Gdańsk

The Baltic city of Gdańsk is world famous, having repeatedly played an important role in history: it was one of the dominant members of the Hanseatic League, it was the place where the first shots of the Second World War were fired and, as the birthplace of the Solidarity movement, it became an icon of resistance against communist rule east of the Iron Curtain. Today, like other large Polish cities, Gdańsk has to manage the challenges of being a late-comer in the international community of competing cities, yet undoubtedly also having to cope with the legacy of the last one and a half decades: an absence of efficient city policies in vital areas. City image-building involves the task of integrating a multicultural past. Challenges such as profound socio-economic and demographic change, notably an aging and shrinking population, and the resulting spatial repercussions such as suburbanisation and the need for inner city revitalisation – these in conjunction with the need for modernisation of the port and of the economic base – demand fresh strategies in the new context of EU funding opportunities.