UPM, a foundation associating 12 large Polish cities, established in 1990. The goals of the UPM are: supporting the development of the local and economic self-government, promotion of initiatives and actions connected with creating and functioning of regional and local structures, in particular those created in metropolitan areas, collectively solve problem of big cities, cooperation with the state bodies and nationwide, foreign and international organisations, for increasing the role of metropolises in the country and in European integration. The initiative to create the UPM was born in the Institute of the Cities, established by the experts from the Civic Centre of the Society of Polish Urbanists. It was then supposed to be a forum for networking connection of the post-communist cities with democratic cities of Europe and the world. The initiators also noticed a fault in the then self-government reform which did not consider a significant diversity among municipalities. It was postulated that the maximum of tasks be delegated to municipalities and the big cities were the ones who could take the most of them. Thus the slogan “as much city, as much state”, in the spirit of which the Union was create.