Exurbs rather than suburbs?

The school year is drawing near and once the school holidays are over, roads will become busier. For those commuting to work by public transport within boundaries of Warsaw, little will change in terms of time spent on reaching the office (counting out dropping children to school, if applicable), but those who have chosen, or for financial reasons were forced to take up residency in the suburbs, will have it a bit more uphill.

Over the last three months I took three forays by bike south of Warsaw to sightsee the accursed suburbia where I would not wish to reside. The photos were taken during three bike trips, on 17 June 2026 (Jeziorki, Nowa Wola, Zamienie), 11 August 2026 (Julianów, Józefosław) and 25 August 2025 (Dawidy, Falenty, Janczewice, Podolszyn).

Jeziorki remains within the boundaries of Warsaw, yet its residents must rely on buses, railway or private motoring to reach business districts of Warsaw. On the snap, a single block of flats, built in the middle of a field in Jeziorki, close to Biedronka discount shop and in immediate vicinity of the railway station. Of note on this site a huge state-built Mieszkanie Plus housing estate was meant to be built, but the PiS government housing agenda fizzled out.

Nowa Wola, south of Jeziorki, two decades ago was a village with some older houses and arable fields. The development on the photo appeared over the last decade. Fortunately, accompanied by some shops, bakeries and even a pharmacy. Getting out of here during rush hour looms as a nightmare, but with a train station within walking distance, at least locals are not fully dependent on their motor vehicles.

To the right, Nowa Wola snapped from its western edge, maybe already from Zgorzała. Rows of same houses in the distance and fields which await giving way to next estates.

S7 expressway, as snapped from a viaduct above it between Zgorzała and Zamienie. Don't be deluded by the proximity of a fast-traffic road. It also gets congested and has traffic jams on all its ends and feeder roads on the suburbs.

Zamienie's infrastructure is slowly catching up with the number of residents occupying the village. Locals have a retail park, with a discount shop, some other retail outposts and a kebab hut, being a crucial hangout for some youngsters.

The centre of Zamienie is a spot I once documented in April 2022. Back then I griped about lack of underground garages. If you don't park vehicles beneath buildings, surrounding areas are paved over, instead of being green leisure terrains for residents.

Switching to snaps from the second trip, to Julianów. This is ul. Przyrodnicza, but could be any other street. Same relatively new semi-detached houses up to the horizon.

The next photo shows the essence of Julianów. I took it from behind a fence surrounding one of many estates of terraced houses, whose rows are several hundred metres long. All up to the forest, behind which commuting is far easier.

The holiday period was used by local authorities to modernise major roads in the village. Its effects will not accelerate movement of passenger cars, but hopefully will improve comfort and safety of pedestrians and cyclists.

In the adjacent Józefosław, the most populous village in Poland, with 14,000 inhabitants and water supply infrastructure insufficient to serve them. Each street looks the same, each street is nearly empty. The suburb lacks signs of life I see in Ursynów, which is anything, but a central district.

I could take several shots of Józefosław or Julianów, but only aerial photos will show you what those suburbs look like. When I first saw it, I had to verify the picture had not been AI-created. Sadly, this is real. Photo by Szymon Starnawski.

The dreadful rows of identical houses, with no shops, no life-enhancing infrastructure, no schools, nor nurseries and no decent public transport, coercing dwellers to rely on cars. Absolutely horrid! Photo by Szymon Starnawski. 

Moving over to snaps from the third trip. The retail park (do not confuse for a shopping mall) appears to have become a focal point for locals who no longer need to drive to Janki to do the shopping. Very few people come there on foot or by bike, so the car park is chock full of motor vehicles.

The road linking Łady and Falenty Nowe has been modernised, widened and a broad pavement for pedestrians and cyclists has been built parallel to it, commendably. Yet, this piece of infrastructure remains in the middle of nowhere.

In the entire Falenty Nowe you will find one small grocery store and one recently put up bakery hut. Reliance on cars is even heavier as the village lacks pavements. Despite this, hundreds of terraced houses were erected here over the last decade, as pricing of local housing remains competitive (and reflects all drawbacks of living here).

The monstrous estate to the right lies in Janczewice. The developer squeezed so many tiny terraced houses on one plot of land that too little space was left for garages or drives, hence it built a multi-storey car park for residents. Sheer ugliness does not beckon.

In Podolszyn, I ran across one of the longest osiedle łanowe in Poland. The row of identical semi-detached houses stretches some one kilometre into the horizon. This means dwellers of houses on its end need to walk or ride or drive more than a kilometre to start their actual journeys. Note a roadside chapel to the right.

Heading home through Dawidy Bankowe. Proper infrastructure for cyclists is in place, snap taken one hour before the sunset. Not a human in sight, the suburb is sleepy. Only the sun gloriously illuminates the wheat or whatever it is (I refuse to ask AI). Glad in twenty minutes I will be back in Ursynów.