Lviv (Structure) and Łódź at the Turn of 20Th Century. Structure of Social Space
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http://dx.doi.org/10.18778/7969-028-2 Mykola Habrel – University of Łódź, Faculty of Geographical Sciences Department of the Built Environment and Spatial Policy Sub-Department of Spatial Policy, 90-142 Łódź, Kopcińskiego St. 31 Monika Mularska-Kucharek – University of Łódź, Faculty of Geographical Sciences Department of the Built Environment and Spatial Policy Sub-Department of the Built Environment, 90-142 Łódź, Kopcińskiego St. 31 REVIEWER Andrzej Majer PUBLISHING EDITOR Iwona Gos TYPESETTING Oficyna Wydawnicza Edytor.org COVER DESIGN Joanna Wojnarowska © Copyright by University of Łódź, Łódź 2013 Published by Łódź University Press First Edition. W.06379.13.0.K ISBN 978-83-7969-028-2 Łódź University Press 90-131 Łódź, Lindleya 8 www.wydawnictwo.uni.lodz.pl e-mail: [email protected] phone (42) 665 58 63, fax (42) 665 58 62 Print and setting: Quick Druk CONTENTS Preface (Monika Mularska-Kucharek, Mykola Habrel) 7 1. Social Space of Lviv (Lyubov Shevchuk) 9 2. Social and Institutional Space of Łódź (Monika Mularska-Kucharek, Agnieszka Świątek) 31 3. Changes in Lviv Public Space in the Post-Soviet Period (Mykola Habrel) 53 4. Public Space in Łódź (Kamil Brzeziński, Sylwia Kowara) 83 5. Urban Governance and Institutional Structure of Lviv (Volodymyr Demchenko, Andriy Levyk) 107 6. Urban Management – The Case of Łódź (Maciej Turała) 129 Bibliography 147 PREFACE The book is dedicated to the social structure of Lviv and Łódź. The contributions included in the volume provide a theoretically- orient ed overview of the research on this subject, performed with the use of various approaches and methods. The issues addressed in the papers were studied with the use of a wide range of analyses and an interdisciplinary approach. The in- clusion of concepts from several areas of science puts the subject of the research, i.e. social space, in a wider perspective. The socio-ge- ographical exploration is an attempt to find the balance between the belief that space matters and the claim that space itself is not a satisfactory explanation. Another intellectual inspiration is the comparison of select- ed aspects of social structure of two cities with different histories. An attempt to juxtapose the historical metropolis of the western Ukraine and one of the youngest post-industrial cities may cause reservations. Nevertheless, despite many differences, there are seve ral analogies both with respect to the dynamics of develop- ment and the social problems which plague both cities. Moreover, both Lviv and Łódź face numerous challenges, especially the so- cio-spatial ones, which makes this book a relevant answer to their needs. The texts, both by Ukrainian and Polish authors, describe important aspects of the social and spatial structure of the re- searched cities. 8 Preface The issues presented in this book form an essential source of knowledge for both local politicians and social activists, who in various ways try to meet the needs of the contemporary world. Un- doubtedly, the book will also expand the non-expert readers’ knowl- edge of two interesting cities, Lviv and Łódź. Monika Mularska-Kucharek Mykola Habrel Lyubov Shevchuk Institute of Regional Research of the NAS of Ukraine 1. SOCIAL SPACE OF LVIV 1.1. Introduction The study of large cities’ social space has become especially actu- al at the beginning of the 21st century, when the majority of world countries have gone through cataclysms and huge social shocks causing descending tendencies in socio-economic development of territorial social systems as well as intensification of unfavorable processes in societies. Indeed, development of large cities’ social space is accompanied by emergence of a range of difficult-to-solve problems. These problems are diverse because often a large city not only performs the functions of regional capital, but also is the place of concentration and the producer of resources, information, goods and premises. Furthermore, large cities are the vital activity envi- ronment for hundreds of people. The problems of large cities are exacerbated by the fact that the exchange of goods, resources, information and people between them and the periphery is not always equivalent. This creates new problems that require the examination of social space of large cit- ies in order to improve its development. Such study in the end will not only enable improvement of its environmental quality, but also secure new possibilities for realization of the population’s vital ac- tivity. However, at the beginning of the 21st century the examina- tion of large cities’ social space received more attention as a result of crime increase. Nevertheless, the basis of social space theory was formed and developed in terms of active advance of sociolo- 10 Lyubov Shevchuk gical science by Sorokin (1992) and Simmel (1994), as it is stated in a number of scientific publications, in particular in a treatise by Rushchenko (2012). German sociologist G. Simmel examined social space in a rather simplified manner and restricted it to anonymous places that can be filled by individuals according to their inner “appeal” and qual- ifications. He claimed that every personality in society has its own vision of his/her position in society and the kind of activity he/she has appeal to as well as cultural setup that force the search for ways of realization of this vision (Simmel 1994, pp. 111–113). P.A. Sorokin examined social space in a much wider sense. Fur- thermore, he managed to build a theory of social mobility and a the- ory of social stratification in the theory of social space. Herewith, space is characterized by the parameters similar to those used in characterization of physical space. But these parameters (in particu- lar, “point of space”, “bottom”, “top”, “distance”, “space movement”, “space coordinates”, “vertical and horizontal parameters”) are filled with sociological content. Basic provisions of the theory of social space according to So- rokin are the following: • in the process of progress the society is differentiated by the factors of sex, age, profession, welfare, national and ethnical or- igin etc. As a result of such differentiation, the system of social posi- tions (conditional points of space) is formed; • the person – member of a separate group automatically takes the relevant position in social group (layer, stratum), which corre- sponds to a concrete position; • the position of a person in social space is determined not only by his/her belonging to a concrete group but also by the interrela- tion of existing groups in society; • the person can move in social space and therefore change his/ her social group, join a new one or “ascend”/“descend” in the limits of his/her group (Sorokin 1992, pp. 297–307). According to Rushchenko (2012), the theory of Sorokin in general represents the static aspect of society research and is “too 1. Social Space of Lviv 11 objective”, i.e. it does not comprise the subjective, axiological and psychological attitude of person to his/her place in society and phe- nomenon of activity – agentivity of social space. However, the theory of social space not only gained wide recog- nition but was also developed by different scientists. Thus, famous modern French sociologist P. Bourdieu transformed the theory of social space into the theory of interconnected social areas – struc- tures and social positions of individuals, who have specific types of power and “habituses” – certain models of social relations and group settings, which act as the matrices of perception, tasks solu- tion and actions of individuals (Volovycha ed. 1998, pp. 51–52). P. Bourdieu defines space as the ensemble of subspaces – eco- nomic, social, cultural and symbolical areas according to which the relevant types of capital are distributed. He considers every area as abstraction, but it gravitates towards reflection in physi- cal and space artifacts. According to modern scientists, the main point of the area concept consists in the fact that it is considered by P. Bourdieu as the arena of struggle for distribution and redis- tribution of certain type of capital. For example, the political area involves struggle of certain categories of agents for the power that takes place according to the rules established in society (Rushchen- ko 2012). The urbanists and sociologists who examine cities have be- come interested in the theory of social space. In this context, the publications of the representatives of the Chicago School of So- ciology attract interest. The most famous of them are Е. Burgess, G.H. Mead, R.E. Park, Е.H. Sutherland, F.M. Trasher, W.I. Thomas and F.W. Znaniecki. According to Demkiv (2008, p. 431), urbanistic re- search, verification of hypotheses on interconnection of urbaniza- tion and social problems, cultural contacts, conflicts between ethnic communities, reconstruction of ethnic communities’ institutional structure and finally development of recommendations on improve- ment of city administration system are the key spheres of interest of the Chicago School representatives. 12 Lyubov Shevchuk Modern sources interpret social space as a basic condition of human activity and communication in society (Volovycha ed. 1998, p. 431). Moreover, social space is regarded as encompassing two in- terdependent levels of vital activity: human attitude to nature that envisages certain location of historical forms of society in geogra- phical space and organizational level of inter-subject, i.e. social links where the space component correlates with certain social systems and characterizes the order of social events and relations variety, their mutual coordination and subordination as well as intention of activity and communication, when social and geograp hical parame- ters stand as derivative quantities of social integration, the values of which are transported to the ground (its square, territorial delimi- tation etc.) (Volovycha ed. 1998, p. 432). Therefore, specific social space is formed on the territory of a large city, in the limits of which a specific form of society is located and developed.