The article deals with the issue of spatial plans at the local level. The aims of this paper are (1) extracting the characteristics of local spatial plans that can be compared more broadly (2) identifying, on this basis, the role of spatial plans at the local level in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In achieving these aims, the authors have critically examined spatial plans and their performance, as well as the planning systems they belong to. Hence, they have investigated the types of local plans in each country, their legal features, and the layout of their content. This examination has revealed a host of problems in the workings of the CEE planning systems. The article highlights those spatial planning issues that could be the subject of more in-depth international comparisons. The study provides additional evidence that in countries where spatial plans are legislated, there are more (mutually differentiated) legal problems in their application. Such problems have been analyzed. Besides procedural problems, discrepancies between the contents of different types of plans (e.g., general plans and detailed plans) are very often a problem. The paper also proposes a novel method for detailed comparisons of selected aspects of spatial plans. It can be applied to a large number of countries and also to other aspects of spatial planning. Last but not least, the paper emphasizes the need for a detailed multi-stage consultation of each aspect to be compared.

Comparisons of spatial planning systems still require in-depth reflection, especially in Central and Eastern European countries. This article compares national (central) government approaches to spatial planning in Belarus, Ukraine and Poland, answering the following research questions: (1) How are spatial planning issues regulated nationally? Which topics do laws focus on? What values and objectives are laws particularly emphasizing? (2) Are there any central/national strategic documents dealing with spatial planning, and which spatial issues do they address mostly? The article covers two key issues: comparing national approaches to spatial planning systems and comparing spatial planning issues in the three countries. We focus on statutory approaches and those contained in central-level strategic acts. In each country, spatial planning issues are covered by numerous laws, generating confusion when interpreting individual provisions. Our study makes an important, innovative contribution to the academic discussion by proposing a way of comparing and analyzing approaches of national authorities to spatial planning.

The article describes research on the Transformation of the Rural Settlement Network in the Carpathian Region of Ukraine in recent decades. The study area covers the Carpathian region of Ukraine, which has the highest share of rural population in the country. The 1989–2020 period was chosen. Quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis of statistical indicators, deductive and inductive methods, and cartographic method were used. The demographic crisis and economic problems of Ukraine did not stop the most important demographic and settlement processes that began in rural settlements of the Carpathian region during the Soviet period. These processes acquired the special features associated with political transition. Depopulation was greatest in the most urbanized Lviv Oblast, especially in the plains, in peripheral villages, where a critical level of negative demographic change had previously been achieved. However, the disappeared villages are few. Population growth in villages in suburban areas of large cities has not stopped. In sparsely urbanized areas, mostly in Transcarpathia and Precarpathia, a large group of villages that have also not been depopulated has emerged. Their development was facilitated by the availability of recreational and forest resources, border location, state support for mountain villages, and some local factors. The real situation in rural Ukraine is partly obscured by imperfect official statistics. In particular, it is difficult to establish population losses due to labor migration abroad.

The study objective is to analyse the effect of the flow of internally displaced persons (IDPs) on the development of the Lviv Oblast – the largest region of Ukraine bordering on the EU. The article was based on available statistical data (most statistical data in Ukraine under martial law is not made public), data from sociological research of international organisations, and other official public sources of information. The study results suggest that the Lviv Oblast has become the main Ukrainian transit region on the route of refugees from Ukraine across the border, as well as one of the main oblasts accepting IDPs. At least 5 million people have passed the oblast in transit, and the number of IDPs reached its maximum in the period May-June 2022. Most of the people arrived in the city of Lviv, other large cities, as well as recreation and tourist centres. IDPs have had a positive effect on the sectors of housing construction and tourism in the oblast, and contributed to an increase in the budget income of separate territorial hromadas. Approximately 230 enterprises have also been relocated to the oblast. Most IDPs are planning or expect to return to their former place of residence, although with each month of war duration, the share of people integrating with local communities and planning to permanently remain in the territory of the Lviv Oblast increases. In spatial terms, the flow of IDPs considerably exceeded the level of urbanisation of the oblast, and accelerated the development of the Lviv urban agglomeration. In the future perspective it may contribute to an increase in territorial disproportions between large cities in the oblast, with better developed hromadas around Lviv, mountain and pre-montane towns on the one hand, and depressive hromadas in the east and south-east of the oblast on the other.

The article aims to compare the local tools of Ukrainian and Polish spatial policy. It includes legal solutions (with a particular emphasis on the basics of development restrictions) and problems related to their application diagnosed in the literature on the subject. Based on the analysis of the spatial management systems of both countries, the similarities and differences were determined, referring them to the international discussion and suggesting directions for further research (on the spatial management systems of Central and Eastern European countries). Ukraine and Poland were selected for analysis in terms of similarities (partially similar historical conditions, location) and differences (status of a European Union Member State, spatial planning traditions).

The article addresses the smart city concept in reference to two neigh-bouring countries – Poland and Ukraine. The paper also analyses various research trends in the scope of the smart city concept, as well as the process and conditions of the concept's implementation in the studied countries. The detailed analysis covered the implementation of the smart city concept in two cities in Poland and Ukraine belonging to neighbouring second-order administrative units, namely Lublin and Lviv. It was determined that both in Poland and Ukraine, the smart city concept is at its initial stage of implementation. This results from a number of different conditions, primarily including the socio-economic transformation of the countries, and inconsistency in reforming different spheres of socio-economic life in Ukraine. Local initiatives (analysed in detail based on the example of the cities of Lublin and Lviv) were determined to be of key importance in the implementation process.