摘要：Inhabitants of rural areas are subject to several pressures such as depopulation, income gap and
infrastructure scarcities compared with urban areas. An analysis of rural boroughs in Poland is carried at
the LAU-2 (NUTS-5) level, based on sustainable development framework indicators with the use of logit
models, in order to verify the existence of heterogeneities among rural boroughs caused by metropolitan
area spillovers. The research shows that the deconcentration hypothesis holds only for rural boroughs
within 40 km of large towns. The remaining rural boroughs have a profile of inner peripheries – they are
subject to adverse demographic and development pressures, with limited infrastructure stock and public
services availability. These remarkable differences between rural boroughs imply the need for a
reconsideration of the criteria for regional Cohesion Policies. Namely, more location-dependent regional
policy instruments should be designed instead of the currently prevailing approach based on NUTS-2
criteria.
