ABSTRACT
The recent years were rich in new and unexpected social and political factors for Poland, such as the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020–2021 and the refugee crisis in 2021–2022. These ‘wildcards’ will definitely have serious consequences for people and cities, directly and through the impact of so-called externalities. The paper identifies trends in the geographical development of urban areas in Poland during the last five years (2016–2021), particularly in terms of residential suburbanization and urban sprawl. The study aims to explore the driver factors that determine the spatial scale of suburbanization and reveal ‘wildcards’ that may indirectly affect this process but are hard to be quantified and embedded into spatial analysis. Both wildcards and externalities of suburbanization seem to be underexplored, and this paper’s goal is to bring progress on this pass. The spatial analysis applying location quotients (LQ) metrics creates the possibility for comparisons of locations with intensified urbanization for different time moments, thus fulfilling a function similar to the standardization of features considering time and space perspectives. The results makes the evidence to progressive suburbanization around the main Polish cities during the years 2016–2021, revealing, at the same time, distinguishing features of spatial development for the period associated with social and political stresses (2021). © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 lockdown in 2020–2021 and the refugee crisis in 2021–2022 were two new and unexpected social and political events in Poland in recent years. These “wildcards” will certainly have major effects on individuals and cities, both directly and indirectly, through the influence of “externalities.” The paper examines trends in the spatial development of Polish cities during the last five years (2016–2021), focusing on residential suburbanization and urban sprawl. The study aims to reveal the elements that determine the spatial scale of suburbanization, as well as “wildcards” that may have an indirect impact on the process but are difficult to quantify and include in spatial analysis. The use of location quotient (LQ) metrics, as well as a subset of the Global Human Settlement Layer in the spatial analysis allow for comparisons of locations with intensified urbanization throughout different periods, serving a task that is comparable to feature standardization from a time and space viewpoint. The analysis provides evidence of growing suburbanization surrounding major Polish cities from 2016 to 2021, while also exposing distinct elements of spatial development during a period that was marked by social and political stress (2021).