Abstract
A nation’s economic potential is always concentrated within cities. Polish cities were faced with quite radical changes in the last two decades. During this period, some cities saw losses of more and more citizens and were not ready to develop new economic approaches. Other cities were able to attract both people and businesses. The main objective of the article is to identify the changes in the economic position of Polish cities and the factors which were the driving forces behind them (including, in particular, the role of European integration). Results of the conducted regression analyses confirm that it is easier to identify “losing” factors (e.g. dependency on declining industry) than “winning” ones (as they are more individualized and more difficult to capture in statistical models).The availability of EU funds for local governments has been confirmed to be a significant factor explaining the changes in the economic position of Polish cities.