Game of the City Re-Negotiated: the Polish Urban Re-Generation Movement as an Emerging Actor in a Strategic Action Field

Abstract

IntroductionSince 2008 we have observed intensification of grassroots' neighborhood activism in a number of Polish major cities. The increased activism has gained energy with popularization of Lefebvre's ideas of right to and democracy among local urban activists and their organizations (Lefebvre 1967, Harvey 2012). At same time urban grassroots activism became an important and visible part of Polish civil society, while remaining strongly embedded in specific context of big cities and problems of their inhabitants (Domaradzka 2015a, Jacobsson 2015). Although scale of social activity in Poland is still relatively low (according to Social Diagnosis data from 2003-2013 participation in voluntary organizations stagnated around 12-15%), we can talk about slow but steady growth in community involvement during last decade (Czapinski and Panek 2013, Domaradzka 2015a). Also, as World Value Survey data shows, social activity at local or neighborhood level has increased in Polish cities during last ten years (Domaradzka 2015b). Even if this engagement remains local and often has a form of bubbles of in sea of old (Praszkier and Nowak 2011: 54) it can be seen as a sign of a growing willingness of residents to more actively engage in future development of city instead of remaining passive consumers of what city offers (Domaradzka and Matysiak 2015).As we argue here, synergy of all mushrooming neighborhood activity resulted in an emergence of new organizational initiatives, forming core of a broader new urban social movement, which quickly has become an important player in the game of or-in other words-an actor in strategic action field of Polish urban policy.The article discusses both genesis of neighborhood movement in Polish cities and context of its development, when, due to weakening of earlier welfare state structures, neither local nor central government seems to be able to satisfy changing needs and interests of different social groups in urban setting. In these circumstances, local civil society actors, like neighborhood associations and community groups, play an increasingly important role in-between retreating city administration and recently expanding corporate actors. In this position, movement activists are able to participate in negotiations of future of urban development by both symbolically and politically challenging certain features and consequences of new, emerging urban landscape and its re-drawn borders (see also Polanska and Piotrowski 2015; Polanska 2013; Mayer, Thorn and Thorn 2016).These actors contribute, firstly, by providing practical examples of what these groups consider better and more efficient solutions for local problems and, secondly, by developing and strengthening local democratic mechanisms at city level. Therefore, we argue, these actors also function as providers and powerhouses of new ideas, norms and models for how to shape future of urban areas in Poland.For sake of this paper, we focus on actors in a particular field of Polish urban policy, ones that we researched in detail using Warsaw and Poznan as case studies of grassroots' initiatives as well as centers for national urban activist networks. We argue that changes in this particular field are emerging at least partly as a result of an earlier exogenous shock brought on by shift from earlier communist regime to a more recent capitalistic paradigm in Poland as well as changes brought into play by European Union integration policies. Consequently, we show how emergence of a new Polish urban movement can be interpreted as a sign of social transition in terms of values and collective behavior, some 25 years after crumble of Soviet bloc and fall of communist regime (see also Siemienska and Domaradzka 2016, Domaradzka 2015a). …

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