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This book is devoted to questions and research problems generated by the issue of civil society. It contains contributions from mostly young scientists, who develop various approaches to the position and functionality of civil society, examining different examples from both the past and the present, based on theoretical approaches to this concept. As a result, the volume adopts an interdisciplinary perspective, which allows the identification of various levels of the concept of the civil soci...

Abstract
Development of cycling infrastructure is becoming a global trend in urban policies. High congestion, mitigating smog and CO2 reduction have led to the re-birth of cycling as a significant mode of urban mobility. The article aims to present the response of medium-sized Polish cities (ranging from 100.000 to 200.000 residents) to these challenges, which are among the most important problems to solve within the next decades. The study analyses the cycling policy of Polish cities, showing the dynamic increase in kilometres of cycle paths constructed (often built alongside street renovation projects), as well as the boom in bike-sharing programmes. Shortcomings such as the lack of consistency in realisation and varied implementation in different cities and culturally ingrained preference for cars, related to historical experiences of post-communist cities, are also outlined. The Polish approach is the cautious policy of carrots without sticks, in which solutions facilitating bicycle travel are not followed up by deterrents against using cars. As a result, there are no political conflicts and opposition regarding this issue, but the numbers of cyclists (although increasing) is still lower than in the world's leading bicycle cities.

This paper presents changes that have occurred at the local level in Poland and new German federal states during the process of the post-communist system transformation. The stages of rebuilding the local self-government and its structures are analyzed. The experiences of Poland and Eastern Germany – two states where the system transformation took different courses – were compared. At the same time, both countries have different constitutional orders of the unitary state and federal state, and this context are interesting fields for a comparative analysis. This paper also confronts the two methods of institution building – the importing of well-established institutions and developing them in the evolutionary way, where in both cases path a dependency can be well observed. In Germany this is considered a special case (Sonderfall) of institutional transformation, in which the key role was played by the transference of institutions, personnel and financial means. This was also done much quicker and in a more structured and comprehensive way than in Poland. In the case of Poland, the creation of local self-government structures or shaping the political actors was a grassroots and evolutionary process. This article points out the most important factors that had a crucial significance in the course and results of the transformation and explains different ways of developing the system of democratic local self-government.

The paper proposes new models of neighbourhood governance and their typology, which enable to understand, categorise and compare the neighbourhood governance structures in the urban areas. The models were based on the institutional and functional setting, in which the bodies created, their competences and instruments for their implementation, along with the amount of financial means at their disposal define the character of the model. As a result, three alternative models were created (administrative, intermediate, and participative). The second part contains the results of research conducted in 66 Polish county cities. Their neighbourhood governance systems were categorized and put into the frames of the proposed models. It was proved that only Warsaw implemented the administrative model, and most of the cities practice the intermediate and participative models.