Quality of life is a complex concept that incorporates many different material and immaterial aspects, but in general refers to the well-being of people, groups or societies, and has been used widely, not least as an indicator of both mental and physical health. The system transformation of 1989 affected the quality of life in both rural and urban areas in Poland. It also contributed to the crystallization of certain cultural landscapes, hitherto illegible due to the inhibition of spatial processes encountered during Communism. After a quarter-century of free market economy, it became apparent that the progressive social polarization that followed was most prominent in environments striated by a special landscape type – “socjałki”. Their dysfunctional character has been noticeable in a wide array of dimensions: unemployment, poverty, social anomies and pathologies, claiming attitudes, substandard housing, and ghettoization. The main characteristic, however, was their equal prevalence in both urban and rural areas, creating peculiar and developmentally insoluble landscapes of dysfunctionality. The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of the rural-urban dichotomy on the quality of life of visceral people inhabiting those areas. Using in-depth interviews and detailed questionnaire surveys, we arrive at the conclusion that socjałki are distinct landscapes from a health-related perspective, and are poorly explicated using conventional analytical tools. We suggest they could benefit from being studied and evaluated on the basis of commonalities other than the rural-urban dichotomy.