148 Łukasz Damurski, Magdalena Olszyna, Jan Zipser
State of research
What is neighbourhood cohesion?
Wherever there is life, there is a deep-rooted purpose,
represented by functionality, a high level of organization,
coherence, and harmony in all animate beings (Çengel
2023). Hence, some kind of cohesion is a fundamental cha -
racteristic of all living systems. This statement can be also
applied to urban neighbourhoods, which are characterised
by a hierarchical structure of places performing dierent
functions, with a certain degree of self-suciency and
evolv ing over time. Originally developed in psychology,
so ciology, anthropology and biology (Buckner 1988), the
con cept of neighbourhood cohesion has recently been ap-
plied to territorial governance (Damurski 2022), thus ac-
quiring a tangible spatial dimension.
The original concept of neighbourhood cohesion was
an amalgamation of several approaches within the social
and psychological sciences. It was introduced as a synthe-
sis of a psychological sense of community, attraction to
the neighbourhood and social interaction within the neigh-
bourhood. It was assumed that residents living in a neigh-
bourhood had a certain degree of cohesion, which implied
a certain embeddedness of residents in a particular space
and positive (functional) social ties in the community.
In its extended version, neighbourhood cohesion is
a unique set of interrelated geographical and social charac-
teristics, and it depends on the perceived functional self-su-
ciency of a neighbourhood, the accessibility of essential ser-
vices (both public and private), and the relationship between
supply and demand observed in a given area (Damurski
2022). Therefore, an important strand of neighbourhood co-
hesion is citizens’ access to public infrastructure and services.
In this paper, a particular type of services has been se-
lected and examined in order to explore the neighbourhood
cohesion in Wrocław: the Local Activity Centres. On the
one hand, they can be perceived as an element of the for-
mally established public services system, lling important
gaps in the municipally-driven network of facilities ded-
icated to social integration, local culture, education, and
recreation. On the other hand though, they are a grassroots
initiatives, initiated and driven by the local leaders, in-
volved in the everyday life of local communities in partic-
ular neighbourhoods. This dual character of LACs – both
top-down and bottom-up – makes them a very interesting
example of urban services and as such it may have a signif-
icant role to play in shaping the neighbourhood cohesion
in Wrocław.
Community centre: the prototype
of the local activity centre
The rst community centres were established in the
United Kingdom in late 19
th
century, but now they can be
found all over Europe, the United States of America and
even in Asia. Community centres are public spaces that
serve as places for meeting, support, and activity for local
communities. They oer a variety of services and program-
mes, such as educational, recreational, cultural, as well as
social and health support. They are managed by local au
-
thorities, non-governmental organizations (NGO) or vol-
unteer groups and aim to strengthen social ties, promote
inclusion and improve the quality of life in the community
(Mayo, Mendiwelso-Bendek and Packham 2013).
According to the concept of the “modern agora” pro-
moted by Frank van Klingeren in the 1960s and 1970s,
a neighbourhood centre is meant to be a place of social
integration, enabling the exchange of knowledge and the
cultivation of diverse activities and interests. The function-
al and spatial programme of such a space is not dedicated
to a specic group of people – rather it should be open,
exible, and adaptable to the current needs of dierent us-
ers over the course of a day, week, month and year (Kowic-
ki 2004).
In the United Kingdom, many villages and towns have
their own community centres, although nearby schools
may also provide their lecture halls or canteens for af-
ter-school activities. In other parts of the world, commu-
nity centres may play many dierent roles, including civic
engagement (e.g., discussion on local governance issues
or disaster prevention), culture and leisure (e.g., organiz-
ing local cultural events, hobby classes, physical exercise
activities, exhibitions), citizen education (e.g., lectures on
history and culture, youth classes, library), assistance to
residents (e.g., provision of everyday life information, sport
and tness training sessions, ea markets, supporting the
vulnerable groups, welfare and health improvement) and
community development (e.g., public areas cleaning, mutu-
al assistance, youth guidance) (developed after Eun 2010).
All those activities can be conducted in a dedicated place,
equipped with particular facilities, or can be organized on
a temporary basis in schools, parishes, or sports centres.
In Poland, the traditional counterpart of a community
centre is the “house of culture” (dom kultury). The ori-
gins of the concept date back to the 18
th
century, when the
rst initiatives aimed at promoting education and culture
among the rural population emerged. In the 19
th
century,
the dominant cultural institutions were public reading
rooms and various socio-cultural associations, which de-
veloped under the inuence of the idea of grassroots work
and positivism. In the interwar period, the number of hous-
es of culture increased signicantly, and their aim was to
reduce the barriers in access to culture and to blur the dif-
ferences between elite and popular culture. In the times of
the People’s Republic of Poland, cultural centres became
a key tool in the hands of the authorities, serving as places
of propaganda accessible to the broad masses. After the
political transformation at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s,
the function and form of cultural centres changed again,
adapting to the new social and political realities (Zoom Na
Domy Kultury 2024).
Today, houses of culture are local government institu-
tions which, unlike artistic institutions, libraries and muse-
ums, are not only supposed to organise cultural events, but
also to work for the integration of local communities and
to carry out animation and educational activities. There-
fore, they have a special status among cultural institu-
tions, resulting from the type of activities they undertake
(Wiśniewski, Rydzewski 2022).
