Lodz – Metamorphosis of the River System

Abstract

Political transformations which affected Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the 20th century opened up new transformation opportunities before its towns and cities. Poland, burdened with its geopolitical baggage, tries to keep up with contemporary trends in urban planning, which are the domain not only of Western European countries, but which are dictated by the need to secure the quality of living in towns and cities of the entire developing world. Transformations in riverside towns and cities, strongly connected with the development of the environmental policy, are particularly interesting. The growing significance attached to the co-existence of a natural ecosystem and an urban structure becomes one of the crucial factors deciding about the quality of life in the city, and consequently about its competitiveness. Amongst complex and broad topics concerning riverside areas in cities, the topic that becomes one of the most important ones is the recovery of lost watercourses. An analysis of relevant examples all over the world clearly points to a high level of impact of projects connected with the reconstruction or renaturalisation of urban sections of rivers. The paper is divided into two analytical parts. The first one presents the topic of recovering watercourses in the perspective of contemporary urban planning solutions and an attempt to identify crucial elements that influence the attractivity of the city. The second part focuses on an analysis of the development, decline, and reconstruction of rivers in Łódź. This analysis is to lead to an attempt to define a new image of Łódź as an eco-city, based on its reconstructed river system.