PL
Jest to próba przedstawienia zróżnicowania poziomu rozwoju oraz struktury przemysłu, w ujęciu przestrzennym, gałęziowym i wielkości zakładów, w małych miastach Polski liczących poniżej 20 tys. mieszkańców, w świetle aktualnie wprowadzanych reform społecznych i gospodarczych.
EN
Inculcation of economic subjectivity of towns and communities initiated in the 1980's is not an easy problem. One of the important factors are the insufficient sources of providing the local budgets with financial means. This is connected with differentiation of the socioeconomic structure of administrative unils of the basic level. The article deals with the analysis of the level of both development and structure of industry in small towns of Poland, i.e. in 601 urban centres having less than 20 thous, people. In general, their industrialization was, after the war, identified with creation of big industrial establishments. The author describes the structure of the industry, according to its size, in small towns. Particular attention has been paid to the share of industrial establishments employing less than 100 workers as compared to the full employment in a given town. For the most part, this share amounts to over ten per cent on the scale of the town. In the period of the real socialism, the private small business was liquidated and some still existing small enterprises belonging to the state or to co-operatives are decapitalized and they can satisfy the needs of inhabitants of small towns only to a very limited degree. The most difficult situation has been stated in the smallest towns having less than 5 thousands of inhibitants, where big industrial establishments never existed. Small towns which do not fulfill any other functions, have been deprived of effective town-forming factors and their local self-governments have no means to finance even the elementary needs of their inhabitants. These towns require a financial aid from the part of the state. Their local self-governments are unable to create any proper conditions for the development of business from their own means. The situation is unfavourable also in the case of small industrialized towns, where a small number of big industrial establishments employs, each of them, over 200 workers. They form, for the most part, branch enterprises from the urban agglomerations, representing traditional branches, like food, timber and paper, mineral and light industry. They did not always stimulate the development of urban infrastructure and in the last time, they retire even from services, fulfilled previously for the town and its inhabitants. The domination of one or two establishments which concentrate, in a given town, the majority of employed workers, may lead, under recession conditions, to the break of both labour market and functions of the town in social and economic spheres. Privatisation or reprivatisation of the industry in small towns cannot solve these problems. Indispensable is the development of enterprising initiative accompanied by essential changes in the structure of existing industry, i.e. transformations from the point of view of its size, ownership and nature of particular branches, and in the first line, adaptation of producton and services to the needs of both agriculture and raw materials' bases. Creation of thousands of new small firms is an indispensable condition for mobilization of creative forces being deeply rooted in local societies.