Local Development (in Geography)

Artykuł prezentuje wyniki badań przeprowadzonych w połowie 2014 r., mających na celu identyfikację oczekiwań władz małych miast wobec polskiej państwowej polityki rozwoju lokalnego. Jako źródło informacji o tych oczekiwaniach wybrano grupę 46 burmistrzów małych miast, natomiast jako metodę badawczą zastosowano sondaż diagnostyczny oparty na długim wywiadzie osobistym. Zidentyfikowane oczekiwania dotyczyły reformy systemu stałego finansowania gmin, zmian systemów dystrybucji środków unijnych, wyposażenia samorządów lokalnych w nowe instrumenty oddziaływania na ponadlokalne relacje ich gmin, redukcji antywzorców prowadzenia polityki, usuwania sprzeczności i niejasności prawa, a także zmian zasad funkcjonowania organu stanowiącego i wykonawczego władz lokalnych. Oczekiwania te można i należy traktować jako współczesne wyzwania państwowej polityki rozwoju lokalnego, ponieważ dotyczą one jej gruntownych, wielowymiarowych zmian. Ponadto rozpatrywane łącznie tworzą dla tej polityki wyzwanie, które można określić jako jej współczesne wyzwanie generalne. Jest nim oczekiwanie władz lokalnych, że władze państwowe zwiększą ich podmiotowość w definiowaniu i kreowaniu rozwoju kraju, pogłębiając swoją aprobatę dla paradygmatu rozwoju lokalnego.

[The article presents the results of research carried out in mid-2014 to identify the expectations presented by the authorities of small cities in the light of Polish state local development policy. 46 mayors were selected as the source of information about these expectations and a diagnostic survey based on long personal interviews was chosen as the research method. The expectations concerned the reform of the municipalities’ permanent funding system, changes in the systems governing EU funds distribution, providing local authorities with new instruments for shaping their municipalities’ supra-local relationships, reducing anti-patterns in policy and politics, eliminating contradictions and ambiguities in law, and changes in the rules governing both decisive and executive bodies of local authorities. The expectations discussed should be approached as contemporary challenges for state policy on local development, since the mayors refer to thorough and multidimensional alterations to that policy. Furthermore, if analysed jointly, the expectations constitute a challenge for this policy, which can be referred to as its general contemporary challenge. Local authorities expect that the state government will increase its subjectivity in defining and creating local development by extending its approval for the local development paradigm.]

The article deals with the subject matter of strategic planning within Polish self-government units. The author presents selected problems encountered by authors of development strategies referring to communes, district and regions in the process of their preparation. They are related to: the process of conditions’ diagnosis and local self-government unit development prognosis, as well as the key elements of its environment, strategic analysis, conducting social consultancy, making strategic choices, specifying strategic objectives and tasks and also designing the system of strategy implementation

The article discusses barriers in strategic governance of local development characteristic for Polish local governments, i.e. municipalities, which occurred within the first 15 years of the XXI century. These barriers were identified in the period 2000-2015 by means of using the qualitative field research method, in the process of research and implementation as well as research and development projects’ execution, directly and indirectly related to the conceptualization, application and assessment of development strategies for Polish municipalities. The introduction to the article presents the reasons, origins, purpose, method, techniques and the course of conducted research. Next the concept of local development perceived from two perspectives, a local and supra-local one, as well as their governance concept and strategic approach to such governance, are discussed. The core part of the article is devoted to presenting the identified barriers in strategic governance of local development and also their sources. The article is concluded by providing recommendations regarding the continuation of research covering these barriers and the instruments of their reduction.

The international literature offers a number of motives which should incline local authorities toward strategic planning of local development; it also emphasizes that they should be strongly motivated to do that. Meanwhile, their actual motivation for such planning can remain low and dominated by motives so far unrecognized in the literature. The article presents research confirming this assumption, conducted in 2014 among the authorities of Polish small towns. The results reveal that the general motivation for strategic planning of local development among 37.7% of the authorities of Polish small towns is low. It also disclosed that the motive for obtaining means from the EU funds (so far unrecognized in literature) was and is motivating strongly at least 68.6% of these authorities for the discussed planning and, moreover, that it is a short-lived motive. The article indicates that this situation may also refer to other local authorities, not just the Polish ones. It also indicates that it is an unintended effect of the dependence of municipal development projects' support by the means from the EU funds on including them in the local development strategy. The final part of the article presents recommendations of actions to rectify such an unfavorable situation and for further studies of planning motives followed by local authorities.