Generally:
1. The historic Sląsk [in Poland] is partitioned (Wrocław, Opole, Katowice) but not gone. A self-governing Silesia is as unrealistic as people there who want out. If they don’t exist, you go on saying “unrealisitic”. However, if they do exist and make the majority voting to secede, there’s a problem which you can’t go around or about by saying “you don’t exist”.

2. Streaming cash is correct. Yet there’s a huge difference of opinions who got more of it: Silesia from Poland or Poland from Silesia. Before WW2. Right after WW2. In PRL times. Nowatimes. As always I’d recommend more GUS stats and fewer myths.

Personally:
I don’t care if it’s called Silesia or Sweden or Scotland as long as I can move abroad. The fewer borders, the better.

re: Ślunsk autonomy

sounds pretty unrealistic. The historic Śląsk is long gone. This is Poland now, like Lwów is Ukraine and Wilno is Lithuania.

And after years of communist state streaming cash to the beloved miners – autonomy would be unfair.

=> Anyone in the Wealthdom of Warsaw
You realize that lots of Silesians think (and have stats to support their thoughts) that Silesia would, could and should be outside of Poland (widely autonomous or simply independent) — as in the WW-interwar years — and decades past 1945 — and nowadays — it has had to give lots more to the state treasury than it has gotten back. I hope — after Kosovo or such — people there will get their chance to decide whether to evacuate from the Polish stats.

What do you need a motorway to the forest for?:)

Honestly, what these regions need is more getting things in their own hands. Organising communities, small businesses etc.

When talking infrastructure, I’d much more welcome having A1 or fast train connections between major cities.

Mecklenburg – bogland
Extremadura – nature reserve
Southern Italy – holidays, mafia and ancient ladies wearing black and gathering twigs

I agree with Michael. Warsaw and immediate neighbours should be a separate region to give the other places a chance.

http://www.stat.gov.pl/cps/rde/xbcr/gus/PUBL_bezrobotni_stopa_wg_powiatow_01_2008.xls

You will see Radom, for instance, a mere 60 miles from Warsaw, with 22.5% of its population registered as unemployed. You will see Poland’s unemployment blackspot, the Szydlowieckie district (poviat) with 34%joblessness. The Ciechanów-Płock sub-region has 17% unemployment, peaking at over 20% in three of its poviats.

By cutting these sub-regions off from the full benefits of EU structural and cohesion funds, we may well find a prosperous Warsaw walled off from a prosperous Poland by a ring of deprivation and despair.

Poland’s four eastern provinces need one thing: INFRASTRUCTURE. International airports, roads and fast railway. Then the call centres, shared service centres, logistic centres will come. The people are there. But they feel imprisoned. (Well, Rzeszów has it’s own international airport.)

BTW: I HATE these made-up names of Polish voivodships or provinces – Holy Cross, Cuyavio-Pomerian, Podlachian, Lesser Poland etc that a band of linguist nerds are promoting on Wikipedia. What next – Boat voivodship? Mazovia, Silesia and Pomerania I can live with as these are generally-accepted historical names rather than made-up neologisms.

And it’s VOIVODSHIP not VOIVODESHIP. That ‘E’ is entirely reduntant and leads to confusion – Voi-voad-ship or Voi-vod-eh-ship? Google gives the former spelling 344,000 results v. 298,000 of the latter. So there.

I do not want to see shopping malls, coca cola adverts and highways there…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_TrpZZVMZs