Both current and historical settlement forms experience evolutionary, permanent changes to their spatial and socio-economic attributes, not seldom accompanied by dynamic functional transformations. The linkage between functionalism and dynamism, in turn, is one of those elements of conventional geographical theory used to explain the phenomena of urbanization and urbification. While urbanization r

Degraded and restituted towns constitute an important element of the contemporary settlement system in Poland. This significance stems from two basic facts: firstly, the relatively large number of such places, and, secondly, the role of restituted towns within the formal-legal dimension of urbanization. The importance of degraded and restituted towns is also shown in the variety of topics undertak

The large number of degraded (828) and restituted (240) towns in Poland formed the basis for crafting a chapter on the spatial and temporal distribution of these special settlement forms. By focusing on these two aspects has helped, for one, uncover historical regularities, and, for another, reveal geographical patterns of national urbanization processes. This is largely due to the fact that degra

This scientific note aims to briefly introduce the concept of urban hibernation, published recently (September 2015) in an article with the same name in European Planning Studies (Routledge). By outlining some general characteristics, the purpose of this note is merely to put the reader’s attention to this concept, whom we remit to the original article for a comprehensive walk-through. The reason

In research about degraded towns two cognitive currents can be observed: empirical (what? how? where? when?) and theoretical (why?). Contrarily, no study to date has dealt with the issue of discursivity of its central concept ‘degradation’, i.e. its a priori linguistic characterization determining ways in which research on the subject has been done. As geographers, we are fascinated by the ”real”

In this concluding chapter, our aim is to outline the state-of-the-art within the deliberated topic in order to identify challenges for future research. Firstly, reminiscent of George Orwell’s aphorism “who controls the past controls the future”, we stress the importance of research into the origins of degraded and restituted towns in order to understand the socio-economic context that has shaped

Degradations in Poland are sometimes made on an individual basis. Most often, however, they are the result of large-scale administrative reforms. Throughout history, the Polish lands were subject to many such reforms. Relatively little-known is the Polish reform of 1933–1934, which – depending on the definition of ‘city’ – degraded up to 722 units with some form of urban denominator. The modest no

One important element in the interaction between the natural and the human environment is the negative impact of the first on the latter when seen through the prism of urban destabilization. Within this scope, the issue of urban abandonment and disappearance holds an important place, the indirect cause of which are the specifics of local and regional natural subsystems. Small towns are especially