Volume 23 (2019): Issue 2 (April 2019)

During the communist period in Slovakia (1948-1989), street toponyms and monuments were a few of the many realms of ideological infusion by the communist government. Renaming streets and establishing monuments in honor of local and international socialist figures was intended to have an aggregate effect on public consciousness in a way that helped legitimize the political rule of the communist regime. However, because the nature of socialist commemorations is fundamentally more complex that those of other competing ideologies like nationalist movements, these commemorations took on complex and sometimes contradictory meanings in the public memory that, in some cases, cause them to persist to this day. This paper utilizes Turner’s (1975) concept of ‘liminality’ to examine elements of city text like toponyms and statues in the eastern Slovak city of Košice to demonstrate why many of these communist-era elements of city text remain as leftover landscapes of the communist period.

According to the National Census of Population and Housing 2011, Silesians are the second largest nationality in Poland. Nevertheless, Silesian nationality is not recognised under Polish law. In this paper, the main aspects of the identity of the Silesian people are discussed. Research was carried out using questionnaire-based interviews in ten municipalities in the Silesian Voivodeship, characterised by the greatest share of Silesians. The ethnic identity of Silesians is complex – more than half of the respondents declared dual nationality. Most of the respondents demand the recognition of the Silesian ethnolect as a regional language, and consequently, its inclusion as a school subject in Upper Silesia. The postulate of establishing autonomy is popular, with a model of the Silesian Voivodeship from the period of interwar Poland.

The purpose of the work is to characterize the potential for the smart development of urban-rural communes of the Lublin Province as potential catalysts for the implementation of the smart villages’ concept. In order to determine the potential for the smart development, the zero-unitarization method was used. In specific areas of smart village concept a synthetic index was determined. The study negatively verified the relationship between the level of potential for the smart development of the studied communes and the accessibility of transport and communication of the region’s capital. The study also revealed a positive correlation between the size of the urban centre in the urban-rural commune and the level of the potential of smart development of urban-rural communes.

Souks have undergone functional and spatial changes in the Moroccan medinas since colonial times due to the tourist activities. The rate of the changes increased at the end of the 20th century because of the expansion of tourism projects. However, there are no publications on the evolution of Moroccan souks in the context of tourism development. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to determine the types of transformations the souks underwent as a result of the dynamic development in this sector of economy. The research focused on two imperial cities: Marrakech and Rabat. Data for analysis was obtained through observations and field interviews in 2014 and by bibliographic query. A retrospective study was carried out which included identification of mechanisms affecting the contemporary organization and physiognomy of the commercial streets. The authors’ work allowed for an identification of development phases of the Moroccan souks under the influence of tourism.

Spatial accessibility is one of fundamental problems of geography, and transport geography in particular. It is one of the key factors affecting the ability to use certain services by the residents of a given area. Therefore, it is important to develop appropriate methods for the analysis of spatial accessibility. This paper describes a methodology for analyzing spatial accessibility in urban areas using a hexagonal grid combined with a network analysis. The proposed methodology is applied to the city of Toruń, Poland. Spatial distribution of accessibility to selected public amenities is analyzed and areas of high and low accessibility are identified. Finally, a prototype of a novel web-based system is proposed to allow citizens and city officials to perform custom analysis based on individual preferences.

Perception of space is an especially important part of research on urban fabric. The perception of a city is strongly correlated not only with a specific time and place but, first and foremost, with surveyed populations who, apart from having varying demographic features, frequently represent disparate community and cultural profiles.

The objective of this study was to assess how the urban space of Szczecin (Poland) is perceived by its inhabitants and to ascertain the relations between various image elements. The example of Szczecin appears to be interesting, in as much as it is a peripheral city of a cross-border region with a historically and culturally diverse local community. The presented research used a method of analysing mental (image) maps based on the methodology proposed by Kevin Lynch (1960) and modified by the authors to incorporate in-depth interviews. Individual respondents’ views were used to create a synthetic image of the city.