Abstract

Large scale urban interventions have become a common development practice in cotemporary cities, allowing achieving rapid changes in their urban structure. They can be analyzed taking into account various perspectives. Some of them include planning and development models, transformation of brownfields and other types of distressed urban areas, as well as consequences and results of their implementation in existing urban structures. There is a vast literature on how these transformations are planned, developed and implemented, although there is still not much discussion on the consequences and evaluation of their implementation. In addition, most of the analysis of these cases was focused on spatial consequences of their development. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to discuss this issue in the wider context, taking into account also social, legal, economic and infrastructural consequences of these projects, with a special focus on the ones located in city centers and generating major changes in their functional and spatial structure. Within the paper the following issues are discussed: - Revision of the typology of contemporary large-scale urban interventions, located within the city centers; - Scope of the spatial, social, economic, infrastructural and legal issues associated with contemporary large-scale urban interventions; - Consequences associated with implementation of large-scale interventions within the structure of contemporary urban centers; - Discussion of the selected case studies; - Recommendations regarding future of planning and development of such projects. On this basis the more in-depth analysis of the cases from Gdańsk are discussed. These are located in one of the most problematic part of Gdansk – key Polish harbor city, located on the Baltic sea cost and one of the most important metropolitan areas in the country. The location of the projects analyzed include distressed sites as well as reclaimed area above the existing railway tracks. Development of these projects extensively influences the future of the city and its central part, changing the development chances of other post-industrial and other brownfield areas. In addition, their scale and level of complexity allows using them as good case studies, on example of which the entire scope of issues associated with contemporary large scale urban developments can be discussed.

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