Detecting Urban Resilience. Foreign Residents’ Perceptions and Experiences of Public Services in a Globalising City: A Case Study of Krakow

In tennis, the sweet spot on a racket marks the point at which a ball can be hit with the greatest power for the least effort. Public services in the globalising city of Krakow found themselves in precisely such a position before the large-scale forced migration inflows as a result of Russian aggression against Ukraine in February 2022. An analysis of the evaluations of public services by foreign residents in Krakow during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021) reveals, on the one hand, the overall satisfaction of users yet, on the other, significant differences in expectations and experiences amongst categories of foreign residents coming from global core, semi-peripheral and peripheral regions. The findings shed light on the nature of urban resilience in globalising cities like Krakow, which is encountering migration transitions, as well as the uneven nature of globalisation between services that have been internationalised and those which have not. The results expose considerable gaps in the process of the multi-faceted adaptation of city public services to meet the expectations of their dynamically changing population. The findings are particularly significant in the context of intensive forced migration inflows from Ukraine, critically reflecting on the resilience of public services on the eve of major shifts in population flows into the city.