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WARSAW METROPOLITAN AREA AND ITS REGIONAL HINTERLAND
CASE STUDY REPORT
Maciej Smętkowski GRINCOH WP 6 Task 6 The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement “Growth-Innovation-Competitiveness: Fostering Cohesion in Central and Eastern Europe” (GRNCOH)
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Maciej Smętkowski
THE METROPOLIS-THE REGION RELATIONSHIPS – A CASE STUDY OF WARSAW AND THE
MAZOWIECKIE VOIVODSHIP1
INTRODUCTION
Situated in Central Poland, the Mazowieckie Voivodship (województwo mazowieckie) occupies an
area of 35,600 km2 and has a population of ca. 5,250,000. There are 85 cities in its territory, of which
Poland’s capital, Warsaw is the largest, with a population of ca. 1,700,000, and its entire
metropolitan area is inhabited by 2,600,000 to 2,800,000 people, depending on the delimitation
method. The voivodship was created as a result of the 1998 administrative reform which divided
Poland into 16 large regions with a dual, governmental and self-governing, system of governance. In
effect, this is a nodal region, which is manifested by a concentration of socio-economic potential in
the metropolitan area of the capital city, whereas its surroundings, especially in the peripheral parts,
are poorly-developed rural areas. However, large and mediums-sized subregional centres can also be
found in other parts of the voivodship, including: Radom (220,000), Płock (124,000), Siedlce (76,000),
Ostrołęka (53,000) and Ciechanów (45,000), in addition to many county centres with a population
typically ranging from 20,000 to 30,000. Generally speaking, however, the voivodship’s rate of
urbanisation is low if Warsaw is excluded, at a level of 52% compared to 61% across Poland.
Masovia (Mazowsze) is a historical region, but has a very poorly developed sense of regional identity.
Historically, the region covered only the northern and central part of the present voivodship, and its
borders changed considerably over time. In the past, its southern part was incorporated into the
Lesser Poland, and the border running along the Pilica River is still clearly visible, e.g. on the map of
municipalities’ own revenues. Another reason for the absence of regional identity is the fact that
Warsaw, practically from the very beginning of its serving as Poland’s capital, had poor links with its
immediate surroundings, a situation which did not change until the end of the 19th century as
cooperation links developed in the industrial economy.
The Mazowieckie Voivodship, and the Warsaw metropolitan area in particular, has become the
leader of the Polish transformation, a position which remained unchallenged both after the EU
accession and during the recent financial crisis. In consequence, in 2011 GDP per capita in the
Mazowsze region reached 163% of the national average, compared to 208% in the Warsaw
metropolitan area. Metropolitan functions play a key role in the city’s economy, which is associated,
among others, with the headquarters of largest enterprises, including subsidiaries of transnational
corporations, being located in the city.
PART 1: METROPOLITAN REGION AND ITS CONSTITUENTS
Just as any other big city, Warsaw has a wide zone of influence, in this case arising mainly from its
capital city metropolitan functions. In 2013, the public administration sector in Warsaw employed ca.
72,300 people, i.e. some 9% of all the employed, a value not considerably different than those
encountered in other large Polish cities, but nevertheless twice as high as the national average.
Furthermore, during the economic slowdown post 2008, public administration was one of the sectors
which increased its share in overall employment at the fastest rate.
1 The report partly draws on the Warsaw case study presented in the publication: European Metropolises and
Their Regions: From Economic Landscapes to Metropolitan Networks (Smętkowski et al. 2011).
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The labour market in Warsaw is both attractive (high salaries) and extensive (high degree of
diversity). Most of people settling down permanently in Warsaw do so because of career
opportunities. Commuting to work in the city is also popular and extends beyond the administrative
boundaries of the voivodship. Two types of work commuting can be distinguished: daily commuting,
which prevails within an 80 km radius from the city centre, and weekly commuting, from locations at
a distance which in some cases exceeds 200 km (Smętkowski 2005).
Fig. 1. Warsaw and its spheres of influence in the context of Poland’s administrative division
Bydgoszcz Toruń
Łódź
Olsztyn
Kielce
Białystok
Lublin
* metropolitan area marked by synthetic indicator consists of: migration
balance, companies with foreign shareholdings and number of enterprises
** metropolitan region (hinterland) marked out on the basis of Reilly’s
law (1931) Source: M. Smętkowski (2005a).
Capital cities of neighboring voivodships Warsaw metropolitan region**
border of voivodships
Mazowieckie voivodship
Metropolitan area*
Warsaw
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The Mazowieckie Voivodship in its present shape was created in 1998 as a result of Poland’s
administrative reform. The boundaries of all the 16 new regions relatively closely correspond to the
spheres of influence of their regional capitals, which is also the case with Warsaw. Only some small
parts of the neighbouring voivodships remain within Warsaw’s dominant sphere of influence (Fig. 1).
Nevertheless, it can be noticed that in terms of attractiveness for students, some academic centres
situated in the neighbouring voivodships (Olsztyn, Lublin, Kielce) compete with Warsaw for students
living in the region’s outlying counties (Herbst 2009), which can largely be explained by lower costs
of studying in such cities.
There are 314 municipalities (LAU2) [gmina] in the Mazowieckie Voivodship, grouped in 42 counties
(LAU1) [powiat]. The majority of analyses delineating the Warsaw metropolitan area use
municipalities as the basic unit of delimitation (Fig. 2). Despite certain differences between various
approaches, the range of the metropolitan area usually covers about 40-50 kilometres from the core
city and its shape reflects the major transport corridors. The area stretches mostly in the western and
southern directions (which are the directions of the main business linkages), and less so in the
eastern one, which is partly due to the existence of a transport barrier caused by an insufficient
number of bridges on the Vistula River. Moreover, the borders of the metropolitan area largely
correspond to the former capital city voivodship existing in the years 1976-1998. That administrative
unit, unlike the present Mazowieckie Voivodship, had no local government authorities and the scope
of its powers was relatively small.
Fig. 2. Various delimitations of the Warsaw metropolitan area
a) Selected analytical delimitations of the Warsaw metropolitan area
Source: Smętkowski 2007.
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b) Study of the Warsaw metropolitan area
Source: MBPR, 2011
c) Functional area of the Integrated Territorial Investments
Source: ZIT, 2014
To sum up, employing the existing NUTS3 units for an analysis allowing interregional and
international comparisons should be recognised as a sufficiently precise approximation.
PART 2: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE METROPOLIS AND THE REGION
Metropolitan area
The most important strengths of the Warsaw metropolitan area include a high quality of human
capital manifested, among others, by the highest percentage of people with higher education in
Poland (2011 – in Warsaw 39.5% of people aged 13+ had a university diploma compared to the
national average of 17.9%). It is due to the fact that Warsaw is the most important academic centre
in Poland (with about 280,000 students, including about 94,000 studying in non-public colleges), and
it also has the highest concentration of the R&D potential in the country. In 2011, capital expenditure
on R&D totalled ca. PLN 4.7 billion, and accounted for 40% of the aggregate domestic expenditure.
Control functions are also well developed in the national dimension, as manifested by the number of
headquarters of major enterprises and transnational corporations. Although 22.7% Polish enterprises
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had their central offices in Warsaw, they accounted for a 40% share in total revenues and 32.9% in
total employment (58.4% and 46.4%, respectively, in the case of companies with foreign
shareholdings), which suggests distinct functional specialisation in the sphere of management and
control (Śleszyński 2007).
Moreover, the sectors of specialised business services such as financial brokerage, and information
services such as accounting, IT, consulting, advertising or public relations, represent a substantial
share of the metropolitan economy. In total, in 2011 the business services sector employed 147,000
people (including in particular those providing professional and scientific services), and the financial
brokerage sector 84,500 people. The latter is characterised by the highest value of the location index
in Poland and its growth dynamics was 18% in 2007-2011. Consequently, the Warsaw office real
estate market is equally well developed and at present the capital city has 4,000,000 square metres
of modern office space.
Cultural functions of Warsaw are also well-developed, but with a certain degree of competition from
several other large Polish urban centres. Moreover, the city has an important position on the tourist
map of Poland, especially with respect to business tourism, yet its accommodation facilities as
regards congress tourism remain inadequate. Okęcie, the largest airport in Poland with ca. 10 million
passengers per year, is located close to the city and in 2012, a new airport at Modlin with ca. 1 million
passengers started operation, although the role of airports in other regions of Poland has also
increased.
The weaknesses of Warsaw include poorly developed links to the national transport network,
although, in the recent years, as a result of the expansion of road and motorway projects in Poland,
the situation has been steadily improving (e.g. Warsaw-Berlin A2 motorway and sections of
expressways along other major transport corridors). Besides, in comparison to other European
capitals, the living standards and the quality of life are relatively low (cf. e.g. European Cities Monitor
2011). The latter weakness has been compounded by a low quality of social space and a growing
spatial chaos of the suburbs resulting from uncontrolled suburbanisation processes. Moreover, in
spite of the city’s well-developed R&D potential, mutual relations between business and academia
have been deficient and failed to produce any synergy effects.
Development factors
From the very beginning of the transformation, Warsaw has become a major location for foreign
direct investments (FDIs) in Poland. Their role is still very significant today, with a growing
involvement of foreign entities in transactions on the commercial property market in Warsaw. In the
years 2007-2011, Warsaw attracted an average of ca. MEUR 4.7 in FDIs, which accounted for over
40% of their total value in Poland. In addition to its well-developed human resources potential (a
leading position in the international ranking of business location factors, cf.: European Cities Monitor
2011), the inflow of foreign investments was induced by Warsaw’s accessibility through the
international airport of Okęcie, supplemented, as of recently, by a low-cost airline airport in Modlin.
The role of Warsaw’s endogenous potential still remains largely untapped. The innovation level of
Warsaw’s SMEs and of regional companies is fairly low (according to a survey of 500 regional
enterprises, only 7.2% of SMEs carried on any R&D activities (Poznańska et al. 2012)), while the
mutual relations between business and academia are poorly developed (ibid. 8.2% of all companies).
There is no sufficient support for such projects on the part of the city authorities which have failed to
keep their promise e.g. to develop a technology park.
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As has been indicated above, the role of structural factors is also very important, which is implied by
profound changes in the economic structure. As a result, the industry contributes ca. 12% of gross
value added (GVA), while advanced services have a 17% share in the economy of the whole
metropolitan area . In effect, compared to the national economy, labour productivity is high, yet it is
still much below the average productivity of the German economy in each of the sectors under
analysis (Smętkowski 2012). It should also be noted that Warsaw’s linkages with the global economy
driving changes in the economic structure are largely one-sided; that is, Warsaw is an attractive
business location for foreign companies, yet it does not offer a significant concentration of Polish
companies involved in foreign market transactions, owing to their relatively low potential (ESPON
FOCI 2010).
The role of the public authorities in the economic success of Warsaw has so far been relatively
insignificant (see also: Gorzelak, Smętkowski 2009). This was, among others, due to the fact that the
city authorities do not pursue any active and integrated policy for supporting entrepreneurship and
economic development. The initiatives that were undertaken were as a rule very limited, e.g. the
opening of an Entrepreneurship Centre in 2013 with a floor area of 1,200 sq.m.
Regional hinterland
In comparison to Warsaw, the regional hinterland is practically devoid of any strengths. However,
certain development potential of the area can be indicated, i.e. the existence of large subregional
centres which might in the future, as a result of e.g. improved transport connections with the capital,
play the role of supralocal growth poles. Secondly, some of the areas of the region have favourable
conditions for developing highly specialised commodity farming. Moreover, there are opportunities
for developing tourism on a local scale, including agri-tourism with related tourist products.
The weaknesses of the regional hinterland of the Warsaw metropolis include a considerable role of
low-productivity agriculture that mainly fulfils social functions. Besides, due to overemployment in
this sector, the region faces the problem of a high rate of hidden unemployment. The non-
metropolitan part of the region is barely attractive for external investors, including foreign ones,
owing to a low quality of human resources and poor transport infrastructure. The resources needed
to foster endogenous growth are also scarce and, as a result, the SME sector is poorly developed
outside Warsaw.
Development factors
The development of the remaining part of the region has been a consequence of two processes. On
the one hand, certain reindustrialisation of the economy can be observed, which is associated with
an inflow of foreign capital, mainly to cities located along the major transport corridors such as
Mława, Siedlce or Ostrołęka. On the other hand, the agri-food industry based on local resources
(vegetable and fruit, and also dairy and meat specialisations) has also expanded. In consequence, it is
hard to determine whether the exogenous (as in the former case) or the endogenous (as in the latter
case) factors prevail. Another important external factor is the availability of the European funds, both
under the Regional Operational Programme and Sectoral Programmes which are parts of the
Cohesion Policy, and under the Common Agricultural Policy.
On the local scale, the analysis of municipalities’ own revenues in the last 10 years reveals that their
relative position with respect to the national average remains fairly stable according to quintile
analysis (Fig. 3). Outside the Warsaw metropolitan area, whose range is relatively stable, only a few
municipalities located at a further distance are among the wealthiest ones in Poland and, as a rule,
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these are larger cities. A great majority of municipalities in the Mazowieckie Voivodship are among
the poorest 20% in the country.
Fig. 3. Municipalities’ own revenues per capita in the Mazowieckie Voivodship
2002 2012
Source: prepared by the author.
One of the few examples of local success is the city of Mława, seat of a county, with a population of
ca. 30,000 and situated ca. 130 km north of Warsaw. Its LG plant with its cooperating partners
provide employment to about 4000 people. The circumstances which made it possible included,
among others:
• The investment site was incorporated in the Warmia and Mazury Special Economic Zone with
all the privileges involved,
• Its development was based on the existing plants in the sector, which made it easier to
employ the basic staff and shortened the preliminary phase of the project,
• The availability of substantial resources of cheap labour, which was a vital factor in view of
the fact that much of the production does not require highly-qualified employees,
• Good transport connections (a national road and a railway line) facilitating both supplies and
sales (however, the expectations relating to modernisation of the national DK7 road and its upgrading
to an expressway standard and construction of a connecting road leading to the industrial zone have
not been satisfied as yet).
One more factor that helped improve the situation of Mława in the recent years was the growth of
incomes in agriculture. This has happened as a result of the redistribution function of the Common
Agricultural Policy and, consequently, of the modernisation of agriculture and, in particular, as a
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result of the development of a local specialisation - industrial poultry husbandry. As a result, on the
one hand, simple services for the local population living in the vicinity of the city developed in Mława
(trade and repairs, personal services) and on the other, the city responded to the demands of the
growing agricultural production by building a large poultry slaughterhouse.
In effect, per capita own revenues in Mława increased from PLN 629 in 2002 (ca. EUR 150) to PLN
1607 (EUR 400) in 2012, that is from 77.5% to 83.8% of the national average.
Comparison of the metropolitan area and the metropolitan region
The above review of the strengths and weaknesses implies a clear dichotomy of the socio-economic
structures between the metropolis and the region. As a result, the Mazowieckie Voivodship is one of
the most internally diversified regions in Poland. The development of the regional hinterland
considerably depends on the relations with the core city. Depending on whether spread or backwash
effects prevail, the region changes its position in comparison to the national average. The
development paths of both areas, despite their uniform growth tendency with respect to the national
average in the years 2000-2011, followed different courses, especially in the initial period (Fig. 4)It is
worth noting, however, that post 2005, these paths became largely similar, which may indicate, on
the one hand, a growth of functional ties and, on the other, a favourable influence of external factors,
including those related to the EU membership. Special attention should be given to a markedly
improving position of the remaining part of the Mazowieckie Voivodship in comparison to the whole
country that was taking place in the period following the economic slowdown starting in 2009. It may
imply some sort of resilience of the whole region to the crisis as it characterises both the Warsaw
metropolitan area and the remaining part of the region.
Fig.4. GDP per capita in the constituent parts of the Warsaw metropolitan region
a) Metropolitan area
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b) Regional hinterland
Source: prepared by the author based on CSO data.
Apart from the differences in the level of development (GDP per capita), the dichotomy between the
metropolitan area and the region is manifested by the different economic structures, in particular by
a different share of agriculture in the labour market (Fig. 5). Another significant difference was a
much higher and still growing share of industry in the regional hinterland in contrast to its gradual
decrease in the Warsaw metropolitan area. On the other hand, the growth of the advanced services
sector and a growing share of simple services in Warsaw was accompanied by a considerable
weakening of those sectors in the remaining part of the region. The share of public services, however,
was similar in both parts of the region, with a greater role of private companies in contributing to the
value of the sector in Warsaw.
Fig. 5. Industry sectors and economic structure in the constituent parts of the Mazowieckie
Voivodship in 2000-2011
METROPOLITAN AREA REGIONAL HINTERLAND
GVA per capita as % of the national average
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GVA structure (%)
Source: prepared by the author based on CSO data.
Other major differences between the metropolis and the region include the quality of human capital.
If the share of people with higher education was ca. 40% in Warsaw, in some of the rural
municipalities of the Mazowieckie Voivodship it did not exceed 1%. The existing social differences
were obviously exacerbated by migration processes, discussed below.
PART 3. Relationship between the metropolis and the region
Major types of flows between the metropolis and the region
Commuting
One of the crucial linkages between the Warsaw metropolis and its regional hinterland is commuting
to work. According to the CSO (GUS) data for 2006 (i.e. the most recent available) the extent of daily
commuting in Warsaw is very high and is estimated at ca. 170,000 people (about 20% of all those
working in the city), while only 12,000 employees commute in the opposite direction. According to
the recent surveys, the former figure might have increased to 220,000 (e.g. Komornicki et al. 2013). It
should also be noted that the intensity of daily commuting is strongly negatively correlated with the
physical and temporal distance from the city centre (Smętkowski 2005). The point at which weekly
commuting (which requires renting some accommodation in the city) starts to predominate over
daily commuting can be set at a distance of 80 km from the centre of Warsaw and at 95 minutes of a
car journey.
As a rule, daily commuting involves the municipalities located in the close vicinity to the city and
usually takes place along the main transport corridors to Warsaw (Fig. 6). This type of commuting also
involves transfer of income which may affect the development of the endogenous sector of a given
municipality. Moreover, commuting increases the revenues of the municipal budgets owing to their
share in the personal income tax. By contrast, the less-developed municipalities situated further from
Warsaw provide workers for the city labour market commuting on a weekly basis. A certain role of
subregional centres can also be discerned in the structure of commuting to work. First of all, this
concerns Plock, as Radom and Siedlce represent a part of the functional labour market of Warsaw. To
an even greater degree, this can also be said about smaller urban centres. As a result, a distinctly
monocentric commuting model continues to function both within the metropolitan area and within
the metropolitan region. In the latter case, this suggests a significant dependence of the regional
hinterland on the metropolis.
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Fig. 6. Commuting to Warsaw in 2006.
Commuters to Warsaw per 1000 of working-age
population
% of commuters to work in Warsaw in the
municipalities
Source: Śleszyński 2014.
Migration of the population
Migration flows are to some extent related to work commuting, discussed above. Migrations in the
Mazowieckie Voivodship should divided into two segments. The first is the outflow of inhabitants
from the city, a process which started at the beginning of the 1990s and is manifested by the
suburbanisation processes in the suburban zone. Based on the 2002 census data, (Gorzelak,
Smętkowski 2005), the outflow from Warsaw was directed toward the surrounding municipalities
which in 1988-2002 took over ca. 70% of 114,000 former city inhabitants. As a rule, such people
maintain close ties with Warsaw, through work, schooling, culture and leisure activities, even
including daily shopping. Only 10% of people that had been earlier listed as city residents moved
further off to the other parts of the voivodship. As regards the inflow of people to Warsaw, the
majority of 151,000 of migrants, i.e. 63%, came from the peripheral areas of the /Mazowieckie
Voivodship. These were mainly people with higher education aged 24 to 30 (29,000); their share in
the inflow to Warsaw from the remaining part of the metropolitan region reached 76%. The
backwash processes primarily involve people with higher education.
These processes were continued over the last 10 years. A map presenting the migration balance
between Warsaw and the remaining municipalities, showing their population numbers (net migration
rate) (Fig. 7), reveals that the negative balance was found mainly in municipalities within a 150 km
radius from Warsaw. The positive balance in that area was practically limited exclusively to
municipalities surrounding the subregional centres – Płock in the north-west and Radom in the south
and, to a lesser degree, Siedlce, Ciechanów and Ostrołęka. On the other hand, it is evident that areas
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of dense migration outflows were situated in the eastern and northern part of the region, whereas
more dispersed migration flows came from the southern part of the voivodship.
Fig. 7. Migration balance in municipalities in 2002-2012 [ ‰]
Source: prepared by the author based on CSO data.
The municipalities which were characterised by a high negative migration balance with Warsaw are
usually less developed, as a result of which they become providers of Warsaw’s labour force, mainly
in a weekly cycle. In this case, the correlation between commuting and the level of development is
two-sided. A low development level of a municipality and the weakness of the local labour market
drives migrations of the inhabitants in search of employment. Accommodation prices and high living
costs in Warsaw constitute a barrier impeding permanent migration outflows. Therefore, some of the
migrants rent apartments (or rooms) in Warsaw and go back to their families on weekends and
holidays. Such a population outflow can produce negative consequences for the municipalities, such
as spending much of the salary in Warsaw and, in the longer term, may cause a permanent outflow of
a part of the local population to Warsaw and therefore the transfer of capital for real estate
investments.
Nevertheless, the regional settlement system remains pretty stable since part of the migration
outflow is counterbalanced by a positive birth rate, whereas the population aging processes, though
accelerating, are not yet much advanced.
Trade and capital ties
The share of the Warsaw metropolitan area in Poland’s foreign trade turnover was significant and
amounted to 30% in the import of goods and services and ca. 16% in exports. The imports twice as
high as the exports clearly show that the role of Warsaw’s enterprises was mainly that of
intermediaries in foreign trade, which was e.g. a result of the fact that most companies supplying
goods for the Polish internal market had their headquarters in Warsaw. However, based on the
surveys conducted in 2002 among companies located in the Warsaw metropolitan area, it may be
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concluded that the regional ties of the metropolis are poorly developed. The other part of the
Mazowieckie Voivodship had a marginal, less than 10%, share in extra-local sales and supply
mechanisms, which as a rule was lower in the case of more highly-processed goods or specialised
services (Gorzelak, Smętkowski 2008).
The spread of development processes from Warsaw was spatially limited and basically restricted to
the metropolitan area (Fig. 8). It was mainly manifested by a widespread practice of relocating
companies or opening their branches in the municipalities close to Warsaw. Generally speaking, the
outward reach of foreign investments was to a great extent restricted to an area within a 40 km
radius from the city. The unchartered territories, as far as the location of foreign investments is
concerned, remain more or less unchanged, which points to a low attractiveness of the peripheral,
agricultural municipalities for the inflow of capital. The most remarkable change in terms of the
penetration of companies with foreign shareholdings could be observed in the north-east of Warsaw,
which might have been affected by the completion of a part of the expressway connecting Warsaw
and Białystok.
Fig 8. Companies with foreign shareholdings per 1000 population
2002 2012
Source: prepared by the author based on CSO data.
As a result, the regional manufacturing system points to significant and growing linkages within the
Warsaw metropolitan area, with rare examples of companies locating their offices in the remaining
part of the region. The latter, such as the LG plant in Mława, often operate on a supranational scale
and the vicinity of Warsaw does not play a crucial role in their business location decisions. The same
can be said about companies operating in the food processing sector, whose products are partly sold
on the Warsaw market.
Other social relations
Advanced services provided in Warsaw to its regional surroundings such as higher education, medical
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services and cultural events represent an important category of linkages. It should be noted, however,
that such impact of Warsaw largely extended to the whole of the country.
One of the very few manifestations of outward movements were vacation or recreation trips made by
the residents of Warsaw . This kind of commuting often involved building holiday cottages that were
frequently densely grouped in locations with outstanding natural assets, mostly situated in the river
valleys. The intensity of such commuting clearly decreased as the distance from the city increased;
furthermore, such a practice did not reach the north-western, southern and eastern peripheries of
the Mazowieckie Voivodship (that had to compete with the neighbouring, more attractive areas of
the neighbouring voivodships).
PART 4. Governance and local/regional development policies
Relations of public authorities in the metropolitan region
The Mazowieckie Voivodship may serve as a good example of the impact of the national policies on
the relationships between individual actors responsible for the development of the region. The
Warsaw authorities are deeply involved in national policy-making and the city mayor's or
commissioner's office is usually held by politicians with a career in the government, candidates
running in presidential elections or leaders of major political parties. The office of the marshal
responsible for the development of the region has been held since 1998 by a politician from the
Polish People's Party (PSL). This leads to political struggles for influence which is manifested, among
others, by adopting the rules for allocating funds under the Regional Operational Programme. Apart
from few examples such as a common ticketing scheme for urban transport (city authorities) and the
regional railways (regional authorities) within the agglomeration or the Regional Loan Guarantee
Fund, initiatives and projects to be implemented jointly by the city and regional authorities are sorely
lacking. The relations between the public authorities and the business sector follow the same
pattern, and it is difficult to find any effective communication channels or joint public and private
undertakings.
On the local scale, however, one can find examples of well-functioning cooperation networks
between municipalities involving various fields of activity, starting from access to public services to
joint infrastructure investments to development planning (Zegar 2003). Inter-municipal cooperation
is relatively the least developed in the border areas between the capital city and its neighbouring
municipalities. This is an area which sees the most severe conflicts of interest. Recently, the sole
success was the introduction of a common ticketing scheme within the Warsaw agglomeration, co-
financed by the municipalities of the metropolitan area under a bilateral agreement concluded with
Warsaw and not as a special-purpose association of municipalities. The development of cooperation
between municipalities is further promoted by Local Action Groups supported under the Rural
Development Programme.
In the recent years, the regional authorities of the Mazowieckie Voivodship, also in cooperation with
the Regional Office for Planning and Development, prepared a number of strategic (Development
Strategy Update), operational (a draft of the Regional Operational Programme) and analytical
documents (e.g. under the project Development Trends in the Mazowieckie Voivodships), which
delineated the major directions of activities to foster the development of the region. These
documents include relevant diagnoses of the main strengths and weaknesses of the voivodship,
underlining the above-mentioned dichotomy between the Warsaw metropolitan area and the
remaining part of the region. The planned undertakings are supposed to gradually reduce the
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development disparities between the metropolis and the region. Measures to be undertaken may be
divided into financial instruments targeted at businesses and local governments, and investment
tools related to the development of physical infrastructure, aimed e.g. to promote the positive
influence of Warsaw, as well as ‘soft’ instruments intended to develop human resources to reduce
the effects of the backwash processes from the regional hinterland to the metropolis.
Relations between the public authorities in the metropolitan area
The idea of creating a metropolitan area for Warsaw dates back to the 1990s and is brought up with
each attempt to regulate the issue at the national level. Currently, cooperation is mainly based on
bilateral agreements between Warsaw and the neighbouring municipalities and concerns mainly
transport services. Following a long period of mutual distrust, some progress was made owing to the
need to develop a programme that would help to implement the Integrated Territorial Investments, a
Cohesion Policy tool. As a result, 38 local governments joined this cooperation (Warsaw and 37
neighbouring municipalities). A budget of ca. EUR 165 million was earmarked for these activities.
According to preliminary plans, the investment projects should be focused, first, on building bicycle
paths (PLN 50 million) and P&R parking facilities (PLN 33 million) and, second, on the development of
entrepreneurship (PLN 33 million altogether) and the development of investment sites (PLN 25
million).
PART 5. External interventions: national and EU policies
Under the 2007-2013 financial perspective, it was estimated that, up to 2012, ca. PLN 16.2 billion had
been spent under the Cohesion Policy in the Mazowieckie Voivodship, which meant ca. PLN 3,1000
(ca. EUR 750) per capita in the region. These estimates reveal that about half of the funds were spent
in Warsaw, another 20% - in its metropolitan area and the rest, that is ca. 30%, were expended in the
remaining part of the voivodship. One should be very cautious, however, in interpreting these figures,
since the full range of the impact of some of the projects located in Warsaw is much wider and may
extend to the whole of the voivodship and, in some cases, to other regions in Poland. Moreover, the
estimates do not include expenditure made under the Common Agricultural Policy, which largely
offsets the above disproportions favouring the peripheral rural areas. The most important projects
included the large-scale projects implemented under the Infrastructure and Environment
Programme, that is the construction of the A2 motorway (unfortunately, completed without the
Vistula River crossing) and of the two expressways, S7 and S8. The expansion of the transport
infrastructure in Warsaw itself (including the construction of the second underground line) also was
an important item under the programme.
In 2007-2013, the Mazowieckie Voivodship was one of the regions which was granted support under
the Convergence objective. As a result, the received co-financing in per capita terms did not diverge
much from that of the less-developed regions (although the accepted algorithm to some extent
favoured regions at a lower development level and with a higher unemployment rate). The biggest
Regional Operational Programme 2007-2013, with a budget of ca. EUR 1.831 billion, was
implemented in the Mazowieckie Voivodship. Its main focus was the development of the regional
transport system (30%) and promotion and support of innovation and entrepreneurship (23%). Large
funds were also earmarked for the development of e-economy (11%), rational use and protection of
the environmental resources (10%), as well as development of tourism and culture (9%).
The impact of the public policies implemented with the EU co-financing on the relations between the
metropolis and the region can be summarised as follows (cf. Smętkowski 2011):
17
Development of the transport infrastructure to improve the accessibility of the regional
hinterland may contribute to curbing the negative effects of the backwash processes (such as brain
drain) and fostering the spread effects (business investments, exurbanisation),
Support for companies and R&D institutions that may contribute to the emergence of a
functional urban region, a process which is observable especially within a 35 km radius from the city
centre,
Development of human resources and social infrastructure, which is particularly noticeable
by the municipalities situated within a 35-75 km radius and which may demonstrate improvement in
the accessibility of various forms of public services offered in the capital city,
Projects related to the development of ICT infrastructure and tourism, which may enhance
tourism and recreation attractiveness, especially in the extremely peripheral parts of the voivodship.
What is even more important is the difference in the intervention structure in the 2007-2013 period.
In Warsaw itself, a significant portion of the funds was spent on labour market instruments – to a
great extent, however, this was a consequence of the non-local impact of projects implemented by
the regional labour office. The role of funds earmarked for the development of the R&D potential was
very important, especially of those allocated to the expansion of the university infrastructure –
University of Warsaw (UW), Warsaw University of Technology (PW) and Medical University of Warsaw
(WUM).
Relatively large sums are allocated to culture. As regards transport projects, two vital investments
included the construction of the second underground line and of the Warsaw ring-road. Both projects
are done in stages – they were started in the 2004-2006 period and will be continued under the
present financial perspective 2014-2020. In view of the completion of work on the sewage treatment
plant financed under the 2004-2006 perspective, the volume of expenditure on the development of
environmental infrastructure was considerably reduced. Furthermore, relatively modest funds were
spent on the development of human resources, which was largely caused by the fact that they had
already been among the highest-developed in the country. To sum up, we may make a conservative
assumption that the structure of the intervention in Warsaw largely matched its development
requirements. The greatest weakness in this respect was a relatively modest application of external
funds to the improvement of the quality and accessibility of public services and the revitalisation
process, including the enhancement of the quality of public space and development of an effective
spatial planning system. In the Warsaw metropolitan area, the intervention was mainly focused on
assistance granted to enterprises; according to estimates, it could have represented almost 50% of
the entire allocation.
The available information, estimates and collected data seem to point to a marked difference
between Warsaw, its metropolitan area and the rest of the region as far as their expenditure targets
are concerned. If in the case of Warsaw, and especially in its metropolitan area, a great portion of the
funds was allocated to the improvement of competitiveness and innovation, as well as to creating
conditions for the development of entrepreneurship, in the remaining part of the metropolitan
region the prevailing tendency was to focus on improving the living standards of its inhabitants.
Naturally, this did not mean that there were no projects aimed to enhance the level of innovation of
the economy, yet definitely more resources were allocated to the development of the basic physical
infrastructure, which has an undeniable impact on the improvement of the living standards of the
inhabitants.
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As regards the degree of coordination in spending the funds in the Warsaw metropolitan region, the
opinions were quite varied. The most evident, in particular, was the lack of coordination among the
programmes implemented under the Cohesion Policy and the Rural Development Programme
implemented under the Common Agricultural Policy, which often results in the overlapping of certain
activities and in an artificial separation of the existing functional areas, a feature that is especially
visible in the case of medium-sized cities.
PART 6. Future prospects
After a period of a rapid increase of the disparities between the metropolis and the region, which
was typical of the first phase of the transformation, the development paths of both constituent parts
of the Mazowieckie Voivodship became largely similar. Nonetheless, in the near future it can be
expected that the scale of the disparities between the metropolis and the region will be maintained.
This will be the likely effect of the continued complementarity of this system, coupled with smaller
synergies, which will however be fostered by the extending the range of Warsaw’s functional urban
region, also as a result of the modernisation of its transport infrastructure. At the same time, the
main difference between the metropolis and the region will be the former’s increasing participation
in modern information economy, with the region still remaining more embedded in traditional
agrarian and industrial economy. In consequence, it can probably be expected that only large
migratory flows may partly offset the scale of the existing disparities in the level of economic
development in the long term perspective (as it has been the case with some of the European
metropolitan regions, e.g. Barcelona, cf. Smętkowski et al. 2011). As regards Warsaw itself, further
internationalisation of its economy can be anticipated, accompanied by the strengthening of its
position in the European and global network of cities.
In this regard, the following recommendations can be made for both the national policies and the EU
Cohesion policy:
• Supporting continued development of Warsaw’s metropolitan functions in the sphere of
higher education, scientific research, specialised financial and management functions, innovation,
culture and entrepreneurship, also through urban policy, an instrument recently promoted by the
European Commission, and its Integrated Territorial Investment, an EU policy tool which should be
reinforced.
• In the remaining cities of the region: supporting their service potential and also
strengthening their industrial potential in selected sectors: oil (Płock), machine-building (Radom) and
food-processing. Development of entrepreneurship in the peripheral areas should be promoted, also
via ICT. Strategic decisions concerning the continued operation of higher education institutions in the
subregional centres will need to be made in view of their having to address the challenge of falling
student numbers in the near future.
• Further strengthening of the voivodship’s external linkages, which should facilitate attracting
inward capital active especially in the sphere of high technologies, which could locate R&D activity in
the region. This should be accompanied by improving the ‘soft’ location factors in Warsaw and other
cities of the region in view of their role in the development of creative industries. The number of
start-ups in the creative industries should be increased owing to the development of business
environment institutions (such as academic business incubators).
• Improving transport accessibility within the region, which will significantly enhance the
quality of life of the residents of the metropolitan area and should also foster the development of
19
tourism (culture, business and conference tourism). This would help consolidate the capital city
functions and promote network development, drawing on the offer of the remaining subregions.
Supporting increased mobility of workers (permanent and shuttle migration), especially between the
Warsaw metropolis and the regional hinterland.
• Undertaking measures aimed to develop a polycentric structure of the Warsaw metropolitan
area and strengthening its integration in terms of transport. Improving the quality of the natural
environment, among others through promoting sustainable transport within the Warsaw
metropolitan area, reducing the human pressure in areas with valuable environmental assets and
preventing natural hazards associated with housing development in floodplains. The establishment
of a metropolitan board should facilitate the implementation of these tasks.
• Measures for the restructuring of agriculture and rural areas and for improving the standard
of teaching in the peripheral areas, among others via networking and cooperation between
secondary schools.
PART 7. Conclusions
7.1. How does the metropolis perform on the international scale? What are the main drivers of its
success/failure? Is their nature exogenous or endogenous?
Warsaw is among the most dynamically developing metropolises in Europe. This can also be said
about its immediate surroundings, i.e. the metropolitan area, and is manifested by a fast GDP
increase, which in 2011 reached 107% of the EU27 average year-on-year. Warsaw’s success stems
from a combination of both external and endogenous factors, although, arguably, with a certain
prevalence of the former, which notably include the influx of inward capital attracted by the best
multimodal transport accessibility in Poland and highly-skilled workforce. Companies with foreign
shareholdings also have a strong presence in the advanced business services sector, and Warsaw is
home to the subsidiaries of about a half of the largest global corporations operating in this sector
(CBRE 2011). The main factor attracting investors is the availability of well-qualified and cheap
workforce. In this context, the endogenous potential plays a smaller part owing to the low level of
innovation of SMEs operating in the metropolis and their weak linkages with the R&D potential of the
public institutions.
7.2. How does the regional hinterland perform in comparison to the metropolis? What is the role
of natural resources in the development process? Does the success in the regional hinterland rely
on exogenous or endogenous factors?
The development of the rest of the Mazowsze region lags far behind that of Warsaw mainly owing to
its being strongly embedded in the traditional, industrial and agricultural development paradigm. In
this approach, natural resources remain an important development factor. Nevertheless, these
resources are not necessarily acquired locally; for instance, the oil refinery in Płock one of the
country’s largest industrial plants, uses the oil transported via the Druzhba pipeline. Some of the
foreign enterprises operating their plants in the region behave in a similar way. For example, the
plant in Mława run by LG, one of the world’s major TV manufacturers, relies most heavily on the
large pool of cheap and unqualified local labour. However, agriculture in the Mazowieckie Voivodship
is undergoing a modernisation process, manifested by increasing specialisation, especially vegetable
and fruit growing, but also animal husbandry. In the recent years, the development rate of the non-
metropolitan part of the region has been faster than the national average, which seems to be a result
of exogenous factors associated with its becoming gradually more attractive to foreign capital and
20
access to funds under the Common Agricultural and Cohesion policies rather than a consequence of
its endogenous potential (related to innovation and education).
7.3. What is the role of migration processes in relation between metropolis and their region? Could
we observe segmentation of migration (e.g. young to the core, elderly to hinterland)? How does
the quality of life in regional hinterland affect this process?
Migration processes drive the brain drain from the Mazowieckie region to Warsaw, mostly of young
people, especially those with high qualifications. However, these people are not replaced by the
inflow of post-working age migrants from Warsaw. The largest migratory outflow from Warsaw is
recorded among the middle-aged population and is connected with a dynamic suburbanisation of the
suburban municipalities, since emigration from Warsaw is almost entirely restricted to the
municipalities within the Warsaw metropolitan area. The reasons for such a situation include
relatively low cost differences between the outer part of the metropolitan area and the more distant
areas. In effect, this area offers a higher quality of life due not only to the well-developed local public
services, but also to the possibilities to use services offered in Warsaw itself.
7.4. How does the accessibility affect development processes in regional hinterland?
Transport accessibility plays an important part in the spread of development processes from
Warsaw. Municipalities situated within the main transport corridors are characterised by a higher
development level measured by own revenues per capita. This is due, first, to easier commuting to
work in Warsaw on a daily basis, and, second, to enhanced attractiveness of some municipalities for
investment. It should be noted, however, that the number of such municipalities is relatively small.
As regards subregional centres, it can be said that their enhanced transport accessibility creates
favourable conditions for daily work commuting to Warsaw, which in effect slows down migration
processes, but does little to improve their attractiveness for investment in any significant way.
7.5. What are the most important policies for the development of the regional hinterland? What is
the interplay between policies supporting exogenous factors (e.g. transport policy) vs. endogenous
factors (e.g. education policy) of development?
From the perspective of the non-metropolitan part of the Mazowieckie Voivodship, sectoral policies
associated with the expansion of the transport infrastructure are of crucial significance. Similarly,
barriers associated with the insufficient capacity of the existing transport network also play a
considerable role. In consequence, the accessibility of the peripheral parts of the region is small,
which cripples their attractiveness for private investment. It should also be noted that accessibility is
considerably affected by the bottlenecks existing in the transport system situated in the city’s
metropolitan area (exit roads). The recent years saw some improvement in that regard as several
sections of expressways have been put into operation, but an efficiently functioning transport
network still remains a question of the future. Considerable neglect can also be observed in the rail
transport, which involves not only sluggishness in the execution of infrastructure projects (despite EU
co-financing which allowed repairing a part of the major east-west railway route), but also lack of
organisational skills manifested by the poor matching of the service offer to passenger needs, which,
given the obsolete rolling stock and run-down railway stations, makes competing with private
transport providers extremely difficult. Moreover, several different public providers use the railway
infrastructure, including Koleje Mazowieckie, a railway company operated by the regional
government, which does not improve the quality of their offer as their activities are largely
uncoordinated.
21
Educational policy should aim to improve both the quality of, and access to, education at all levels,
starting from pre-school (where considerable progress has been achieved and the number of
children aged 3-5 attending kindergartens has been significantly increased) to higher education
institutions. In the recent years, public colleges have expanded fast in the subregional centres of the
Mazowieckie Voivodship, attracting many more students. This was supplemented by private
investments, as a result of which a number of private higher education institutions have been
opened, although their teaching quality is quite frequently questioned. Currently, this process has
been reversed due to changes in the demographic situation. Nonetheless, in light of the brain drain
processes taking place, educating surplus numbers of highly-qualified people should be continued as
it could provide the basis for the development of the endogenous potential in the regional
hinterland. These efforts should be supported by urban policy aimed to strengthen the main
subregional centres and create conditions for making use of the available stock of human capital,
including offering supports to the development of enterprise.
Under the policy promoting innovation (the updated Regional Innovation Strategy), the key
specialisations of the region include safe food, intelligent management systems, modern business
services and high quality of life. Each of these specialisations is sufficiently broad to allow
diversification of the economic and research potential in the Mazowieckie region, creating the
conditions for the implementation of this strategy also in the non-metropolitan part of the region.
7.6. Are the authorities at regional level necessary from perspective of metropolis-region
relationships?
The Mazowieckie Voivodship is among the regions of Poland which are the most strongly divided in
socio-economic terms. In many cases, the disparities between the Warsaw metropolis and the
remaining part of the region are so wide that it is difficult to pursue intraregional policies without
suspicions of partiality in the distribution of the funds. The regional government is rather weak, for a
number of reasons. One such reason is the financial issue posed by the obligation to pay a
compensatory tax to the state budget, as a result of which the region is not able to discharge its tasks
properly, and is forced to desperately seek savings in various spheres such as e.g. culture. In this
context, we can speak of a question that is not easy to resolve – that of separating Warsaw and its
metropolitan area from the Mazowieckie Voivodship, which could eliminate the existing dichotomy
in administrative terms, although could in effect weaken the functional integration of the entire area
and lead to the petrification of uncompetitive economic structures in the non-metropolitan part of
the region.
In these circumstances, it is difficult to maintain the region’s political cohesion as the huge
differences among the electorate prevent a consensus to be reached between the authorities at
different tiers of the local government. Such a situation also hampers implementing pro-
development policies on the regional scale despite furnishing the Marshal’s Office with the required
competencies.
7.7. Do the metropolis and its surrounding region mutually need each other? Does the metropolis
need the region? Does the region need the metropolis?
The relations between Warsaw and its surroundings are not symmetrical. Warsaw is increasingly
functioning within a global network of flows, deriving from it factors of production but also selling its
products and also advanced business services within this network.
22
From the perspective of the metropolis, the linkages between the metropolis and its region were
weak and insignificant. In the Mazowieckie Voivodship, regional concentration processes prevailed in
both absolute and relative terms, and were manifested by a concentration of jobs outside agriculture
especially in the service sector in the metropolis. In contrast, deindustrialisation processes more
strongly affected the Warsaw metropolitan area, leading to a relatively greater significance of the
production functions in the remaining part of the metropolitan region. Nevertheless, the role of the
regional hinterland in terms of supplies for companies operating in Warsaw was rather marginal,
being largely restricted to simplest products and services with low GVA. The situation of the
workforce was fairly similar since workers as a rule lacked the necessary qualifications to participate
in the mainstream of development, characterised by a growing role of specialised services. In
addition, deconcentration of business activity and location of the subsidiaries of Warsaw’s
companies was typically restricted to the areas within the boundaries of the Warsaw metropolitan
area. In contrast, traditional and environmentally burdensome business activities such as cement
industry were most often located in the non-metropolitan part of the region. In consequence, the
role of the regional hinterland is relatively becoming weaker and weaker in metropolitan
development processes.
However, the situation looked considerably different if viewed from the perspective of the region
which derives benefits from the proximity of the metropolitan area. For the regional surroundings,
the development of the Warsaw metropolis opened up many opportunities which they did not grasp
in full. For instance, in the case of the population with higher education, a process of relative regional
deconcentration could be observed, mainly due to the development of subregional academic
centres. On the other hand, spread effects associated with shuttle migrations of the population,
especially daily commuting to work, were restricted to the municipalities adjoining the metropolitan
area, especially those situated within transport corridors. Their positive impact was largely reduced
by weekly work commuting, typical mainly of municipalities at the outskirts of the region. The capital
balance of the remaining types of commuting suggested their centripetal nature, which increased the
trade deficit and was only partly offset by the leisure and recreation trips of Warsaw’s residents and
the accompanying growth of construction activity. This was associated with the deficit of the
metropolitan region in the trade with the metropolis, both in simple and processed goods. In effect,
the development paths of the metropolis and the region were not strongly interrelated, although the
region could to some extent benefit from the development of the capital city, as demonstrated by
the similarities in their development trajectories, which could be observed recently.
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