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As a major gateway city to eastern Europe, Warsaw has been subject to a significant level of international real estate investment and development activity in support of the regional functions of trans-national corporations as well as access to the large Polish domestic market. As a result the city has undergone major transformation since the early 1990s with large-scale office and retail developments in the city centre as well as out of town locations. This paper considers city institutional capacities and policy responses in the face of these changes, particularly in respect of nurturing and channelling international investment and development activity. As such the paper utilises the results of fieldwork interviews and focus group discussions involving a range of public/private and local/international actors in urban planning as well as property development and investment activities. The research stems from an ESRC funded project that evaluates globalisation of real estate markets and urban development in the capital cities of central Europe. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: For decades inner cities in East Central Europe have been characterised by physical dilapidation, ageing in place and selective outmigration. Post-socialist transition added to these developments by further outmigration due to suburbanisation but also provided new opportunities of residential change. In Polish and Czech second-order cities there is selective in-migration by younger households which remains so far almost hidden to the official statistics. Among them a new type of inner-city dwellers can be identified, that is transitory urbanites. They take the inner city as a perfect residential place in their current phase of life and value its characteristics both in emotional and pragmatic terms. But they do not expect to stay there for good and might leave the inner city in the future for another urban area or suburbia. However, while being present now they bring about residential change in the inner city and pave the way for future in-migrants of similar social status and age. From our material and observations, we can formulate the hypothesis that their importance has increased decisively during the last decade. Our paper draws on empirical research from in Łódź and Brno from 2006 to 2009. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]