Cooperation and networking in metropolitan areas from community of problems to community of common interests in the Warsaw Metropolitan Area

Since 1990, Polish municipalities have exercised planning power in terms of deciding on the ways of their economic and spatial development. Results of dynamic and sometimes uncontrolled, spontaneous development processes cross the borders of municipalities bringing problems, that can not be addressed, and solved by one municipality. Polish legislation provides legal basis for cooperation of municipalities: they may establish common goals' unions and associations in order to deal with problems that are important for more than one municipality. However, experience of the last several years proves that cooperation among municipalities is not an easy task. It creates problems especially within functional urban areas, including metropolitan ones. In this paper, the issue of cooperation among municipalities from the Warsaw Metropolitan Area (WMA) is addressed using the perspective of networking and formulation of common development policy.