 According to initial plans, it was to accommodate as many as 120,000 people, but the area south of the railway tracks was eventually designated for single-family houses that were to form a separate estate, bringing the total envisaged number of residents in Retkinia down to c. 70-80,000.The estate was originally designed with an adequate number of green spaces, shops and other services, but public pressure and the demand for living quarters led to streamlining the construction effort to focus on blocks of flats only, resulting in a three-shift school system due to a shortage of school buildings coupled with a period of baby boom, and forcing many local residents to do their shopping in the city centre.The situation gradually improved in the 1980s.