The legal model for metropolis management in Poland - comments on the regulation of metropolitan union in the Silesian voivodship

Political changes that followed after 1989 led to the creation of local selfgovernment in Poland. As a result, a municipality, a county and a voivodship selfgovernment were established. In the course of these reforms, however, the problem of the system of metropolitan areas, and thus their management, has not been resolved. Making metropolisation in Poland, understood as creating special solutions for metropolitan areas in the form of large urban agglomerations, that are facilities of various networks (transport, scientific, economic) and development centers, is not satisfactory. Initiatives to ensure management of metropolitan areas have been undertaken for a long time, but still without achieving sufficient results. In 2015, the Act on metropolitan unions was adopted, whose provisions constituted the basis for creating metropolitan unions regardless of the country's area. On the basis of its provisions, however, no metropolitan union was established. In return, there was undertaken the work on the subsequent act in analyzed area - this time concerning only the area of the Silesian voivodship. The purpose of the article is to analyze provisions of the act on metropolitan union in the Silesian voivodship, aiming at determination of effectiveness and sufficient nature of these provisions in the area of metropolitan areas management in Poland. The regulations regarding only one, though undoubtedly the largest urban agglomeration in Upper Silesia, which is currently the case, seems insufficient to assume that the problem of providing a special system and rules for management of metropolitan areas has been solved.