Czesław Adamiak - Böcker

The book highlights the significance of a distinct category of underdeveloped areas, known as the inner periphery, in understanding contemporary spatial disparities in socio-economic development and the challenges posed to future cohesion policy. The origins, conditions, and evolving disparities in regional development are frequently analyzed from the perspectives of economics and economic geography, where effective strategies for achieving spatial convergence in social and economic development are explored. This book contributes to this ongoing dialogue by focusing on persistently marginalized areas, commonly referred to as inner peripheries in relevant literature. These areas are widespread across Europe, regardless of a country’s or region’s development level. The peripheral status of these areas is primarily due to their limited connectivity with surrounding environments, which significantly impacts their developmental processes. In recent years, numerous significant developmental shocks have occurred, one of which is the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. These shocks have shaped the social and economic consequences that affect local development in specific areas. These consequences are likely to alter the characteristics of the territorial capital of individual 4 areas, the condition of public finances, and the local development policies influencing them. The book's objective is to present research findings on the patterns of socio-economic development changes in selected inner peripheries, particularly focusing on their vulnerability and resilience to the impacts of the SARSCoV-2 crisis. It also aims to offer recommendations for modifying the directions and methods of implementing development policy interventions. The research results from Poland, the largest beneficiary of European cohesion policy, serve as a foundation for proposing recommendations regarding the challenges of targeting development intervention post-2027.