The aim of the project was to analyze the development trends of the suburban zone of Urban Functional Areas and to assess the impact of urban sprawl, suburbanization and peripherality processes on the socio-economic development of suburban and rural areas.

External effects were also extensively analyzed, with particular emphasis on the effects generated in spatial management. In order to distinguish in detail between positive and negative external effects, their own division was proposed in the area of: spatial planning and spatial policy; real estate management; natural, environmental and agricultural conditions as well as technical infrastructure. The assessment of individual external effects took into account the issue of integrated order covering partial orders, including economic, institutional and political, spatial, social and environmental order. The analysis used the Delphi method, and the group of specialists included 12 experts from the Center for Research of Settlements and Urbanism and the Institute of Spatial Management and Urban Studies.

An additional goal of the project was to determine the potential and balance of renewable photovoltaic energy in selected urban structures in Poland (more about the research in: Cities, Suburbs and Peripheries in Theory and Empirical Research, Journal of Settlements and Spatial Planning Special Issue, No. 10/2022 http://jssp.reviste.ubbcluj.ro/arhiva/vsn102022CSPTERen.html)

An innovative method of delimiting urban areas at risk of urban sprawl was proposed. Delimitations previously used in Polish spatial policy were also verified. Analysis also focused on how the urban sprawl phenomenon affects the state budget and national economic growth. Unlike many scientific studies in which urban sprawl is examined through the dispersion of population in cities, a more complex analysis was undertaken using the location of buildings. Underestimating the scope of urban sprawl results in the ineffectiveness of spatial policy due to the omission of specific areas in public intervention. This particularity is related to the fact that these are most often external areas – the furthest from the core city. It is in these areas that the highest urban sprawl costs occur. At the same time, these are areas in the early stages of spatial growth where, with the implementation of appropriate spatial policy, a coherent spatial structure can be maintained. Additionally, the research covered selected Polish cities and suburbs in terms of the potential and balance of renewable photovoltaic energy, as well as demographic changes. An important effect of the research was the assessment of the economic consequences of spontaneous suburbanization. The impact of protected areas in Poland on the level of development of units (municipalities) in their immediate surroundings was also assessed. New forms of using GIS field applications in the inventory and management of cultural heritage and tourist infrastructure were proposed. As a result of the conducted research, the “interdependencies” of external costs indicated by Scitovsky were made more specific by defining external effects in spatial management on their basis. Assumptions for identifying external effects, including those of the economy and spatial planning, were systematized.

Team members: dr hab. Piotr Lityński, prof. UEK (Associate Professor), dr inż. Mateusz Ilba (Assistant Professor), dr Marcin Semczuk (Assistant Professor), dr Piotr Serafin (Assistant Professor), Associate prof. Ph.d. Georg. Urban Planner Vasile Zotic, Lecturer Ph.D. Georg. Diana- Elena Alesandru