Changes in spatial accessibility and development of the Baltic Sea Region

Keywords: accessibility, spatial polarization, Baltic Sea
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 34

Abstract

The Baltic Sea region is one of the separate macro-regions of the European Union. It is specific not only because of the proximity to the Baltic Sea, but also because of common problems related to, among others, depopulation and infrastructure development. At the same time, the Macroregion is characterised by very large internal differences in the level of economic development. In the past, these were differences between countries and in the core-periphery dimension. Nowadays, the system has become more complicated. Spatial structures become more mosaic-like. More and more important are the inner peripheries sometimes located in the vicinity of areas with high economic growth dynamics. The determining factor for the diversification of territories at regional and local level includes transport investments.
The paper presents a dynamic analysis of accessibility changes at several geographical levels. The regional study was made on the example of Poland. The results of research conducted for the needs of VASAB (Vision & Strategies around the Baltic Sea; Komornicki, Spiekermann 2018) and within the project ESPON BT 2050 (Territorial Scenarios for the Baltic Sea Region) were used. Potential and temporal accessibility methods were applied. It has been shown that the implementation of many transport projects has resulted in a higher polarisation in terms of accessibility levels (Komornicki 2019, Rosik at al. 2020). It was also proved that investments in one country can influence the differentiation of the situation of regions in the neighbouring country.