ABSTRACT
Human attitudes towards, and perception of, the natural environment determines the set of solutions available to those wanting to influence the relationship between natural and manmade elements and thus the design of a town's spatial-functional structure. City planning, which is in fact a highly organized territorial social system, involves a suitable shaping of relationships between a city's structural and functional elements. One can find several models of sustainable urban development in the literature. Haughton (1997) distinguished four models: that of a self-reliant city, a redesigned city, an externally dependent city, and a fair-share city. Until 1989, the post-war period in Poland was one of natural technocratism, or excessive exploitation and destruction of natural resources not counterbalanced by even elementary conservation measures. To build a sustainable development model for Polish cities, it is necessary to consider all the dimensions of this type of development as well as the various methods of implementation.
