INTRODUCTION
The impact of cities on the social, cultural or economic development is growing along with time, which is clearly perceived while looking at an increasingly broad range of domains and space concerned. Cities have incessantly played a vital role in creating policies of development of territorial units of all levels, but also that of various organizations and institutions. They are becoming addressees of concrete schemes, most often referring to challenges to development posed by current civilization. Such challenges include, among others, climatic changes or processes of aging and depopulation of cities. They determine the necessity of introducing new assumptions, conceptions and projects directed towards restricting the progress and effects of these unfavorable phenomena. They are undertaken in the spheres of management of cities’ development, spatial planning and managing urban resources.
The articles published in this volume refer directly to the challenges and conceptions of cities’ development, which are mentioned above. The first contribution – a case study of the Stockholm Metropolis – illustrates the forms of cooperation taken up in order to generate innovations, since it is based on the assumption that it is cities that are engines of economic development of whole regions. The article that follows discusses to a broader extent challenges posed to the development of cities (that is affecting demographic, ecological and financial spheres) as well as the assumptions behind the smart city scheme and then presents the solutions applied with the aim to build such a city in the case study of Warsaw and Kiev. A particularly important problem faced by cities are unfavorable demographic processes which were accepted as a subject matter
for considerations presented in the next article. The author identifies in it demographic trends and determines their influence on the economy of cities located in Łódź Province (Voivodship). An interesting research theme is also dealt with in the following contribution which maintains that it is possible to make new use of urban spaces. They can favor the quality of discourse which is the beginning of building an inclusive city that is conducive to both individual and group development. In turn, the progressing climatic
changes that are a negative phenomenon generated to a considerable extent by cities make the subject of considerations in the last article. The authors point to solutions – in the planning framework – which can serve to implement actions based on resources of urban nature (the so-called NBS – nature-based solutions). They are inspired by nature, sustainable as well as ecologically, socially and financially effective. Presenting our Readers with Volume 38 of Studia Miejskie, I hope that it raises a good amount of scientific interest and contributes to a better understanding of the contemporary perspective of cities’ development.