Summary:

The goal of the article is an assessment of changes in spatial management of the rural areas in the Śląskie Voivodeship (Upper Silesia Region). The assess-ment covered both the level of infrastructural organization in general and its indi-vidual components, however the research specially focused on water supply and sewerage system, gas grid and road network. Analyzed were all rural communes of the Śląskie Voivodeship in the years 2004-2008.
Conducted analysis revealed significant changes both in the level and structure of the analysed phenomenon. An average level of infrastructural organi-zation was growing during the whole analysed period. The level of individual components of infrastructure development in the area was also growing, however the rate of density indicator growth computed for each of them was different.
From year to year the structure of infrastructure development was under-going increasingly smaller transformations but the exception was the final ana-lyzed year 2008. The most serious changes in the structure of the investigated area were observed regarding the sewerage system, lesser changes were evident for wa-ter supply system and the least concerned gas grid.
In conclusion it should be said that despite the increase in average level of infrastructure development in rural communes of the Śląskie Voivodeship in 2004-2008, infrastructural diversification of the area increased, too. Moreover, it seems that (this not positive from the equalization of opportunities point of view) struc-ture is stabilizing whereas the communes utilize increasingly less of structural funds.