Lodz was developed as a Polish textile centre during the 1820s. Between 1870 and 1914, the city grew rapidly and become the core of one of Europe's premier textile manufacturing regions with a specialisation in serving the Russian market. When the Communist system collapsed in 1989, the city was still dominated by its eastern-orientated textile industry. Despite a number of advantages, the city is nonetheless faced with overcoming a number of serious problems in the quest to restructure the local economy during circumstances of economic and political flux affecting eastern Europe in the early 1990s. The evidence so far suggests that Lodz faces a difficult, competitive situation in attracting the inward investment needed to diversify the local economy away from the ailing textile industry. Potential investors are liable to be put off by the poor state of the city's infrastructure and environment.
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