IN-PERSON Lisbon Livable Cities. Section A

Abstract

This contribution offers a historically-grounded framework to describe and understand a long-term urban changes that are typical for small towns across Poland. Discussing the 20th Century decay and transformations of historic urban core of Turek, a case-study town in Central Poland, I will show how changes of political regimes and currents of geopolitics have affected issues of heritage and livability of old centres during spatial, economic and social turmoils of the 20th Century in East-Central Europe. Providing a historical analysis of crisis and reconstruction of Turek – an industrial and commerical town erected in 1341 and now populated by ca. 30 000 inhabitants – I will discuss current problems of decay in its historic centre, surrounded by modern housing estates and suburban residential strips. Issues in question include flight of affluent dwellers, decapitalization of buildings or changing modes of access to commercial and business quarters of the inner city in the period of rapid development of private transportation in Poland. Also, this paper includes initiatives of urban renewal or heritage preservation on the part of local administration and divergent perceptions and expectations of those actions on the part of the local communities. As architecture and urban historian, I will use historically-grounded frameworks to show how current changes in the old town of Turek are a long-term effects of various, complicated decisions of urban policies from the 20th Century – and, in my view, are typical for Polish towns. Understanding these factors can be useful while planning current and future urban renewal and sustainability projects and important for comparative research to understand changes in middle-seized European towns.