Abstract Summary
Metropolitisation impacts regional settlement network and its spatial development. One of the vital challenges for, both researchers and regional planners is the delimitation of the metropolitan (urban) functional areas in order to define the strategic area of planning policies implementation. At the same time, there is a need to conduct more detailed analysis concerning contemporary trends determining the way how urban areas are nowadays shaped. It is noteworthy, that so far in Poland, the research aimed on urban functional areas was conducted mainly on the basis of statistical data, and have to the very limited extend been supported by the use of spatial information, while in other countries research recognising potential resulting from the collection of large data sets and from the growing amount of information is more often used. As data processing, becomes more effective and provides more precise and reliable results, there is a need to search for new methods allowing to analyse the development of functional and spatial structures of towns and their functional areas as well as to update established methods by introducing Big Data based solutions. Potential of such analyses in urban studies is still not fully recognised. Due to new determinants influencing and shaping urban and regional structures and new analytical possibilities, the aim of the research is to assess the impact of the metropolisation processes on the small towns’ development in Pomeranian Voivodship. Once both the specificity of the metropolitan area of Gdansk-Gdynia-Sopot and small towns in Pomeranian region is recognised as well as the possible use of digitized spatial information for spatial study is defined, the Big Data based model has been created. According to research aims this two-phase model allow to study the impact of the metropolisation processes on both functional and spatial development of the regional settlement network. It is based on a set of indicators characterizing trends of spatial and functional changes at the local (first phase) and regional scale (second phase). The model, built of a set of indicators, uses mostly data mining methods. By using GIS tools, it is completed with data visualisation by using cartographic and spatial statistics methods. Finally, it is tested by: • analysing small towns development according to both their rank in the regional settlement network and their spatial relations with the metropolitan area; • defining factors of the metropolitan growth which influence and differentiate both spatial and functional development of small towns in the Pomeranian region; Conducted, in frame of this study, analyses allow for obtaining following results: • introduction of typology of small towns as the base for identifying the determinants of contemporary development processes; • introducing recommendations of both theoretical and methodological nature in relation to identified Big Data potential in urban studies; • formulate recommendations for shaping regional policy, especially connected with Pomeranian Voivodship’ small towns development.
