DEGRADED TOWNS IN WIELKOPOLSKIE VOIVODESHIP AS POTENTIAL NEW TOWNS

Abstract

In Wielkopolskie Voivodeship, there are numerous former towns with village status today. The aim of the study is to characterize and compare them, and to establish which formally rural settlements meet the criteria (and to what extent) to be considered towns. Some of them were selected as de facto urban centers with real chances to obtain city rights. The use of the monographic method, resulting from the use of various sources of information, made it possible to recognize the current population, functional and morphological situation of all towns which were degraded in Wielkopolskie Voivodeship. The use of the scoring method made it possible to compare individual old cities and arrange them on a scale showing the number of fulfilled urbanity criteria. Many of them were deprived of town rights in 1869-1870, under the Russian regulation (most of them in the pre-partition area of the Kalisz Province), or in 1934, as a result of the Polish administrative reform. These localities lost their urban features the least, and this group includes the greatest number of potential towns.