The influence of administrative status on the trajectory of socio-economic changes: A case study of Polish cities

Abstract Most of the academic literature indicates that high administrative status positively influences the development of a city, while the loss of such status leads to marginalisation. Most of these studies, however, investigated national capitals, and relatively little research has analysed the effect of a change in status at lower levels of government. Poland is an obvious subject for such research, due to the recent extensive reforms of its system of territorial government. This article presents the recent dynamics of socio-economic development in Polish cities and their relation to whether a city maintained or lost its status as a regional capital. These results enable us to identify correlations between the dynamics of socio-economic development and the status of a city. The nature of these correlations is more ambiguous than the results presented in previous studies. The findings of this study give new insight into the effect of changes in a city’s administrative status.