Quaestiones Geographicae vol. 36 (4), 2017

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    Present consequences of the post-war migration in the Czech borderland for regional development
    (Wydział Nauk Geograficznych i Geologicznych Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2017-12) Vaishar, Antonín; Dvořák, Petr; Nosková, Helena; Zapletalová, Jana
    Czechia lost more than 3,000,000 inhabitants as a result of the WW II. Germans displaced from the borderland formed the largest part. The newcomers after 1945 were of a different character – without any relation to their new settlements. This population formed a special social milieu familiar with the socialist way of thinking and that of a suppressed middle class. The consequences of it are seen in demographic, economic, environmental and social areas. After 1989, the factories in the borderland were mostly closed down, armies left the territory, people were not prepared to start their own businesses. Large-scale landscape protection formed a new barrier. Tourism is not able to substitute for the decrease in employment. The hope in cross-border collaboration has been overestimated.
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    Hybrid suburbia: New research perspectives in France and Southern California
    (Wydział Nauk Geograficznych i Geologicznych Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2017-12) Weber, Florian; Kühne, Olaf
    Geographical research on French and US suburbia has concentrated in recent decades on urban sprawl and concomitant processes of devaluation and exclusion. In the case of the French banlieues, with their much-publicised urban riots, this particular analytic focus has become overwhelming, with resultant loss to other developments and perspectives. However, certain districts in the first (or inner) ring of both French and US suburbia are currently showing distinct urbanisation tendencies in planning and architecture, evident in the new usage of brownfield sites and the ongoing demolition, replacement, and rededication of the older building core. Such processes induce population changes, e.g. the displacement of lower in favour of higher income groups. Overall, they result in an architectonic, social and cultural heterogeneity that escapes the specificity of received categories and merits the term hybridisation. The article describes and compares these processes as exemplified in Greater Paris and San Diego (Southern California).
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    Landscapes with different logics: A physicalistic approach to semantic conflicts in spatial planning
    (Wydział Nauk Geograficznych i Geologicznych Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2017-12) Krzysztofik, Robert; Dymitrow, Mirek; Biegańska, Jadwiga; Senetra, Adam; Gavriilidou, Eleftheria; Nadolu, Bogdan; Kantor-Pietraga, Iwona; Grzelak-Kostulska, Elżbieta; Oureilidou, Eleni; Luches, Daniel; Spórna, Tomasz; Teodorescu, Dominic; Wasilewicz-Pszczółkowska, Monika; Holmertz, Gun; Szczepańska, Agnieszka; Brauer, René
    This paper deals with the ways of categorising landscapes as ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ using a physicalist approach, where these terms have special meaning. The aim of this paper is to elaborate on the question whether such a division is still meaningful with regard to anthropogenic landscapes, not least in spatial planning. The concerns raised in this paper depart from the increasingly complicated structure of geographical space, including that of anthropogenic landscapes. Our standpoint is illustrated using cases of landscape ambiguities from Poland, Germany, Romania and Greece. Leaning on frameworks of physicalist (mechanicistic) theory, this paper suggests an explanation to the outlined semantic conflicts. This is done by pointing to the relationality between the impact of centripetal and centrifugal forces, the specifics of socio-economic development, as well as the varying landscape forms that emerge from the differences within that development.
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    Models of governance in the urban functional areas: Policy lessons from the implementation of integrated territorial investments (ITIs) in Poland
    (Wydział Nauk Geograficznych i Geologicznych Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2017-12) Kaczmarek, Tomasz; Kociuba, Dagmara
    The aim of this paper is to present the genesis and the development of two models of the “leading path” to the integrated management of functional urban areas of voivodeship centres (FUA VC) in Poland in the context of the implementation of the new instrument of the EU’s Cohesion Policy – Integrated Territorial Investments (ITIs). The implementation of ITIs is presented in the light of the inter-commune cooperation in FUA VC, which has been realised variously so far. As examples of the “leading path” to the integrated management based on the ITI, two functional areas have been selected, differing in this respect, Poznań in western Poland (an example of a bottom-up model) and Lublin in its eastern part (an example of a top-down model). In the conclusion, the instrument of ITI was evaluated as a factor which initiates, deepens or complicates the cooperation of local governments in FUAs. It has been emphasised, that in spite of the creation of organisational and financial instruments (ITIs) which activate the cooperation of self-governments in functional areas, one must take into account the need for legislative changes which give a special status to metropolitan areas, income sources and specific powers.
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    Application of graph theory to the morphological analysis of settlements
    (Wydział Nauk Geograficznych i Geologicznych Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2017-12) Szmytkie, Robert; Kostrzewski, Andrzej; Stryjakiewicz, Tadeusz; Zwoliński, Zbigniew
    In the following paper, the analyses of morphology of settlements were conducted using graph methods. The intention of the author was to create a quantifiable and simple measure, which, in a quantitative way, would express the degree of development of a graph (the spatial pattern of settlement). When analysing examples of graphs assigned to a set of small towns and large villages, it was noticed that the graph development index should depend on: a relative number of edges in relation to the number of nodes (β index), the number of cycles (urban blocks), which evidences the complexity of the spatial pattern of settlement, and the average rank of nodes of a graph, which expresses the degree of complexity of a street network.