From restructuring to sustainable development

In the coming decades the Silesian Voivodeship can achieve a level of development close to that of the prosperous countries of Western Europe. However, this requires completing the socio economic transition and dealing with three challenges:

● economic challenge – further development of a competitive industrial base and market services is necessary to raise the level of GDP per capita of the region to that of the well-developed European countries,

●demographic challenge – the decline in the number of inhabitants of the region and the process of fast ageing of the population, which is particularly intensive in the communities which in the past based their development on coal mining, has to be stopped,

●social challenge – improvement of the quality of life in the region means solving the problem of a high level of air pollution, and also supporting the areas with a high unemployment rate, poverty and increased crime, decapitalised housing and transportation infrastructure.