"I don't give a damn about small towns." Sharp. But it's a quote from a poet. And a good, though unused, motto for the book "Collapse" by Marek Szymaniak. Not that the reporter has smaller towns where Andrew Bursa does. On the contrary. He describes how the words of the poem were put into practice.
It is not a cheerful description, but also, importantly, it does not blow with complete hopelessness. This is not a story of sudden disaster. Rather - a staggered decline. There are about one hundred and twenty medium-sized cities on the brink of socio-economic collapse," Szymaniak quotes data from the Polish Academy of Sciences at the very beginning. And we already know that the title is not just a catchy thesis coined by a reporter. And that it is not a diagnosis of the state of all cities of this size.
Szymaniak is simply following the trail of scientific opinion. And also his own experience: he himself comes from a "city of collapse" - Krasnystaw, which he also made the protagonist of one of the chapters. In addition, he examines more than 30 medium-sized cities - from those with more than 15,000 residents to the largest ones like Grudziądz and Przemyśl. A long shadow of transformation is cast over most of them: failed factories, cut-off communications, lack of new flywheels. "They didn't give a shit" about small cities, those who ruled the country often throwing them into too deep water - offering almost nothing in return. And liberal ideologues rallying to the importance of metropolitan growth, which would ultimately enrich small centers as well. None of this. The fairy tale of a rising tide that lifts all boats doesn't work in this case either.
Residents and data
PAN numbers are one thing, but the reality is concrete people. It is to them, residents of medium-sized cities, most often in their thirties (though not exclusively) that Szymaniak gives voice. Through their eyes he looks at bankrupt factories, the housing situation, smog or degenerate "revitalization." There is little of the reporter here. Instead, there are a lot of characters for whom, it feels, the author probably had time. It is they, involved and active, who make the reading not overwhelming. Encouraging are the cases of those who have returned to the "province" and are coping. Although the direction is rather the opposite. Semi-black jobs, budgeting as the top of the dream, local arrangements - all this pushes out people who would like to settle in their hometowns after graduation.
There is also a lot of data. Numbers, statistics, conclusions of reports densely fill the pages of "Collapse." Instead, there is no "raiding" typical of the daily media and some reporters, combined with serving up their opinions or impressions. For Szymaniak, medium-sized cities are not a cabinet of curiosities. All the more so because some topics don't lend themselves to it at all. For there is also about national minorities, the labor market or health care.
"In small cities it's better not to get sick," the doctor from Grudziądz confesses to the reporter. Things are getting grim. Although one can look on the other side. Whoever manages in a small town is a hero - contrary to the cliches about indigent or claimant provincials. "Every day they pass the exam on survivalism," he says. - says a former teacher from Kętrzyn about his town's residents.
Compromised word
And what additional knowledge does "Collapse" offer architects? Space and buildings are significant protagonists here. Especially buildings that do not exist - already or still. The first are demolished or crumbling factory halls that were once the pride and driving force of Bielawa or Prudnik. The second are apartments, which, few realize, are as hard to come by in medium-sized cities as in large ones. New apartments are almost not built, and even if they are, taking into account the much lower purchasing power, one has to work as many days for a square meter as in the "metropolis." It is just as difficult for a young person in a medium-sized city to chip away as for one from a big city. Although there are also optimistic sticking points, like the new cooperative tenant apartments from Bielawa.
The chapter on the lop-sided modernization of squares or monuments, on the other hand, is a good excuse to pore over the missed opportunities that properly done revitalization programs could have provided. Processes understood as acomprehensive renewal of the material, but also social and economic fabric. How it ended - we know. Concreted markets, buildings renovated without a thoughtful purpose. There was also a lack of an advisory voice from the architectural community. Social action - almost zero. Money spent, because the EU poured money. The word revitalization has already become so discredited that one has to look for a new one to call the process it once described.
Without a prescription
Finally, "Collapse" is another read that makes you think about how we develop the 312,000 square kilometers between the Bug and the Oder. And also about those who have left them and from abroad will not return. Especially to the small towns that we don't know how to use so much that it raises the question of the meaning of their existence. All the more so because they are already disappearing from our sight: the world of "small homelands" has no one to factually describe and comment on them. The last chapter of the book is a story of the decline of the local press and control of government, and a picture of the growing propaganda practiced in periodicals published by local governments.
It is good, therefore, that there is at least Szymaniak. Careful, factual and empathetic. You won't find in him painfully brilliant opinions or winged punch lines, which are easy to come by in the devaluing Polish reportage. Don't count on simple prescriptions either.
"It's possible that I could (...)/ for example, write four reports/ about the development prospects of small towns," Bursa wrote before he decided he didn't give a damn about towns.
Today it's probably hard to be even that optimistic.
Jakub GŁAZ
"FORWARD.Reportages from smaller towns" by Marek Szymaniak, Czarne Publishing House, Wolowiec, 2021
