Lease of farm lands is the most important process of proprietorial changes in the state’s agriculture sector. As an effect of turbulent socio-economic conditions and legal solutions resulting from country’s agricultural politics, its share in land’s management has significantly shrunk. Currently there is around 1.1 million ha of land in lease, which makes up for 23% of the land acquired by the Agricultural Property Agency of the State Treasury.

Land resources are the basis of economic and territorial development of any country. Land reform in the Russian Federation started in 1990−1991, its goal was to solve a wide range of issues in the field of agriculture, the formation and development of local government, housing construction, and ecology. At the same time, social and economic transformations were carried out, private ownership of land and payment for land use was introduced, and the development of the land market was stimulated.

Land is a non-renewable resource with a limited access and therefore a wholesome and sustainable use of land and maintenance of beneficial land properties are very important. Economic activity always has been the main propulsion of use of land resource. With global economic growth, the intensity of use of land resource as a main resource has only increased. Soil is one of the most important components of land, because it provides biodiversity of the land and functioning of ecosystems.

Land as a production factor occupies a special position in the economic activities of the urban population. Land resources in big cities are not only territorial basis for placing industrial and production structures, but also a space for urban life in general. However, to assess the effectiveness of urban land use, primarily the ecological and economic potential of the use of the urban land resources should be determined aimed at sustainable development of urban agglomerations (Volodchenkov, 2010).

The paper addresses the issue of dissatisfaction related to spatial management in rural areas illustrated with an example of southern Poland. In this region, the spatial structure of rural areas is poor, which results, e.g., from substantial fragmentation and scattering of land. Additionally, the Land and Property Register, also known as the real property cadastre for the area is not up to date, and fails to meet social expectations, in particular those regarding the ownership title.

Land consolidation is an implement, which allows the rearrangement of spatial structure in rural areas leading to their socioeconomic development. However, the process is costly and time consuming. The needs for land consolidation always exceed the actual possibility of its implementation, therefore it is essential to develop tools, which identify areas of high priority for such investments. Most often they are based on multi-criteria spatial analyses, which include a number of parameters defining agricultural production area.

The developments of reclaimed farmlands were performed actively in Osaka in the Edo era. As a result the vast lands, which amounts to more than 20,000 ha, were produced, and it was happened to exert a great influence on urban development in the last part of the Meiji era. Because they were the reclamation of the shallow water and also, were under development by private capital that was called 'Chonin Ukeoi Shinden', reclaimed farmlands contracted by the trading class, the circumstances may be quite different from those of the inland rural areas.