Urban Land Use Planning

Abstract

Urban land-use planning is still one of the key questions in research conducted by the Faculty of Geography at the University of Łódź. The particular character of works conducted in Łódź derives from the strong emphasis which is put on their practical application; the basis of many publications is the need to solve emerging practical problems. It also means constant cooperation with local administration, urban planners and other people involved in the practical activity, which is easier thanks to the fact that many members of the local administration staff are graduates from the Faculty of Geography in Łódź. A serious difficulty in preparing this chapter laid in choosing appropriate publications which, due to the limited capacity, were chosen subjectively and selectively, and were classified ambiguously. An indisputable gap was left in reference to the data and research results that had never been published. Nevertheless, they constitute a great number of works created by staff members of the Faculty of Geography, adding up to over 30%. 1 It is also worth mentioning that many studies have been carried out as responses to particular needs of certain organizations, or ordered by local or national administration, as well as state institutions involved in land-use planning in Poland. The cooperation is usually temporary, based on handling particular works and achieving specific goals. They result in preparing e.g. development strategies (e.g. in towns of Inowrocław and Uniejów), projects of new administrative division (dividing Łódź into local units, delimitation of the Łódź Voivodship), land use inventory (e.g. in Aleksandrów Łódzki), city revitalisation conceptions (e.g. Pabianice), experts’ reports on changing administrative borders (Szadek, Skierniewice), cooperation of metropolitan areas (Łódź and Warsaw) and many more. Undoubtedly, the above proves the great value of the competences of the Faculty of Geography staff members.