Territorial Cohesion of a Metropolitan Area in the Light of Implementation of Spatial Policy – The Case of Lodz Metropolitan Area

Abstract

In Polish legislation there are no relevant provisions allowing for institutionalisation of metropolitan areas. This means that the biggest cities and their directly surroundings, strongly related to each other and experiencing dynamic transformation of the socio-spatial structure, are deprived of joint coordination of spatial policy. According to the administrative division of the country, the main responsibilities for shaping and implementing the objectives of spatial policy are assigned to a municipality – a territorial unit of the lowest level. Municipalities are equipped with a local spatial development plan, which is the only instrument having the status of a local legal act. It only must be consistent with the provisions in regional and national plans, which are assumed as general documents, relating to the major development directions but not to the particular land use. Metropolitan areas in Poland are mostly consisting of several dozen of municipalities. Unfortunately, each territorial unit usually implements its individual spatial policy, considered as the most profitable only by the local authorities. This situation is potentially most dangerous in the territories of strong internal linkages, such as metropolitan areas definitely are. It would be a truism to say that long-lasting effective functioning of the metropolitan area is not possible without the common spatial policy. The authors’ main objective is the analysis of relations determined by the local spatial policies in the metropolitan area. The analysis is conducted on the example of Lodz Metropolitan Area (LMA) – a territorial unit located in Central Poland, consisting of Lodz and its 27 neighbouring municipalities. Choosing LMA for analysis is not accidental. For two years the authors have been conducting a wide research project in this area, which should result in elaborating a method of measuring territorial cohesion of the metropolitan areas. The analysis described in the article is based on the obligatory spatial planning documents and takes under consideration future land development along the municipal borders (directly neighbouring land use forms and subsequent ones, in case the first land use form was a linear object). The key element of the procedure is the identification of conflicts in the borderline zones. First, each place where any kind of discrepancy is observed is being marked on a map. The discrepancy means that the land use on the sides of the municipal border has a different form e.g. agricultural and residential areas. Furthermore, more detailed discrepancy criteria are established (combinations of land use that may be classified as spatial conflicts), the length of the border with discrepancies is measured and its share in the total length of the border is calculated. The final step of the analysis is supposed to reveal the impact of the identified conflicts on LMA’s functioning, which is followed by formulating recommendations for unified spatial policy in the metropolitan area.