Both current and historical settlement forms experience evolutionary, permanent changes to their spatial and socio-economic attributes, not seldom accompanied by dynamic functional transformations. The linkage between functionalism and dynamism, in turn, is one of those elements of conventional geographical theory used to explain the phenomena of urbanization and urbification. While urbanization r

Degraded and restituted towns constitute an important element of the contemporary settlement system in Poland. This significance stems from two basic facts: firstly, the relatively large number of such places, and, secondly, the role of restituted towns within the formal-legal dimension of urbanization. The importance of degraded and restituted towns is also shown in the variety of topics undertak

The large number of degraded (828) and restituted (240) towns in Poland formed the basis for crafting a chapter on the spatial and temporal distribution of these special settlement forms. By focusing on these two aspects has helped, for one, uncover historical regularities, and, for another, reveal geographical patterns of national urbanization processes. This is largely due to the fact that degra

This scientific note aims to briefly introduce the concept of urban hibernation, published recently (September 2015) in an article with the same name in European Planning Studies (Routledge). By outlining some general characteristics, the purpose of this note is merely to put the reader’s attention to this concept, whom we remit to the original article for a comprehensive walk-through. The reason

In research about degraded towns two cognitive currents can be observed: empirical (what? how? where? when?) and theoretical (why?). Contrarily, no study to date has dealt with the issue of discursivity of its central concept ‘degradation’, i.e. its a priori linguistic characterization determining ways in which research on the subject has been done. As geographers, we are fascinated by the ”real”

In this concluding chapter, our aim is to outline the state-of-the-art within the deliberated topic in order to identify challenges for future research. Firstly, reminiscent of George Orwell’s aphorism “who controls the past controls the future”, we stress the importance of research into the origins of degraded and restituted towns in order to understand the socio-economic context that has shaped

Degradations in Poland are sometimes made on an individual basis. Most often, however, they are the result of large-scale administrative reforms. Throughout history, the Polish lands were subject to many such reforms. Relatively little-known is the Polish reform of 1933–1934, which – depending on the definition of ‘city’ – degraded up to 722 units with some form of urban denominator. The modest no

One important element in the interaction between the natural and the human environment is the negative impact of the first on the latter when seen through the prism of urban destabilization. Within this scope, the issue of urban abandonment and disappearance holds an important place, the indirect cause of which are the specifics of local and regional natural subsystems. Small towns are especially

One of the less known problems in settlement geography is the issue of so-called degraded and restituted towns. This lack of reconnaissance, however, is perhaps less the result of the towns’ scarcity than their specificity of being ‘awarded’ or ‘deprived of’ an urban label by means of strictly socio-political actions. Degraded and restituted towns, hence, are spatial units made ‘urban’ or ‘rural’

Social deprivation and marginalization in urban areas are hardships that are not necessarily limited to developing countries. Around 80 million Europeans today live in conditions that fall within the definition of poverty. However, certain areas are more prone to affliction than others. Such estates usually consist of concrete slab high-rise buildings and are often characterized by high levels of

Concepts are the basic building blocks of all knowledge, while the strength of the theories that guide any societal project is dependent on the quality those concepts. Contrarily, the utilization of questionable concepts will result in questionable material effects. As two of the oldest geographical concepts still in widespread use, ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ stand in stark contrast to the immense change

We examined word associations in Swedish children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) compared to their typically developing (TD) peers. Furthermore, the study aimed to explore the dimensions of vocabulary knowledge (breadth, depth, and fluency) in these children. Fifty children (15 DLD and 35 TD) participated in the study, aged six to nine years. This age span is commonly associated with s

Meteoric beryllium-10 (10Be) is commonly used as a proxy of landscape dynamics (erosion and sedimentation rates) and soil development. Soil represents the first-stage reservoir of meteoric 10Be, and variability in the concentration of the isotope in soils may be affected by soil properties and atmospheric deposition. Although many investigations have targeted this issue, there are still problems i

The downscaling of silicon-based structures and proto-devices has now reached the single-atom scale, representing an important milestone for the development of a silicon-based quantum computer. One especially notable platform for atomic-scale device fabrication is the so-called Si:P δ-layer, consisting of an ultra-dense and sharp layer of dopants within a semiconductor host. Whilst several alterna

The intensification of agriculture has resulted in more homogeneous landscapes and declines of many species associated with farmland or other semi-natural open habitats. In parallel, forestry has also intensified causing declines in many species associated with old-growth forests. While intensive forestry negatively affects forest species, it inadvertently creates new habitats such as clear-cuts,