Foreigners in Warsaw – is the Polish capital foreign-friendly?

Although in the eyes of foreigners who live in the Polish capital Warsaw is yet to become an
international metropolis, it is already regarded as a thriving city which has a lot to offer. What particularly
appeals to expatriates is career prospects and a high standard of living. But do they actually feel at home
there?

We wanted to hear from Warsaw expats themselves what they actually think about the Polish capital.
Is it really that easy to fall in love with it? And is it easy to love the city as much as the locals do, even if you are
not a Polish citizen?
 Foreigners in Warsaw - who are they?

As the capital city, Warsaw naturally attracts the highest number of foreigners of all
the Polish cities. According to the City Council’s statistics, there are 22 thousand foreigners
living in Warsaw. It is believed though that the actual number may be even 3 times higher.
Every fourth immigrant who live in the Polish capital comes from Ukraine, every eighth and
sixteenth one comes from Vietnam and Belarus accordingly. There are also a significant
number of Russians and Chinese. When it comes to the EU countries, there are many French,
German or British citizens.

56% of those who took part in our survey are expats working in Warsaw. The next
24% of the respondents are students; 17% of the surveyed are self-employed. Every third
expat has lived in the capital for more than 3 years while the others live there for a little
shorter (26% declare to live in Warsaw for at least a year, 25% less than a year and 7% less
than 3 months).
 Which are the Polish cities of the future?

A ranking of the cities that stand the best chances of adapting to the changing
realities by 2050

After analysing the perspectives for the development of the Polish cities within the
next three decades, researchers from 4CF have found out what are the most likely scenarios
and which cities are fit to adapt to the changes. Their finding is hardly surprising - the Polish
capital of Warsaw is best placed to become “a city of the future” first.
Warsaw will likely become a future-proof city first

Among the largest Polish agglomerations, Warsaw has a chance to gain the status of
the city of the future the fastest. Wrocław and Katowice take second and third place
respectively, followed by Kraków. These are the results of the first ranking of the Polish Cities
of the Future 2050.

The authors of the study focused on four areas in the functioning of the city to
determine the results: work (office buildings), living (residential buildings), urban
infrastructure related to leisure ("after hours") and transport.

According to the authors, Warsaw is already playing in the European league. The city
wins in individual sub-rankings for quality of office buildings, quality of urban infrastructure
for free time, as well as transport and scores high in living. This result is due to the city’s
recent investment in sustainable development, culture, education, sport and recreation and
the provisions of the #Warsaw 2030 Strategy, the announcement further suggests.

Three scenarios for urban development until 2050

The first of the predicted scenarios - named in the report "Freedom in quarantine"
assumes that thanks to widespread automation only 20% of us will have a job - a specialized
elite with well-paid employment. Remote work will become a norm, not a privilege, and the
same goes for studying.

The authors also project that the risks of future pandemics will mean that we will
almost no longer participate in meetings physically and thus – cities will become less
attractive and urbanization levels will go down. Thus, the main source of money in the
municipal treasury will be subsidies from the state budget, the amount of which will depend
on the number of people. Therefore, cities will intensively compete with each other for
residents.

In the second scenarios - "Under the glass" - people will work long hours in green and
clean cities, without much room for self-realization during free time. This is the cost of
expensive city modernization - arguably the result of the need to meet the climate goals of
the EU.

It will make cities modern centres of social life with no other alternatives, and over 80
percent of Poles will live in them. Apart from large agglomerations, where energy and
utilities will be optimized through the use of artificial intelligence and a high population
density, the costs of electricity, gas, water and waste disposal will be high.

This will make life in the countryside - at the mercy of the elements unleashed by
climate change and without a chance for a well-paid job - lose its attractiveness. For the
most part, we will get rid of cars, and will use public transport and shared mobility.

Finally, a third scenario “This is our climate," concrete-dominated polluted, large and
overheated cities, will still offer us the best job possibilities, but the social dimensions of
living in the city - the urban lifestyle and leisure culture will be under constant crisis.

Even those of us who remain in cities will spend 90% of our free time outside their
borders. The local community in large cities will fall apart and for those living in cities, there
will be, among others, water rationing and high prices of overconsumption.
 These are the happiest Polish cities
According to 35 thousand Polish residents

A survey conducted among 35,897 Polish residents between September 2021 and
February 2022 reveals the happiest Polish cities. The big winners in the ranking are Gdynia,
Gdansk and Zielona Góra, while the worst-performers are Częstochowa, Kalisz and Ruda
Śląska. Interestingly, over half of the respondents confirm they are happy where they live.

Earlier this month, Otodom (a real estate website) and the ThinkCo (a real estate
research lab) released an interesting report, backed by thousands of data entries and
collected in the space of half a year. Assessing their cities on a scale from 1 (extremely
unhappy) to 5 (completely happy), respondents ranked the places in Poland where they feel
the most and the least happy.

The aim of the study was to understand what influences the subjective feeling of
happiness in the city and its surroundings. For this reason, apart from the general indication
of the level of happiness, the respondents also indicated which elements had a positive and
negative impact on it. This way, the report brought to light some important findings about
life in Polish urban settlements.

The key conclusions are that:

 More than half of Poles (57%) are happy in their cities. On the other side of the
spectrum, some 20.9% do not rate the level of happiness in their city as pretty good.
 As much as 29% indicate access to stores as important happiness factor.
 Respondents highly appreciated cities that provide access to nature (21.7%), are
well-connected (23.9%) and have many options for entertainment and relaxation
(21.1%), as well as cities that are safe (21.7%).
 Factors that can ruin the sense of happiness in a city are the poor condition of the
environment (including access to green areas, the level of street noise or clean air)
(23.9%), limited access to healthcare (22.2%) and ineffective public transport and
problems with commuting (22%).
  Finally, the cost of living proved the most influential factor in determining the sense
of happiness: as many as 36% of respondents indicated that finances are the greatest
obstacle to happiness.

Considering the above factors, the respondents ordered the following list of 10 happiest
cities in Poland:

1. Gdynia (4,03) 4. Tychy (3,91) 7. Rzeszów (3,76)

2. Gdańsk (3,96) 5. Bielsko-Biała 8. Katowice (3,75)
(3,85)
3. Zielona Góra 9. Poznań (3,73)
(3,95) 6. Szczecin (3,82)
10. Kraków (3,69)