The urban hierarchy: how the war in Ukraine has changed the status of the Polish city of Rzeszow

Cities are the main engines of economic activity and play a crucial role in the development of countries. The importance of a given city depends not only on its intrinsic potential, but also on its position within the urban hierarchy. This article has two aims. First, it explores how a city’s status can shift in response to unexpected events, such as non-economic shocks. Using the example of Rzeszow, a city in Poland located near the Ukrainian border, we illustrate how the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has changed its position within the urban hierarchy. Secondly, we demonstrate how the multicriteria rankings can be applied to quantify such a change. The paper consists of two parts. In the theoretical section, based on the literature review, we examine the methods for determining the position of cities within the urban hierarchy and present an overview of various approaches used to rank the cities. In the empirical part, multicriteria rankings are employed to construct the urban hierarchy in Poland. In our analysis, we use methods with relatively low parameter requirements and multiple sets of weights to ensure the objectivity of the results. Within such a framework, the position of Rzeszow is examined in the context of the war in Ukraine. The study concludes that non-economic factors can change a city's importance in a relatively short period of time. This presents both an opportunity and a challenge for local authorities. The study also confirms the applicability of proposed multicriteria ranking methods for analysing urban hierarchy dynamics.