How committed activists fight for their plots, while the city spends 6 million on a glossy magazine instead of fighting smog. Łódź as a paradise for developers, a hell for residents' lungs.
I’ve read and seen so many people, neighbors, who got into activism because they had a plot of land from their uncle for 4 or even 20 houses, as God gave them. Unfortunately, the evil city and urban planners said “no to ribbon development”. So they got up from Netflix and as committed activists are now fighting for “justice” for the neighborhood and the area. And then these sentimental stories: officials and their developer friends get permits, and they, poor activists, can’t get a simple zoning permit (WZ).
You can do an experiment, I recommend it to the Readers, in Łódź if you throw a stone on Piotrkowska Street, 95% of the time you will hit either a developer or a plot owner. But to become a real developer? It’s not that simple. Connections, acquaintances and a lot of money, even a good lawyer won’t help. Without the green light, business becomes high-risk, and certainly the risk of becoming a develo-activist.
Remember those beautiful slogans about densifying cities? Those very rationally explained arguments by celebrity architects, true philosophers of development (God forbid on the developers’ payroll) about compact development and the fight against urban sprawl? Well, look: in Ursus, Ronson invests 100 million, builds a school on the site of old factories and gets permission for a housing estate for 2,700 people - where the zoning plan screams “no”. Communication? Barely breathing, but the developer will promise one bus to the metro and everyone is happy. And the residents rationalize this excellent location.
Transactional urbanism in all its glory: whoever gives more green, builds.
And in Łódź? Łódź is a real paradise for developers, confirmed by the developers themselves, but unfortunately a hell for the lungs. And the words about a “paradise for developers” are not just journalistic exaggeration. It’s hard data. According to the ranking of the Polish Association of Development Companies, Łódź is the most developer-friendly city in all of Poland. As much as 38.85% of decisions on development conditions are issued there in less than 60 days! For comparison, in Warsaw it is only 1.20%, and in Krakow 1.22%. A big difference, but Łódź likes green development…
Why is Łódź so “efficient”? Maybe because our local government officials take care of us by implementing Lex Developer, selling plots for development and investments like mushrooms after rain is a hallmark of this administration? You can read about these “successes” in the appropriate form on lodz_pl or in the official newsletter of the City of Łódź Office. It is one big walking advertisement for the successes of the City of Łódź Office and developers. Even subscribers to the Łódź Resident Card receive text messages with advertisements for development investments.
On Lodz_pl you will also find fairy tales about the “Łódź residents replace their stoves” program. However, if you check the facts (which of course the voters do not do), the truth is brutal: according to SmogLab, at the current pace, Łódź will get rid of its old, polluting boilers in… 256 years. Yes, two and a half centuries!
Specific numbers? Here you go:
- 2021 - 17 boilers replaced
- 2022 - a stunning 5 units
- 2023 - again 5 units
- 2024 - suddenly 174 - maybe someone got scared, or maybe it’s the magical effect of Łódź wanting to shine before two climate events that will take place in May 2025 in Łódź: the 3rd edition of the Local Government Climate Congress and the international Urban Future conference, where there will probably be major greenwashing covering up the intensive development of the city and perhaps local politicians and local government officials will pose for photos with developers as Pustelnik, the hero of the book about patho-developers, which I have already cited, very often does?
Let’s get back to the boilers. There are almost 13,000 to be replaced! Krakow and Warsaw have long since dealt with the topic, Wrocław will replace 1,600 boilers in 2025, Wałbrzych over a thousand a year. Łódź, on the other hand, leads in the fastest issuance of building permits and WZ decisions for developers in the country - they themselves announced that it is the most friendly city for them.
And the best part? Hanna Zdanowska’s city spends 6 million a year on a glossy propaganda magazine, and allocates… in 2025 supposedly 3 million PLN for the replacement of old boilers. We will see what the effects will be, because assumptions and the degree of implementation are two different things. For sure, the entire amount for the magazine is consumed.
The Municipal Housing Administration doesn’t even know how many old boilers it has, because their system “does not distinguish between device classes”. Seriously? It’s as if the public transport company didn’t know whether Jelcz buses or electric buses were running in the city. But creative PR is the domain of Łódź, which is why they have the best specialists in SEO, marketing and PR. Officially, Łódź is planting millions of trees, but if you check the official data from the Central Statistical Office, the situation looks more pathetic, not to say bad. It is certainly not worth bragging about at the Local Government Climate Congress.
In 2019, Zdanowska promised that within 10 years Łódź would be a “smog-free” city. 6 years have passed and… nothing. The residents of Łódź have only 250 years left to wait for clean air. One thing is for sure. Łódź will definitely not be a city free of protests.
Łódź is friendly - for developers.
Thus, it generates a large number of protests and disputes, creating, what the residents of Łódź themselves are proud of, a lot of grassroots activist movements. I sometimes call them simply develo-activists. They are completely harmless to investors and the prevailing development fever, and are even needed because they are a decoration so that it does not look so bad in this dynamically developing city.
I also have positive information for the residents of Łódź and their lungs at the end: breathe this smog for another quarter of a millennium, and if it stresses you out, read Lodz_pl and relax on the woonerfs. The latter are open 24 hours a day just for you, my dears.
