TY - GEN N1 - 24 cm N2 - Due to legal and financial constraints it is impossible for everyone to can live in a prestigious location. Hence the appearance of institutional and construction development initiatives which make appeal to the fame of a particular location, while being realised either outside of this location or in a manner divergent from the tradition to date. Such initiatives bring unavoidably the transformations in the spatial organisation, very often changing the previous character of the respective localities. One of the examples of this kind of processes is a town of Magdalenka near Warsaw. It was designed in the 1930s as a “forest settlement” (a type of “garden-city”), and planned as an area consisting of single, private, diverse family houses. Even though the initial design has never been finalised, the settlement took on an attractive landscape form. Based on the initial prerequisites, every plot in the northern part of the settlement had to be of approximately 1800 m2 (a typical forest construction plot), while in the southern part – approximately 1200 m2 (houses with gardens). For the forest plots it was decided that 21% of the trees could be cut out during construction, while the buildings should not have more than two floors. These stipulations are in force to this day. Because of the specific character of this locality the first inhabitants were representatives of the Warsaw middle class, and consisted mostly of bank employees. However, after the World War II it was the communist dignitaries that took a liking for Magdalenka, and there is little doubt that this contributed to the strengthening of the conviction as to the prestigious character of the locality. The development of the fame of Magdalenka was in a special way due to the political events. This was caused by the secret talks that have been conducted here since September 1988 by the communist administration with the representatives of the opposition, grouped around Lech Wałęsa. The conviction of the exceptional character of Magdalenka had an impact on its attractiveness. Yet, not everyone can afford buying or constructing a traditional home in the locality. For this reasons, new housing estates have been appearing recently in the areas acquired from the State Forest Agency. These estates have a standardised designand are very often twin houses. This lowers the construction costs, thus, reducing the final price of the dwellings as well. Outside of the administrative boundaries of Magdalenka, where construction regulations are less restrictive, housing estates appear , mostly on the forestless areas, with an even higher density of dwellings. The developers of such estates very often take advantage of the name of the legendary neighbouring locality in their promotional materials. This leads to an unavoidable change in the character of all the localities in the neighbourhood, influencing local identity of their inhabitants as well. L1 - http://www.rcin.org.pl/igipz/Content/63461/PDF/WA51_83189_r2017-t46_SOW-Kowalski.pdf M3 - Text J2 - Studia Obszarów Wiejskich = Rural Studies, t. 46 PY - 2017 EP - 72 KW - Magdalenka KW - garden-city KW - prestige KW - local resources KW - development A1 - Kowalski, Mariusz PB - PAN IGiPZ PB - PTG VL - 46 CY - Warszawa SP - 57 T1 - Uzurpacja prestiżu na przykładzie Magdalenki = Usurpation of prestige. Case of Magdalenka UR - http://www.rcin.org.pl/igipz/dlibra/publication/edition/63461 ER -