Until the end of this week, public consultations are being held on the Poland 2035 Development Strategy, which addresses the functional hierarchy of cities and the issue of creating metropolitan areas. The document, prepared by the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy, treats Bydgoszcz and Toruń as cities of similar potential. However, it is the first draft of a national-level strategy that does not impose the concept of a Bydgoszcz–Toruń metropolis, as was the case in the past.

We wrote more extensively about the strategy project in September – Bydgoszcz, Białystok, Lublin, Rzeszów, and Toruń are identified in it as emerging supra-local metropolitan centers.

According to the Mayor of Bydgoszcz and the City Council, which unanimously adopted a position on Wednesday, Bydgoszcz should already be classified as a supra-regional metropolis, as it already possesses the necessary potential. There is also a clear expectation to distinguish between the potentials of Bydgoszcz and Toruń, in order to identify a clear leader of the voivodeship. The authorities of Bydgoszcz have long opposed the inclusion of both cities on an equal footing in strategic documents.

“Bydgoszcz, as the seat of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivode, is the largest and strongest socio-economic center in the voivodeship and a driving force of regional development. (…) The lack of an accurate representation of facts based on up-to-date data and indicators harms Bydgoszcz’s interests and limits its development potential.”

The Bydgoszcz local government also opposes the notion that Bydgoszcz and Toruń can develop jointly as a single metropolis. Meanwhile, the draft strategy states that these cities may develop their metropolitan areas either independently or together, without prescribing a specific direction — which, compared to past national strategic documents, represents a new approach, as previous policies attempted to impose such cooperation.