Recent urban and population change in Poland

0016-7165190s3.00+0.00 @ 1990 Pergamon Press plc

Geoforum, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp 17>184, 1990 Printed in Great Bntain

Recent Urban and Population Change in Poland

PIOTR

KORCELLI,*

Warsaw, Poland

Abstract: This paper documents recent changes in urban and population trends in Poland. These changes include a sharp decrease in the spatial mobility of the population, a transition from population concentration to deconcentration at interregional scale, and a weakening of the dominance of metropolitan core areas vi.+& vis metropolitan rings. Such trends typify many highly-urbanized countries today, and have been highlighted in recent geographical and planning literature. However, the current interregional, as well as intrametropolitan deconcentration trends in Poland are probably of transitional character and are likely to be discontinued in the 1990s. By then, rates of internal migration may be expected to increase again, since the large population cohorts born in the 1970s will be entering the labour market. As a country at an intermediate, rather than late, urbanization and development level, Poland still seems rather distant from the point at which population deconcentration becomes the dominant trend at both the interregional and the urban scale.

Introduction The early 1980s have witnessed a discontinuity in the established patterns of urban and population development in Poland. Unlike the previous decades, growth and contraction can no longer be associated with the specific population size or functional characteristics of urban places. Spatial variations in the rates of population change have generally decreased and the role of local vis-d-vis nationwide trends seems to have increased.

If one searches for correspondence between prevailing planning concepts and observed patterns of urban and population change, then current spatial trends are not so difficult to explain. During the 1960s spatial policy in Poland had aimed at attenuating regional disparities; industrial location policy generally favoured the medium-sized over the large cities, the latter being subjected to the so-called deglomeration policies. As a result, the highest rates of employment and population growth occurred in cities of ZO,OOO100,000 inhabitants (KORCELLI, 1978). The early *Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. 173

1970s brought a substantial change in general, as well as regional economic policy. The adopted planning strategy of ‘moderate polycentric concentration’ resulted in fairly massive rural outmigration and expansion of large urban agglomerations. Physical planning in the 198Os, while emphasizing the environmental protection and infrastructure maintenance, has abandoned the formulation of 6xplicit spatial development goals at the national level. Consequently, one may claim, the recent patterns of urban and regional change tend to be far less transparent compared to earlier patterns.

Spatial policy, however, has also to be seen in a broader, socio-economic context. Evidently, shifts in spatial development, as observed during previous decades, were the outcome of a disproportionate allocation of new activitie-specially new industrial assets and housing stock-to specific categories of urban places. The volume of such increments has been curtailed drastically in the 198Os, a decade also characterized by low capital and population mobility. When projected over space, these conditions may be expected to produce an overall picture of stability or stagnation (CORDEY-HAYES, 1975).

174 This paper attempts to identify some discontinuities in patterns of urban change in Poland, as observed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The section which follows focuses on the redistribution of industrial employment and housing construction and is partly based on KORCELLI (1988). In the other sections, which draw on KORCELLI (1987a,b), various aspects of migration and population redistribution are treated in some detail. Selected concepts of urban change, as represented in the work of ZELINSKI (1971), VINING et al. (1982), VAN DEN BERG et al. (1982) and BOURNE (1980) form a background for this analysis. Trends in Industrial Employment, Population Mobility and Housing Construction

Industrialization has been the main driving force of urban growth in Poland throughout most of the period since World War II. In 1960, as many as 140 out of 241 urban centres, each with >lO,OOO inhabitants, had at least 50% of their total employment in industry or construction. Typically, patterns of internal migration were closely associated with allocation of new investments in industry. For example, those administrative districts which experienced net migration gain between 1966 and 1970 accounted for 88% of all new investments in industry during the same period (DZIEWONSKI et al., 1977). The 1970s witnessed an acceleration of urban-industrial growth together with an upsurge in the spatial mobility of the population. Regional policies generally followed, rather than led, industrial location policies; this was also true of the allocation of housing, transport improvements and social services. To meet expanding demand for labour in the major industrial regions, an active recruitment policy was applied during the 1970s. Numerous incentives-including transfer subsidies, establishment payments, and provision of patronage housing-were offered to prospective migrants by enterprises in a number of industrial sectors. The development of educational and cultural facilities, and the availability of alternative employment opportunities in the industrial regions,, represented complementary pull factors which were especially important in the case of skilled and professional migrants. The syndrome of growing industrial labour demand, population in-migration and large-scale housing construction ceased to operate at the beginning of the 1980s. First of all, a decline in industrial output by about one-fifth between 1979 and 1982, followed by a

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slow growth after 1983, was one of the most evident aspects of the socio-economic crisis of those years. The actual contraction in industrial employment was much smaller but it continued throughout the 1980s: between 1980 and 1985 job losses from industry were only 3.6%) i.e. some 200,000 workers. This change has been accompanied by a marked decline in spatial mobility in general, and in inter-regional migration in particular. The total number of registered moves (those between towns and townships-the administrative units of the lowest level) decreased from 964,000 in 1978 to 657,000 in 1985. The number of dwelling units built also declined sharply-from 260,000 in 1978 to 180,000 in 1985. With reduced activity and mobility levels at the national scale, the spatial association between the availability of industrial jobs and new dwellings has largely been discontinued. Allocation of new housing is now to a greater extent determined by variations in efficiency within the construction sector and by the availability of vacant land suited for residential development rather than by the housing demand per se. Also, the correspondence between labour demand and in-migration became much weaker in the 1980s than it was in the 1970s. The evolving age composition of the population-which results in an increase in dependency rates and an absolute drop in the number of entrants into the labour market-together with a decline in labour participation rates (because of schemes of early retirement and extended nursery leave) have contributed to a general shortage of manpower. Owing to a relative availability of jobs, and the continuing housing shortage, housing has become the major factor of attraction in the case of internal migration.. This is what recent sociological studies on causes of migration point to (SOCZOECONOMIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC ASPECTS, 1986). Thus housing seems to have superseded

industry recently as the prime factor of urban development in Poland. When looking at alternative indices of industrial output and productivity (MISZTAL, 1987) large urban agglomerations are losing relative to the less urbanized regions. This is evident from Table 1 which refers to those voivodships (administrative regions) that contain a city, or an urbanized area, with at least 500,000 inhabitants each. Admittedly, inclusion of the data for private-sector industries which tend to be concentrated in the major urbanized regions, would moderate, but not completely alter, the observed pattern of ranks.

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175

Table 1. Recent industrialand housingconstruction trends in the major urban agglomerations in Poland against national trends* Index of Indust~a~zation~

Administrative region (voivodship)

1980

1985

9 1 2 4 18 22 10

9 :

Warsaw Katowice I.&B Krak&w Gdalisk Pozllan Wrocfaw

Share in total number of new dwellingunits (%)

Industrial dynamics? 1980-1985

1971-1978

197911984

47 25 38 48 45 43 46

8.4 12.0 4.6 3.4 4.4 3.5 2.9

6.0 14.4 3.3 2.9 3.3 3.7 2.7

1: 24 12

* Sources: ANDRZRIRWSKI et nl. (1986) and MISZTAL (1987). t Ranks held among the 49 voivodships(state~~ed and co-operative sectors only).

Parallel to spatial shifts in industry, one can also notice a deconcentration of housing construction away from the main urbanized regions. The combined share of seven highly-urbanized voivodships in the total volume of new dwelling units built between 1979 and 1984 is smaller by almost three percentage points than their corresponding share during the 1971-1978 period. In fact, Warsaw has dropped from first to twen~-ninth rank with regard to the number of new dwellings per capita built between 1978 and 1984 (ANDRZEJEWSKI et al., 1986). Despite these trends, the major urbanized regions have been able to maintain a positive balance of internal migration between 1980 and 1985, but their combined net migration gain has decreased by more than half: from 50,000 to 23,800. Some implications of these shifts for the future redistribution of population in Poland are discussed~later.

IWigrationby Ruralend UrbanStatus The concept of mobility tr~sition (ZELINSKY, 1971), despite its numerous shortcomings, represents a convenient framework for an interpretation of evolving migratory flows between rural and urban areas. In the development process, it is assumed that countries undergo a transition from low to high and again to low overall population mobility levels. Along with this change, the dominant direction of movement evolves from rural-rural to rural-urban, urbanurban, and, finally, urban-rural migration. Such regularities can indeed by identified in the case of Poland (Table 2). The post-war peak in labour migration occurred in the mid-195Os, with a secondary peak in the 1970s. Since then, as mentioned earlier, rates of internal migration have decreased

Table 2. Internal migrations in Poland by urban and rural status* Number (in ‘000) and percentage of moves: mean annual figures Total Period 1952-195s 1956-1960 1961-1965 196&1970 1971-197s 19X-1980 1981-1985

Urban-urban

Rural-urban

Urban-rural

Rural-rural

Number

%

Number

%

Number

%

Number

%

Number

%

1408.5 1343.5 1006.2 g64.8 854.2 932.5 732.2

100.0

392.7 311.6 225.7 189.4 201.9 262.7 201.2

27.8 23.2 22.4 21.9 23.6

363.2 322.1

25.7 24.0

253.1 260.8 291.1 336.5 252.8

22s9.3 3411 36.1 34.5

263.4 238.1 160.2 113.5 103.5 123.0 115.6

18.7 17.7 15.9 13.1 12.1 13.2 15.8

389.2 471.7 359.5 308.8 257.7 210.3 162.6

27.6 35.1 35.7 35.7

100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

* Source: CENTRAL STATISTICAL OFFICE (1986).

zF5” 22:2

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176 sharply. With respect to proportions between the four flow categories, the initial dominance of ruralrural migrations was replaced around 1970 by the preponderance of rural-urban moves. The share of urban-urban migrations has increased markedly since the early 197Os, although it is still below the corresponding share of rural-urban migration. Acceleration in rural-urban migration during the 1970s generated a number of studies on the causes, patterns and consequences of outmigration and rural depopulation. According to EBERHARDT (1988) as many as 1418 out of a total of 2020 rural townships decreased in population in absolute terms between 1970 and 1978. The net loss of 4.5 million migrants (80% of whom were aged 18-29) for urban areas could only partly be explained by substitution of capital for labour inputs in agriculture. In fact, the farm structure changed little and a shortage of farm labour was observed in many of the demographically declining rural areas. Causes of outmigration, as identified by a number of authors, included unfavourable price structure for farm vs factory products and deficient social and technical infrastructure in rural areas. Outmigration involved farm population to a greater extent than non-farm rural population; also, it was particularly strong in the case of smaller communities and at greater time distances from major towns. As a result of contraction in overall mobility rates, the secular decline in the number of the rural population in Poland has been arrested in the early 1980s. The net migration loss of the rural areas shrunk from some 220,000 to 120,000 between 1978 and 1985, and the rural areas affected by absolute population loss from 80 to 47% of the total. This shift involves gains for stable areas and a continuing sizeable outmigration from declining rural areas, in particular in northeastern and central Poland (GAWRYSZEWSKI, 1987). Irrespective of changing overall mobility levels, the rural areas generate persistently high proportions of all migrants. Whereas the percentage of the rural population decreased from 51.7 to 40.0 between 1960 and 1985, the share of rural origins has changed insignificantly throughout that period: from 59.1% (1956-1960) to 56.7% (198&1985) (Table 2). Proportions between the four migration categories reflect not only the differential propensity to move, and relative size of rural and urban populations, but also depend on the nature of area1 units for which

21 Number 2/1990

data on migration are reported. Consolidation of some 4300 communities into some 2200 townships in 1973-1974 produced a reduction in the number of reported rural-rural moves by an estimated third. Data on urban-urban migrations, on the other hand, fail to account for the bulk of intra-urban residential mobility, since only the moves between major districts of the five largest cities, along with interurban moves, are included in the statistics. Even when these data limitations are taken into account, it seems that the evolution of the pattern of migrations between the rural and the urban areas in Poland has been slow compared to the change in overall levels of spatial mobility of the population. One may doubt, in fact, whether the observed contraction of mobility rates represents a lasting phenomenon. These rates may be expected to increase again during the 199Os, when relatively large cohorts born between 1975 and 1984, i.e. the years of a birth-rate bulge, will be entering the labour market. It seems, nevertheless, that the main phase of ruralurban migrations in Poland ended around 1980, and that any future increase in spatial mobility levels is likely to involve primarily urban dwellers. During the periods of rapid urbanization (which typically correspond to intermediate phases in the mobility transition scheme), urban-urban migrations tend to conform to a hierarchical pattern. Such a pattern prevails when urban places in a given size category are net gainers in their interaction with places in each of the smaller-size categories, and net losers with respect to each of the larger-size groups, i.e. when Mu > Mii

for each i > i

where M denotes absolute number of migrants during a given time interval, and i and j represent city-size categories (KORCELLI, 1981). As Table 3 demonstrates, this regularity held true in the case of interurban migrations in Poland in both 1975 and 1985. In the former year all 15 pairs of flows between the six urban size categories conformed to the rule, while in the latter year 14 did so. The only exception was the somewhat bigger volume of migration from cities of over 100,000 inhabitants to those within the 50,~99,000 category, than the size of the reverse flow in 1985. Each of the individual size categories of urban places, from below 5000 to 20,000-49,000 were losing, and places of 50,000 inhabitants and above were gaining migrants in net terms in both 1975 and 1985. In 1985 the smaller

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Table3. Interurban migrations in Poland: 1975 and 1985 (in ‘OOO)*

To urban places of From urban places of

Below 5

5-9

lo-19

2M9

50-99

100 and above

Total

1975 Below 5 5-9 10-19 20-49 50-99 1OOandabove

0.8 1.2 1.4 1.6 0.9 1.9

1.7 2.3 2.8 3.2 1.7 4.7

3.1 3.3 4.5 5.9 3.1 7.7

4.0 5.3 8.2 8.6 4.1 10.6

2.5 3.7 4.5 5.7 3.6 9.9

5.5 10.6 17.2 21.0 14.3 28.7

17.6 26.3 38.5 46.0 27.8 63.2

Total

7.9

16.4

27.7

40.8

29.5

97.1

219.5

1985 Below 5 5-9 lo-19 20-49 50-99 100 and above

K 1:1 1.3 0.9 2.3

0.8 1.1 1.5 2.7 1.5 4.6

1.6 1.8 2.7 3.7 2.1 8.2

2.4 3.0 4.5 5.7 3.5 12.8

1.7 2.4 3.1 4.2 2.5 11.6

3.3 6.0 9.5 15.0 11.2 26.8

10.3 14.7 22.4 32.6 21.8 66.2

Total

6.7

12.1

20.1

31.9

25.5

71.8

168.1

* Source: CENTRAL STATISTICAL OFFICE (1976,1986). urban places accounted for a lesser proportion of total outmigration, compared to 1975 data. For example, the outmigration share of places in the 10,000-19,000 inhabitants group decreased from 17.5 to 13.3%) but its share of in-migration only from 12.6 to 12.0% of the total. However, the hierarchical structure of the system has been retained over the period under discussion. Some of the observed changes, other than those due to the general contraction in the volume of movement, may be attributed to reclassification of individual urban places (normally from lower to higher size categories) between 1975 and 1985. Let us look at the data presented in this section while referring again to the mobility transition concept. It appears that the recent drop in spatial mobility of the population in Poland represents a ‘premature’ development. The numerical dominance of rural-urban flows, along with the prevailing hierarchical patem of interurban migrations, are both features of an intermediate stage of mobility transition, while a decrease of internal migration rates corresponds to an advanced stage of the spatial mobility cycle. Such a decrease is usually associated with a shrinking of the rural population, the termination of population concentration in urban areas, and the ageing of the total population. None of these conditions occur in Poland at the present time. Hence, one may conclude, the

rapid drop in mobility rates can mostly be attributed to ‘irregular’ factors, such as a breakdown in housing construction programmes and a general diminution of urban amenities during the early 1980s. Population Redistribution at an Interregional SC&

Recent demographic change may have certain impacts on the interregional distribution of population in Poland. Here, some future implications of the observed trends are investigated using multiregional projections calculated according to WILLEKENS and ROGERS (1978). Unlike a majority of previous studies of this type which focus on a single base year, the present analysis draws on data for a series of four years: 1978,1981,1983 and 1985. This allows one to trace, over the projection period, the consequences of demographic (including spatial mobility) shifts that have occurred during the last years or so. The projections were generated using a three-region system. The 49 voivodships, i.e. administrative units of the upper level, were aggregated so that the first group corresponded to the major urban agglomerations, the second to areas with a moderate urbanization level, and the third to less urbanized areas (Figure 1). The first category includes the city-

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1978 regime of spatial demographic change. In fact, results of the 1978-based projections are quite congruent with assumptions of the physical development plans for 1970-1990 which provided for a net transfer of 3 million people from rural to urban places in Poland during the 1980s (OPALLO, 1986).

Figure 1. Regional division as used in the population projections: I = major urban agglomerations, Ia = Warsaw, Ib = L&L?, Ic = Krakcw, Id = Katowice, Ie = Gdansk, II = moderately urbanized regions, III = less urbanized regions.

voivodships of Warsaw, t&E and Krakow, the heavily urbanized voivodships of Katowice (Upper Silesia) and Gdadsk. The population of voivodships in the second group is between 50 and 65% urban, while areas in the third group, which correspond to the eastern and central half of Poland, are typically between 35 and 45% urban, although a few units, notably the voivodship of Bialystok, exceed this level. The percentage of the urban population in the nation as a whole was 58.7 in 1980 and 60.2 in 1985. Spatial fertility, mortality and mobility patterns, as prevailing during the year 1978 (which was rather typical for the 197Os), were used as a starting point for the first projection series. As Figures 2-4 demonstrate, such a growth pattern implied a rapid concentration of population in the major urban agglomerations. The combined number of inhabitants in these areas would increase from 9.4 million in 1978 to 10.9 million in 1990 and 11.9 million in the year 2000, their corresponding share of the total population from 26.8 to 28.3 and 29.4%, respectively. The population would also grow somewhat in absolute terms in the less urbanized regions, but their share would drop from 34.7% in 1978 to 33.5% in 1990 and 32.8% in 2000. Owing to continued outmigration from rural to urban areas within the less urbanized regions, however, the rural population in the latter regions would probably decrease considerably, assuming continuity of the

The socio-economic situation changed drastically between 1978 and 1981. One of the side-effects was a decrease in internal migration rates, in particular of rural-urban migrations. The rural-urban population balance in 1981, when compared with 1978, was also influenced by an increase in fertility rates in urban areas and a decrease in fertility of the rural population. This change generated smaller additions to the number of inhabitants of the five major urban agglomerations according to the 1981-based projections, and bigger additions to the population of the less urbanized regions. Still, the share of the former regions in the total population kept growing, and that of the latter (as well as of the third category-regions with a moderate urbanization level) declined throughout the span of the 1981-based projections. A turnround of the respective rates was generated for the first time by data for 1983. In spite of continuing fertility growth in the urban population, the contraction in the number of in-migrants from rural areas stabilized the population share of the urban agglomerations at 27.2%) and there was a very small expansion in the less urbanized regions’ share-from 34.4 to 34.6%-ver the projection period. One should emphasize that, owing to a substantial increase in national fertility rates between 1978 and 1983, and to the fact that less people were leaving higher-fertility rural areas for lower-fertility urban areas, the 1983based projection produced a bigger total population of Poland, by some 400,000 in 1990 and 1.2 million in 2000, when compared with the 1978-based series. Between 1983 and 1985 fertility rates decreased in both urban and rural areas. This change was accompanied by a further decrease in the internal migration rates. As a result, the 1985-based projections show a drop in the population share of the urban agglomerations: from 27.0%, as observed in 1985, to 26.7% in 2000. The combined population of the five heavily urbanized regions would increase by 0.9 million over the next 15 years, but one region-Upper Silesia-accounts for the bulk of this addition. The voivodship of L&b!, on the other hand, would start losing population after 1990. The share of the less urbanized areas is projected to expand slightly, from 34.5 to 34.7% between 1985 and 2000.

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Pooulation in’million

A

130

Figure 2.

Alternative population projections for the five urban agglomerations: (A) absolute population number, (B)share of the total population.

A fairly regular pattern of change is revealed when individual projections for each of the three regional aggregates are mutually compared. The five urban agglomerations experience progressively lower, albeit still positive, rates of growth according to the consecutive projections, and their share in the total population of Poland is shown to expand, then stabilize and, finally, slowly decrease. In the case of the less urbanized regions, the sequence is basically reversed;

while absolute additions to the number of inhabitants become greater in the light of the more recent projections, the gradient for regional shares changes gradually, from strongly negative to neutral, and weakly positive. For the third category, i.e. regions at intermediate urbanization levels, the evolution of the projection results is not unlike that of the less urbanized regions. The range between individual curves, however, and hence sensitivity to demo-

180

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Regional

21 Number 211990

B

share 4O.Q

lg85-based

38.0-

time c? K

Figure 3. Alternative Population projections for the moderately urbanizedregions: (A) absolute ~pulation number, (B) share of the total population.

graphic change at the national level, is smaller than in the case of the highly, as well as the less urbanized regions. At this point some limitations of the data and methodology should be pointed out. The threeregion system offers a rather crude division into the ‘highly’, ‘moderately’ and ‘less’ urbanized areas of

Poland. Also, the analysis fails to account for interaction between urban and rural areas of individual regions. It allows one, however, to gain some insights into the evolution of the largest urban agglomerations,_and, for the purposes of this study, it has some advantage over the alternative ‘two-region’ division into the total urban and total rural population.

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21 Number 211990 Population in million

A

Regional shore

B

181

16.0-

36.

I

Figure 4.

Alternative population projections for the less urbanized regions: (A) absolute population number, (B) share of the total population.

Discussion in this section has focused on two measures of population change: absolute increments/ losses and regional shares, and on the role of two demographic factors, migration and fertility. This is done for reasons of brevity, since the model requires (and generates in the projection series) a disaggregation of the population by 5-year age groups along with age-specific fertility, mortality and age as well as origin-destination-specific migration data.

Although mortality differentials were not large enough to cause major shifts in the interregional distribution of the population, the model assumptions concerning spatial allocation of fertility rates do play an important role in this respect. It is assumed that migrants adjust instantly to the fertility levels characteristic in the region of destination. Hence, as mentioned earlier, net migration from regions of higher fertility to regions of lower fertility rates brings

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182 about a contraction of population growth for the spatial system as a whole. Another limitation of the multiregional model used in this study is that it disregards foreign migration, i.e. it describes a closed spatial system. The regularity of recent spatial population change in Poland, as seen in the light of the consecutive projection series, is not easily discernible in the observed data. In fact, recent data are often believed to reflect fluctuations, or perturbations in secular demographic trends. This analysis portraits the inter-regional population system as tending (at least between 1978 and 1983) towards a spatial equilibrium, with each of the three basic territorial aggregates characterized by similar rates of population change, a system in which interregional migration flows are counterbalanced by fertility and mortality differentials among the regions. Such a pattern, of course, is not likely to prevail over the 25year period for which the projection results are plotted. Nevertheless, low mobility rates are almost certain to continue until the end of the decade, at least, while ‘fertility rates may be expected to decrease to the late 1960s level over the same period. This would yield regional shares during 1990-2000 quite close to values generated by the 1985based projections, but with a further decrease in the share of the urban agglomerations in the total national population. If spatial mobility rates do increase (as has been suggested earlier in this paper) during the 199Os, an acceleration in large city growth rates would be a likely result. Thus, the spatial deconcentration of the population, which is implied by the 1985 data, may turn to represent a deviation from longer-term trends, rather than what VINING et al. (1982) would define as trend reversal.

Changing Warsaw

Migration

Patterns in the Region of

Among all the regions of Poland, the regions of Warsaw and Upper Silesia have consistently attracted the largest numbers of migrants during the last 40 years. In particular, the city of Warsaw has been characterized by very high rates of net in-migration to total in-migration (DZIEWONSKI and KORCELLI, 1981). It is therefore of interest to find out whether, and to what extent, the recent decrease in population mobility rates at the national scale has been accompanied by a reorientation of migration flows to that urban region. The spatial system to be examined

comprises five

21 Number U1990

units, or ‘regions’. Unit 1 corresponds to the city of Warsaw, whose population was 1,557,OOOin 1978 and 1,639,OOOin 1985. Unit 2 is an aggregate of 27 smaller urban places situated within the Warsaw Capital Voivodship; their combined population was 440,000 in 1978 and 474,000 in 1985. The rural parts of the Capital Voivodship form unit 3, with a total population of 270,000 in 1978 and 279,000 in 1985. The two remaining ‘regions’ are aggregates, respectively, of all other urban places, and all other rural places in Poland. The Capital Voivodship represents a reasonable approximation of the functional urban region of Warsaw (POTRYKOWSKA, 1983); the capital’s migration field, on the other hand, is nationwide, although the bulk of migrations originate in the surrounding voivodships (RYKIEL, 1978). Migration within the five-region system accounted for 52% of all internal moves in Poland, as registered by the Central Statistical Office, both in 1978 and 1985. Although the overall decrease in spatial population mobility corresponds to national trends, there are important variations between individual units. The 1985 crude outmigration rate for the City of Warsaw amounted to 1.14 of the respective 1978 value; in the case of urban and rural sections of the metropolitan ring the corresponding figures were much lower: 0.54 and 0.42. Thus, migration from the metropolitan core increased despite a sharp drop in overall mobility rates, while the number of moves out of the ring decreased faster than in the system as a whole between 1978 and 1985. So much for general trends in population mobility in the region of Warsaw. Configurations of flows among the five units of the system under analysis are presented in Tables 4 and 5. Numbers in Tables 4 and 5 denote proportions of individual origin-destinationspecific flows within the total volume of arrivals and departures by region. The main difference between the 1978 and 1985 patterns is a diminishing role of the city of Warsaw as an in-migration region, and its growing importance as a region of outmigration. For example, the contribution of Warsaw to the total number of urban ring in-migrants increased from 0.089 in 1978 to 0.258 in 1985. Also, one can notice a decrease in the proportion held by Warsaw in the volume of outflow from each of the remaining four regions. In the case of the urbanized section of the metropolitan ring such a proportion dropped from 0.508 in 1978 to 0.324 in 1985. Migration out of the city of Warsaw has become slightly reoriented towards the metropolitan ring; this can be discovered

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183

Table 4. Spatial migration levels by region of destination

Region of origin Region of destination

1

2

3

4

5

Total

1978 1 2 3 4 5

0.253 o&9 0.:33 0.071 0.006 0.007 0.006 0.014

0.157 0.360 0.230 1.000 0.248 0.241 0.421 1.000 a.;4 0.212 0.584 1.000 o&6 0.982 1.000 0.014 x 1.000 1985

1 2 3 4 5

0.247 0.119 0.2x58 0.2x36 0.187 0.200 0.011 0.007 o.Gl4 0.008 0.015 0.012

0.393 0.213 0.159 O.i66

0.241 0.343 0.405 0.978 x

1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000

Table 5. Spatial migration levels by region of origin

Region of origin Region of destination

1

2

3

4

5

1978 1 2 3 4 5

0.2x90 0.100 0.461 0.149

0.580 0.327 O.o”sS 0.389 0.:14 0.228 0.176 0.169

0.056 0.028 0.011 0.8x98

0.015 0.020 0.012 0.953 x

Total

1.000

1.000

1.000

1.000

0.031 0.015 0.007 a.;37

0.009 0.012 0.008 0.971 x

1.000

1.000

1.000 1985

1 2 3 4 5

0.3x20 0.152 0.390 0.137

0.324 0.:74

0.218 0.315

0.258 0.243

0.?78 0.288

Total

1.000

1.000

1.000

by combining the shares of regions 2 and 3 in the total outflow from the city. Although the majority of region-specific flow proportions have changed considerably between 1978 and 1985, some basic properties of the flow tables have been retained. For example, region 4 contributed the largest proportion of city of Warsaw inmigrants both in 1978 and 1985, and for a migrant from Warsaw the probability of selecting region 4 is still the highest. Migrants from urban places in the metropolitan ring (region 2) continue to select the city of Warsaw as their principal destination, and the

largest percentage of those who migrate out of rural communities in the ring find the neighbouring urban communities as their destination. Both the city of Warsaw and the metropolitan ring experience relatively stable outmigration rates with respect to regions 4 and 5, but the respective inmigration rates decreased considerably between 1978 and 1985. The metropolitan ring (regions 2 and 3) occupies an intermediate position in the five-region migration system. A major part of the rings’ inmigrants originate outside the region of Warsaw, while a large fraction of its outmigrants are allocated to the metropolitan core. This was true in particular of the 1978 flow configuration. By 1985 the share of migration to the city of Warsaw in the total outmigration from the metropolitan ring has decreased substantially, and the position of the ring as a destination for migrants from the city has increased. This suggests the emergence of a more balanced interaction pattern within the region of Warsaw. If the 1978-1985 trends continue, the city of Warsaw may experience a net migration loss on an intraregional scale by 1990. This change is likely to be followed by another in-migration wave towards the city during the 1990s. At that time, the diversified labour market of Warsaw and ample space for residential construction within its administrative boundaries may be expected to play a role in attracting.larger numbers of migrants to the capital, compared to the 1980s. Such a development, however, depends highly on the future evolution of population mobility levels at the national scale.

Conclusions

Both demographic and urban growth patterns in Poland have changed considerably in recent years. Fertility rates increased markedly in the early 1980s only to drop back to the 1970s’ level by 1985. Internal migration rates have decreased dramatically and continuously since the late 1970s. Interregional concentration of the population has come to a halt, and the major urban regions which were characterized by fairly rapid expansion during the 1970s had fallen behind the national rates of population growth by the mid-1980s. As shown in the case of Warsaw, migration patterns within urban regions have changed from a strong dominance of the core to a more balanced interaction between the core andthe ring. These trends might indicate that Poland is approaching a stage of interregional and intrametropolitan

GeoforumlVolume

184 deconcentration of population and economic activity, which is typical of the late stages of urbanization and well documented in several highly-urbanized, developed countries. Such conclusions, however, would be premature. The trends observed seem to a large

degree to represent adjustments to the socioeconomic crisis of the early 1980s and should thus be interpreted as being transitional. The urbanization process in Poland is yet to run its course, but, to verify this hypothesis, empirical evidence for the next decade will be necessary.

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