Ewa Nowosielska

Ewa Nowosielska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland

Abstract

The point of departure in the search for the emergence of international urban systems must be offered by studies on the development of national urban systems.The project on Urban Systems and Urban Networking in the Baltic Sea Region (USUN) has shown that in the 1990s the national urban systems throughout the Baltic Sea Region experienced a concentration of economic activity in the largest cities. However, some medium-sized regional centres situated outside national core areas also proved dynamic, something that was revealed by studies on urban networking undertaken within the project. In this article, the concept of urban systems is examined, with recent trends and challenges discussed, together with the prospects for a balancing of the development of urban systems through a fostering of the dynamics of second-layer cities with higher education functions taken as an example.

Keywords: national urban system, inter-urban competition and cooperation, second-layer cities, urban policy, Baltic Sea Region

Piotr Korcelli [korcelli@twarda.pan.pl], Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland
Niels Boje Groth, Danish Forest and Landscape Research Institute (DFLRI) H0rsholm Kongevej 11 DK-2970 Horsholm, Denmark
Ewa Nowosielska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland

Ewa Nowosielska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland

Abstract

The present paper investigates the quantitative development of higher education in Poland in the 1990s and the distribution of higher educational institutions by urban size classes. It refers also to the recent studies on the impact of a higher school on various aspects of a city's economic and social life. It emerged that private higher schools, first organized in 1991, have been the most dynamic element of Poland's higher education system in the last decade and will certainly mark the future educational landscape as well. Private schools are also mainly responsible for a trickling-down of the higher schools thro-ugh the urban hierarchy. Nevertheless, it remains the big cities that concentrate the hi-ghest proportion of schools and students, though their relative position in the urban sys-tem is weakening. The impact of a higher school upon a city has emerged as multifaceted and not as entirely positive as is commonly believed or expressed in official circles.

Keywords: higher education, state and private schools, locational trends, impact of a higher school upon a city, Poland

Ewa Nowosielska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland