This paper includes a description of both the mode of development and the final structure and contents of the Municipal Revitalization Program, which was developed for the City of Starogard Gdański. All key parts of this program were described as well as methods used for planning the diverse activities associated with revitalization of the municipality. These were based on both actual legislation – of both national and regional importnace – as well as on Author’s own experience in this matter. In result, the article can serve as the example of one of the possible ways of developing the complex program of urban transformation for the medium-sized municipality.
Recently, the issue of intercultural relations between immigrants and the host society has been widely discussed. Taking into account the increasing spatial mobility of non-EU foreigners, it seems highly important to examine their relations with the host community on the local level. This article presents the results of the qualitative study conducted in the first quarter of 2014 in the Lesznowola municipality (Mazowieckie province, Piaseczno district) in Poland. It aims at analysing the situation of the Vietnam-ese community and its engagement in the local life of the municipality and examine attitudes of both Vietnamese and Poles towards prospects for granting local voting rights to migrants in Poland. Through several years of successful business and social cooperation, the Vietnamese immigrants have become a recognisable part of the social landscape of the municipality. The degree of social and political par-ticipation at the local level on the part of the Vietnamese community has also increased, which can be observed, for example, through such practical indicator as cooperation with local educational institu-tions. Therefore, we can argue that the Vietnamese community has been transforming itself from a marginalised and self-sufficient homogeneous group into more and more self-aware and active socio-political group of actors.
Though current conservation policy in Poland refl ects world trends and approaches to action, compliance with all of its assumptions would entail the Polish authorities remodelling both the system and the methods by which natural resources are managed. On the one hand this requires a change of approach to the management of natural resources from the traditional, purely nature-related one, to a more modern inter-disciplinary one that takes in social and economic conditioning. On the other hand, a system need to be put in place to allow these ideas to be introduced in practice. The work described here deals with the participation of different stakeholder groups in nature management, with this regarded as a method of increasing the latter’s effi ciency. The many examples (of good practice) presented by the author well illustrate the wisdom of the approach, which often seems to achieve success where it is attempted.