Planning local centres in outer suburbs – The need for a proactive approach towards planning in post-socialist Poland

Chaotic post-socialist suburbs need retrofitting through planning a system of local centres. The paper is aimed at recognizing the orientation of recent suburban planning in Poland through a focus on centres and identifying conditions for and examples of a proactive approach to planning local centres. The hierarchy of centres and the set of functions assigned to them is important since it could prevent the dispersion of public facilities and strengthen the potential of higher-order centres. Documents subjected to analysis encompassed spatial policies of 27 suburban municipalities included in the Functional Area of Warsaw. The Polish spatial planning system neglects centres as a category of functional, economic, and social space, leaving municipalities complete freedom in planning them. The study proved that a system of local centres should become an urban planning standard since it helps municipalities locate public functions more reasonably. A vision of local centre development is rarely based on rational premises. The Polish case shows that in outer suburbs, a proactive approach to LC planning that involves designing a desired future and then inventing ways to create that future state is still a long way off. •Chaotic post-socialist suburbs need retrofitting through planning a hierarchical system of local centres.•Service hierarchy corresponding to centre levels helps municipalities prevent the dispersion of economic potential.•The best arrangement of suburban local centres is a four-level order with local integration space as the lowest level.•The problem is that in Poland, the arrangement of local centres is rarely based on rational premises.•In post-socialist Poland, a proactive approach to local centre planning is still a long way off.