Defris Partners: ÖSTSAM – Regional Development ... - WebNews

The distinctive feature of suburban areas is the presence of numerous villages with a
very high number of inhabitants. The origins of the process of a rapid growth of these
villages are to be sought in their night-dwelling character (mass commuting to work in
Bydgoszcz and Toruń), which was very much true up to the 80’s of the last century. A
large share of those villages suffered from an underdeveloped trade and service
facilities, as these were Bydgoszcz and Toruń that catered for these needs. The realm
of material services and craftsmanship was on relatively low level as well. It was not
until the 90’s when the large suburban villages experienced a rapid wide-scale
development of trade, material services, craftsmanship, and they even had large retail
outlets, wholesale outlets or manufacturing plants built and located within their limits.
The mid-nineties saw an increase in popularity of housing construction (including high
standard one – mansion-like). The increase in the population of these villages, apart
from the in-flow of new residents, was a result of a halt to (and subsequently the
reversal of the trend) the city-bound migration, which took place in the 80’s and 90’s.
Nowadays, the largest villages of the analysed area as far as the number of
inhabitants is concerned, outscore the smallest towns in the region( e.g. the village of
Białe Błota has a larger population than 20 towns in the voivodship; its population is
almost the same as the population of the smallest town being a county seat). As many
as 19 villages have the population between 1000 and 2000, 8 villages between 2000
and 3500, and the largest one has 5.7 thousand inhabitants.
Currently, the character of the largest villages is varied. Some of them are welldeveloped
seats of communes – with a high potential of institutions servicing their
residents and agriculture, with basic business servicing institutions, at the same time
being a place of work for many people (high level of entrepreneurship) and having
favourable spatial potential and general level of attractiveness for the development of
housing construction. Some of the largest villages are dwelling places as well as
production-storing-craftsmanship ones, but they are not major residents servicing
centres. Another category of villages are those, whose large population is down to
their residential character (high standard housing) as the predominant function. A
relatively small proportion of villages are those situated in the areas characterised by
favourable preconditions for agricultural development, representing a typical rural –
not urbanised character with typically agricultural function.
The size structure of the settlement system is an important precondition for the
development of communes – including especially the share of inhabitants dwelling in
the largest villages (it is connected with the problem of providing services within
technical and social infrastructure, this being remarkably easier and cheaper if the
inhabitants of big villages make up a big proportion of the total number of residents).
As much as more than 1/3 of the total number of rural residents live in villages with
the population exceeding 1000 (despite the fact that these villages make up merely
8% of the total number of settlements), and as little as 10% of the total number of
rural inhabitants live in villages with the population of up to 200 (such villages make
up more than 44% of the total number of settlements).
A substantial number of suburban villages are characterised by a rapid increase in the
population. They make an attractive location for settling down, and the increase is
largely attributed to the appearance of new housing constructions – frequently of
residential character. Out of over 80 villages whose population in 2006 exceeded 500,
only 12 observed a decrease in the number of inhabitants in the period 2000-06
(several of them observed a minute decrease), and 36 experienced a growth in the
population of more than 10% (21 of which had an increase of more than 20%). As
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