Central place theory and the lost national land planning of Poland after World War II

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  • 第二次世界大戦後のポーランドにおける幻の国土計画と中心地理論
  • ダイニジ セカイ タイセンゴ ノ ポーランド ニ オケル マボロシ ノ コクド ケイカク ト チュウシンチ リロン

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Abstract

<p>The purpose of this paper is to examine how German central place theory (Christaller 1933) was taken up in the People’s Republic of Poland in the late 1940s, after the country had been liberated from Nazi German occupation in World War II. This delicate issue has not been discussed in the geography literature of Western countries. Thus, the analysis in this paper is chiefly based on Polish literature, in which the terms Osiedle usługowe, Ośrodek usługowy, Osiedle miejskie, and Ośrodek miejski are generally used as synonyms for “central place”, though Ośrodek centralny might be a more accurate Polish equivalent. As early as 1947, when central place studies were not yet well developed even in Western countries, Bromek (1947) classified the central places of Poland into 9 hierarchies according to the K=3 system of Christaller’s central place theory, and clarified a hierarchical structure in the Kraków voivodship (Figs. 1-3). His study was closely related to the spatial planning of a settlement location at the voivodship level. The same project was then proceeding at the national level as part of a national land planning initiative, begun after World War II by the National Office of Spatial Planning attached to the Polish Ministry of Reconstruction. The project involved the formulation of two plans for locating central places across the country: the first (Fig. 4) was compiled into Studium planu krajowego I (Studies for the National Plan I) (1947) and was led by Dziewoński, the main researcher; and the other (Fig. 5), Studium planu krajowego II (Studies for the National Plan II) (1948), was made by Kostrowicki. Two points are noteworthy here: 1) the areal sizes of the spheres of influence of the central places assumed by Dziewoński and Wejchert (1947), on which Dziewoński’s plan was based, are the same as those of complementary regions in Christaller (1933); 2) the assumed radii of the spheres of influence in Kostrowicki’s plan accurately correspond with the ranges of the complementary regions of B- to L-level central places in Christaller (1933). Although only the locations of the central places of middle-level or above were mapped in both plans, nine hierarchies were recognized by the K=3 central place system. Considering the situation of Poland at that time, however, the author thinks that it is not accurate to presume nine hierarchies in the central place system, but that seven or eight would be more reasonable for no central place is actually identified as that of the VIII level in Bromek (1947). Furthermore, the lowest-level central place (Zespół domów) assumed by Dziewoński and Wejchert (1947) is not characteristic of a place that serves as the center of the surrounding areas, and the second lowest-level central place (Osiedle pojedyncze) seems to be an auxiliary one.</p>

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  • Urban Geography

    Urban Geography 12 (0), 1-32, 2017

    The Japanese society of Urban Geography

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