New post-socialist city: Competitive and Attractive (ReNewTown)

The research project entitled: "New Post-Socialist City: Competitive and Attractive" has been conducted in the Department of Urban and Population Studies of IGSO PAS in Warsaw since April 2011. Implemented by: Magdalena Wątorska-Dec (Project Coordinator), Grzegorz Węcławowicz (Scientific Manager), Adam Bierzyński (Communication Manager) and Magdalena Januszewska-Stępniak (Finance Manager) with the technical and content supervision by several other Institute employees. The project "New Post-Socialist City: Competitive and Attractive" (acronym: ReNewTown) has been implemented in the framework of the Central Europe Programme and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund.

The Institute of Geography and Spatial Organisation of the Polish Academy of Sciences has been the leading partner and managed the budget of EUR 1.5 million for the three years of the project duration (April 1, 2011 - March 31, 2014). The Institute coordinates and supervises work carried out by other partners of the project - 8 institutions from five countries: Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic. 

The aim of the project is to ensure sustainable urban development in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc by reducing disparities and improving the quality of life of the inhabitants.

The ReNewTown project will aim to reduce disparities between the areas which were created or strongly developed in the period of real socialism (1945-1989) and other districts of the city. Four investment projects will be implemented within the framework of the project in the following cities: Kraków (in the district of Nowa Huta), Prague (Czech Republic), Velenje (Slovenia) and Hnusta (Slovakia).

Specific objectives of the project:

1. establishment of a model for developing the cultural offer for local communities;
2. identification of conceptions (models) for improving the conditions and quality of the public space between  blocks of flats;
3. establishment of a model for entrepreneurship development;
4. development of model solutions to improve the appearance of socialist architecture (most importantly to make it visually more attractive);
5. development of solutions for strengthening the sense of identity of local communities with their place of residence;
6. establishment of conceptions for creating new functions for public buildings.

Direct cooperation among the research institutions and local governments in solving the problems of housing and urban districts allows to put theory into practice and improve the living conditions in post-socialist cities more efficiently. The participation of Institute employees in the ReNewTown project is partly "participatory action research" as well as the source of "empirical" observations and information that have been carried out for a long time by the Institute on "the transformation mechanisms of cities and metropolitan areas in Poland and Central Europe".