Łódź – Towards a resilient city

This paper presents Łódź, Poland's third-largest city in terms of population, and which is a part of the urban heritage of the industrial age. At the start of the twentieth century, it was a major textile industry centre and achieved the highest population growth rate in Europe, with a scale comparable to the rapid development of American cities in this period. Prior to the First World War, Łódź was among the world's 35 largest cities. This profile presents strategies for addressing critical shrinkage by building a relationship with Warsaw as a part of a duopolis. The authors explored the processes by which Łódź enhances its competitiveness by improving its urban structure, altering its economic profile and changing its image from that of an industrial city to a cultural city. The case of Łódź demonstrates that understanding the necessity of introducing synergic layouts can be an element of building resilient city policies in Central and Eastern Europe, which has been hit by city shrinkage particularly hard.