ABSTRACT
Post-War Poland has seen work done on four spatial development concepts. The first – from the late 1940s – had as its task the decentralisation of industry and the strengthening of regions whose development had been lagging behind. The second – drawn up in the 1970s and titled A Plan for the Physical Development of the Country up to 1990 – promoted the system of moderate polycentric concentration and a shifting of part of the country’s industrial potential to more weakly developed areas. In turn, the third concept – from the 1990s – titled A Concept for a National Spatial Management Policy – again concentrated on balancing regional development, albeit through the idea of priority being assigned to efficiency over equality. The current 2030 Concept for the Country’s Spatial Organisation contains a similar assumption, so it is hard to anticipate that its pursuit will bring diametric change in the situation as regards regional development. The aim of the present article has been to analyse the aforesaid four concepts as regards the approach taken to the evening out of regional development. The primary thesis here is that the concepts studied strived in their various different ways to reduce regional disparities, but never actually had the ideas they came up with put into effect properly. In consequence, Poland’s economic development has continued to be associated with a division into rich and poor regions.
