Project Leader: Dr. Anna Maleszka
The project addresses the key challenges faced by small and medium-sized towns. These challenges can generally be described as the problem of post-urbanization of historic cities — understood as a state in which a city with a rich past, or a part of it, ceases to perform functions recognized as urban. The tensions we aim to investigate arise precisely at the intersection of historical heritage, urban functionality, and contemporary social and spatial transformations: we observe that, in many Polish cities, a deepening problem is often the gap between the character of the urban community and the character of the city’s space.
This reflection stems from a historical analysis of the functionality of urban spaces over the centuries. Generally, it can be noted that in previous eras both municipal authorities and the townspeople actively shaped their surroundings, exerting real influence on the daily functions, infrastructure, and appearance of the city. They shaped it according to their own needs and aspirations, although these were not always aligned (either synchronically or diachronically); pre-modern urban communities, however, were characterized by a fairly high degree of agency regarding the ability to influence inhabited and used spaces, giving them distinctive traits. Today, under formalized spatial planning, this level and dispersion of social agency in shaping space is significantly limited. Residents move within rigid, imposed frameworks; their efforts are dispersed and directed only at shaping private spaces; they rarely join in communal activities. The sense of attachment to the city, responsibility for the common good, and the ability to meet needs in inhabited spaces is weakening. There is a strong need to reconcile different interests in public spaces and to find ways to accommodate sometimes contrasting expectations, including those that radically disrupt historically motivated functionality of space for its residents.
Preserving or, in some cases, restoring functionality to urban spaces, everyday and non-monumental, is considered one of the key challenges of contemporary cities; we believe that the functionality of a city is a historical process that should be protected as an element of historical heritage. Preserving the functionality of a city with a historical past is also seen as a condition for maintaining its living urbanity — on the one hand allowing it to survive and develop, and on the other deeply rooted in what historically has been and continues to be its urban character.
By addressing this issue and referring it primarily to Polish realities, we identify two research problems that we intend to explore in our project. First, we want to expand the traditional approach to heritage protection: instead of focusing solely on the material urban fabric, we turn our attention to less tangible but equally important elements, such as functionality and the character of a place, the nature of the local community. Second, we critically examine the contemporary role that historicity plays in small and medium-sized cities in Poland. It often functions as a tourist backdrop or staging — a tool of local authorities to manifest national patriotism rather than urban identity. From the residents’ perspective, it can be an aesthetic addition — accepted but not necessarily significant in everyday life, as such historicity has the potential to petrify urban functionality. The question we want to pose here is: what role can and should historicity play in shaping the city today? Can it, beyond being a backdrop and a tool for local marketing, constitute a dynamic and co-created resource that supports local identity, social cohesion, and the functionality of space? Moreover — what kind of historicity should it be? As a research team continuing earlier historical-sociological collaboration, we have observations from previous studies on the retroversion of Elbląg, which we intend to utilize.
In addressing these issues, we plan to rely on the potential of the Historical Atlas of European Cities. Among the goals of this international project are, among others: contributing to heritage protection, preserving memory of the past and local identity, and raising awareness of the benefits of rationally planned and functional urban spaces. In practice, this potential remains underutilized, and we believe it should become the foundation of a new, more engaged and multidimensional stage of the Atlas’s functioning. We want to give this initiative new life and set a new development direction, treating it as a tool not only documenting the past but also supporting contemporary revitalization and urban planning processes, with attention to residents’ voices and local specificity.
To achieve this, collaboration across various fields is essential. Currently, we work closely with cartographers, social geographers, and sociologists, but in subsequent stages of the project, it will also be crucial to involve urban planners, conservation specialists, and researchers in urban ecology. Points of intersection with other disciplines that we plan to engage include issues such as the evolution of civic awareness, migration and place memory, regional and local historical policy, cultural heritage conservation, sustainable development, and ecosystems.