Subjective degradation of the Inner City in Gdańsk

Every resident has his/her own opinion about a chosen city area irrespective of its spatial and functional structure, the quality of technical and functional municipal tissue or the social economic development of the city. The subjective degradation of specified city districts can be studied from the perspective referred to above. This article describes survey results for the Inner City of Gdansk. key words subjective degradation, valuation, Gdansk. Subjective degradation of the Inner City in Gdansk 25 adult inhabitants of the Inner City of Gdansk and was a simple random sample with layer modification referring to the proportion of the number of residents in particular districts (Babbie, 2004; Szreder, 2010). The author’s study involved a special assessment made by district inhabitants. The general image was specified, for example of a safe, posh place or on the contrary. The assessment is the sum of impressions and related associations and their impact on the public image of an area depending on their kind and intensity (Mironowicz, 2010). The semantic differentiation scale was applied to specify the degree of subjective degradation of particular parts of Gdansk Inner City (Fig. 1.). The scale involves the choice between two controversial attitudes applying expressions specifying a degree of intensity of a given attitude (Kotus, 1999; Babbie, 2004). The methodology quantifies subjective data. Respondents can chose from a 5 degree scale, with 1 meaning a negative phenomenon to 5 a positive one (Babbie, 2004). The assessment comprises 7 contradictory statements, e.g. 1 – dirty, 5 clean. A city resident rarely thinks of the city as a whole. Inhabitants rather show interest in components of their “environmental identity”, i.e. place of residence, work, basic services (Wallis, 1977). The fragments used are the best known to the user thus creating an individual subjective image of the city (Zalecki, 2003). It would seem that this environmental identity covers at least a town district such as the Inner City, but the study showed that some of the respondents were not familiar with its outskirts. This may indicate extensive diversification or simply lack of attractiveness of the Inner City as a whole. The population under study covered adult residents of the Inner City of Gdansk. 59.7% of the Fig. 1. Division of Gdansk Inner City into study units Source: own study. Voivodship Centre of Geodetic and Cartography Documentation.