EN
If the quality of public space was measured by popularity among its users, then the placed in centre of Wroclaw Island Słodowa should be recognized as a one of the best such place in Poland. Renovated in an attractive way and developed in the middle of previous decade – additionally connected with two new footbridges – attracted crowds of people. But actually it's an empty space with one, inaccessible tenement house, which residents were removed in recent years. The popularity of Island Słodowa evokes different emotions. Some are bothered about young people who drink there alcohol and make noise. And others used it to make money – by one of the embankments emerged pubs on boats. The local authorities try to restore an order in the area - for example by locking it up for the night – but the taken actions meet with protests and discussions held in local press. The largest opposition emerged in 2014 and was caused by municipality attempts to sell the only tenement house in the area. At the time protested Grupa Inicjatywna Słodowa 7, a grassroots movement, which warned that the selling of the building would lead to a privatisation of the whole island. In 2015 local authorities carried out consultations on the tenement issue. As a response came proposals to convert building into a social-cultural centre. The municipality gave up the idea of selling the building and the president of Wroclaw said that in the tenement would be established „laboratory of participation”. The article describes latest history of Island Słodowa and feuds over a way of its evolution. It puts them in the context of different theoretical conceptions of urban areas development and management of public sphere – for example the idea, promoted by a danish urban planner Jan Gehl, of a city friendly to its residents, the model of multi-level governance, and especially radically leftist demand of making common welfare (commons) a sphere for grassroots activities, disinterested, often sunversive, out of the classical division into „privat”/„public”. The conflict from 2015 over the tenement on the island seems to be a clash of multi-level governance model with commons model. It’s hard to predict further fate of this dispute, but it can be very inspiring for a discussion about management of polish cities, especially when more and more of their inhabitants and various organizations want to have a feeling of influence on a local reality.