Internal Migration and Urban Change in Poland

The paper investigates population change and migration over the period 1984–1994 for communes. There are important conclusions emerging from this study. The first is that we are watching now a profound change of population redistribution patterns in Poland. We observed that direct upwards hierarchical mobility has been markedly modified. The first modification is the substantial reduction of migration from rural to urban locations. There were important changes in the role of cities and towns. Largest cities, massive gainers of the seventies and eighties, have tended to lose population in the mid-nineties. It is likely that they lose population mainly to the neighbouring communes. We believe that a suburbanization process has been put into motion. Medium to large sized towns and cities, in the range between 50,000 and 500,000 as well as small, but not the smallest, towns attract substantial parts of the migration pool.