbanization sensu stricto and sensu largo in the group of rural settlements due to the delay of urbanization sensu stricto in relation to urbanization sensu largo. The difference between the indices of both stages of urbanization deepens as the rank of a settlement drops, the biggest occuring in villages not performing any administrative functions. However, despite the general opinion, the assumption that the infrastructure does not keep up with the increase of employment outside farming, has not been confirmed in practice. The analyses carried out showed that it is the central and some specialized functions that are responsible for deviation from the settlement dichotomy. Thus they influence the rural-urban continuum. This concerns specialized functions such as industrial or tourist-recreational ones. The residential function which can also be treated as a settlement localization factor, is different in part. As concerns urbanization sensu stricto, the settlements performing a residential function are visibly less urbanized than non-residential settlements. Therefore, the hypothesis on the influence of the residential function on deviations from the settlement dichotomy should be rejected. On the other hand, rural settlements are relatively highly urbanized sensu largo. It testifies to a certain relation of the residential function to workplace function which is responsible for the „transitional" character of some rural settlements. Verification of the third hypothesis consisted in showing that the number of towns de facto in Poland is greater than the number of towns de iure. It was proved in one of the chapters, and confirmed in practice (43 sampled settlements have been given civic rights in the years 1989-1998). It was shown that economic factors significantly influence the distribution of settlements performing town functions. This testifies to the existence of universal regularities, formulated by Christaller, which act in Poland, despite the centrally-controlled system of servicing the population which existed for a long time. The next group of hypotheses concerns a scheme of relations between the following phenomena: urbanization, modernization, industrialization and population growth. From the analysis of the correlation matrix it follows that all the analysed phenomena are strongly inter-related (Table 67). The strongest correlation appears in following pairs: urbanization-modernization and modernization-population growth. In general, the correlation diagram between all four notions is of a feed-back type, where modification of one variable or more determines the modification of the remaining ones. Similarly, strong correlations concern individual urbanization indices which have been analysed in this paper (Table 68). A characteristic feature of the settlement system is high inertia; however, it particularly concerns the settlement network, its most constant element, and, related to that, the infrastructure as well as localization of functions. It is possible that the transformation of the structure of this system, „inherited" after nearly 50-year long socialism as well as previous periods to some extent, will be a slow process, lasting decades. Taking the above into account, one can assume that the results of the present work will be up-to-date for a long time. The durability of urban forms and functions is confirmed by the urban character retained by numerous ex-towns on the territories formerly annexed by Russians, despite the 120 years which have passed since the tsar's ukase reducing over 300 towns to the rank of rural settle­ments. As an applicable result of the present paper settlements with urban features were distinguished, which, after verification of the morphological element, development chances and with the positive reaction of the local community, have a chance to be qualified as towns (and even should become towns). Restoring the civic rights even to a fraction of them would diminish regional disproportions in the density of the urban network