Foreword
As a result of megatrends such as globalisation, digitalisation, demographic change along with improvements in communication and mobility infrastructure, the traditional dichotomy between urban and rural areas is losing relevance as a policy approach. More recently, the war in Ukraine has heightened the importance of the need and the potential for urban and rural areas to join forces in facing the refugee crisis. Urban and rural areas have distinct yet complementary assets, which, if well managed through urban-rural partnerships, could bring additional economic, environmental, and social benefits to both types of areas and boost regional development by harnessing the comparative and indeed untapped complementary advantages of each territory. Effective urban-rural partnerships need to be based on a clearly defined and mutually perceived need for co-operation; an agreement about sharing benefits, costs and resources; a culture of dialogue engaging different levels of government and a wide range of stakeholders.
How to better leverage urban-rural linkages has gained increasing policy attention both in national and supra-national policies for regional development, such as the Cohesion Policy of the European Union (EU), as well as in the agenda of the OECD Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC) and its Working Parties on Urban Policy and on Rural Policy, respectively. The OECD Principles on Urban Policy and OECD Principles on Rural Policy, welcomed by ministers of regional policy in 2019, share a Principle 3 that recommends supporting interdependencies and co-operation between urban and rural areas to address common challenges and make the most of opportunities.
The present report Urban-Rural Linkages in Poland is the first deep-dive into how Principle 3 plays out in a specific country. With a view to feed into the ongoing reform of Poland’s National Urban Policy, the report delves into the analysis of the urban-rural continuum in Poland by using two internationally recognised methodologies: the Functional Urban Area and the Degree of Urbanisation. It argues that strengthening urban-rural linkages is central to tackling longstanding urban and rural development challenges in Poland, such as suburbanisation, environmental degradation, access to public services, and most recently, the integration of refugees from Ukraine.
The report is part of the OECD Regional Studies series and supports the implementation of the Programme of Work and Budget of the OECD RDPC. It was approved by written procedure on 6 June 2022 under cote [CFE/RDPC(2022)11].