- Rejoining the Gdansk innercity   click here to open paper content547 kb
by    Mieszkowska, Krystyna & Lechman, Grzegorz | kmiesz@poczta.onet.pl   click here to send an email to the auther(s) of this paper
Short Outline
The paper is an example of the processes of disintegration and reintegration in Polish cities. Counteracting the Lower Town degradation aims both at upgrading the physical space and solving the social and economic problems of its inhabitants.
Abstract
The Lower Town is part of Gdansk historical innercity surrounded in the XVII c. by the continuous system of fortifications. The process of its disintegration started after the II World War when the available means have been directed to raising ruined parts of the city while the district, left almost intact, was kept for 50 years without technical upgrading. The division was completed by construction of the 4-lanes highway between the Main and Lower Towns. Economic changes in Poland has accelerated also the social and economic degradation of the district, inhabited mainly by the shipyard workers whose employment possibilities suddenly decreased causing growing poverty and creating conditions for social exclusion. The still existing elements of the area attractiveness call for the urgent stop of its disintegration.
While the elimination of the highway within the innercity is proposed in the long-term plans, the Local Revitalisation Programme passed in 2004 takes the Lower Town as its first target. The programme is aimed at counteracting the ongoing processes with diverse activities.
The social problems will be addressed through different ways of activation the local community. As the beginning the Contemporary Art Centre was opened in the building of the old public bath providing place both for art and for educational purposes of inhabitants from children to elderly people.
In the process of improving the built environment the reconstruction of the drainage system and changing the main street into an attractive meeting space has been just prepared. The recently passed spatial development plan includes solutions for many other problems.
All activities aim at the establishment of the service network both for the inhabitants and for tourists and attracting developers for setting their businesses in the district. The city has started the process of revitalisation with its own means but the help from the EU structural funds will be probably necessary in the future.
Keywords
disintegration, degradation, innercity, revitalisation, spatial devlopment
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