Churski P., Adamiak C., Dubownik A., Komornicki T., Pietrzykowski M., Szyda B., Śleszyński P., 2024. THE CHANGING ROLE OF FUNCTIONAL URBAN AREAS IN REGIONAL POLICY: NEW CHALLENGES FOR PLACEBASED POLICY. 01/2014 - Working Paper of TIPERICO Project. Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań.
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18097.76648
ABSTRACT: The place-based approach in regional policy draws attention to the need for tailoring regional interventions to the specificity of local contexts and their spatial connections. In this context, functional urban areas (FUA) are significant, reflecting the spatial ranges of functional relations and linkages generated between nodal cities and the surrounding areas. The article points to the need to change the meaning of the FUA in the cohesion policy system under the current paradigm. We believe that FUAs are much more suitable for identifying spatial differences, allowing for much more effective and tailor-made regional interventions. We present a new methodology of typology of FUAs in Poland, on the basis of own FUAs’ classification, aimed the scale of spatial differences of socio-economic development, and placing them in the range of the inner peripheries as areas with special development needs. A precise mapping of areas characterized by developed functional relationships and thus constituting a coherent functional whole makes it possible to more rationally plan interventions tailored to the specificity of a given area. The applied research methodology may be a high value of universality and applicability; therefore, it can be replicated in other countries (while taking into account all limitations).
