Legitimating Urban “Revitalisation” Strategies in Post-socialist Łódź

Abstract

The city of Łódź in central Poland has witnessed de-industrialisation and urban decay. Often tagged the Polish Manchester on account of its former prominence in textiles, the city has struggled to reinvigorate itself in the post-socialist period. Focusing on the post-1999 period, this paper examines how narratives of “Europeanisation” and “multiculturalism” have been promoted to legitimate current efforts to regenerate the city. It is argued that new moral geographies are being constructed, in part, through a selective reading and exploitation of the city’s past as well as through wider socio-economic processes, which have a detrimental impact on sections of the city’s population. The final part of the paper highlights how the dissonant heritage of the city offers possibilities for more inclusive “revitalisation.”