The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been going on for seventy days. Poland has become one of the main countries where refugees have begun to arrive. According to the Border Guard, more than three million two hundred thousand people have crossed the border since the war began. How has this affected our cities and metropolises?
Thereport Urban Hospitality: the Great Rise, Challenges and Opportunities was developed by the Pavel Adamovich Center for Analysis and Research of the Union of Polish Metropolises is the first document to provide accurate estimates of Ukrainians and Ukrainians who have arrived in Poland.
methodology
How was the report developed? The estimates were based primarily on data from the PESEL registry and data derived from display ads for unique users of mobile devices. This way of obtaining data allows for more accurate calculations, although it is still important to remember that the situation changes every day.
As the authors of the report point out, the migration crisis related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is in exceptional. Within the first month, more than one and a half million refugees and refugee women arrived in Poland. This is one of the fastest refugee movements in modern times.
PESEL number allocation data
© Paweł Adamowicz Union of Polish Metropolises
How has the refugee crisis changed Polish cities?
Due to the migration crisis, Poland has crossed the forty million population threshold for the first time in history. The vast majority of refugees are in metropolitan areas. In almost all metropolitan areas, refugees are staying in the main cities of the metropolis. The exception is the metropolitan area of Upper Silesia and Zagłębie- in this metropolitan area the majority of refugees stay in the other cities and municipalities.
What percentage of the population of cities today are Ukrainians and Ukrainians? The biggest change has been noticed in Rzeszow, where the city's population has increased by more than one hundred and four thousand Ukrainians. Every third resident of Rzeszow is Ukrainian, and the city's population itself has increased by fifty-three percent.
How has the population of the largest cities changed?
© Paweł Adamowicz Union of Polish Metropolises
The city with the largest number of Ukrainian women and men is Warsaw, which has welcomed more than two hundred and sixty-six thousand people. All cities affiliated with the Union of Polish Metropolises increased their population by an average of seventeen percent.
Warsaw has taken in the most refugees
© Paweł Adamowicz Union of Polish Metropolises
risks of tensions and opportunities
What problems might the migration crisis entail? The authors of the report mention here, first of all, the relative sense of injustice in connection with the scale of social and financial support for refugees, the escalation of the housing crisis in connection with the dynamic increase in the price of rental housing. Unfortunately, a rise in nationalist and xenophobic attitudes or a lively discussion of Polish-Ukrainian history is also possible.
The authors of the report also highlight the fact that many of these elements will be used in a campaign of fake news inspired by external political forces (the famous "Russian troll farms" can be considered such an element).
Poland has crossed the forty million population threshold for the first time in history
© Paweł Adamowicz Union of Polish Metropolises
The most important challenge facing Poland's metropolises will be not only to adequately prepare infrastructure conditions with education, health care and housing, but also to adequately prepare them to enter the labor market and acquire the necessary skills. Everything will depend on the course of the war and how many people decide to return to Ukraine.
The entire report is available on the UMP website - see here.
