Warsaw, in 17th place, is described by Resonance Consultancy as a city “fast becoming Europe’s gravitational centre, where the past and future of the continent meet on the Vistula, … with the third-lowest unemployment rate in Europe and the second-most educated workforce.”
The southern city of Kraków is 31st in the ranking of the 100 European cities shaping tomorrow.
According to the report, “few European cities wear their history as vividly as Kraków, where Wawel Castle rises above the Vistula and the Cloth Hall continues trading, just as it has for centuries.”
The town’s numerous cultural attractions are also praised, including a museum devoted to playwright and painter Stanisław Wyspiański, "the brilliant, beloved polymath."
The Baltic city of Gdańsk is No. 39. Resonance Consultancy writes that the city’s architecture "reflects the shifting empires of Baltic history." It notes that the earliest shots of World War II were fired here by the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein. And, 40 years later, Gdańsk became the birthplace of the Solidarity movement that expedited the fall of the Iron Curtain.
The remaining Polish cities in the ranking are Wrocław, in 42nd place – “the fourth-largest city in Poland which has 10th-century roots as a crossroads of commerce and culture,” Poznań, in 64th place – “a business and scientific hub, home to multinational corporations such as Roche, Amazon and Unilever and a university pipeline that helps explain the third-lowest unemployment rate in Europe,” and the Silesian capital of Katowice, in 93rd place – “a city named by UNESCO a Creative City of Music, with the International Congress Centre that can host up to 25,000 people.”
At the top of the ranking are London, Paris and Berlin.
(mk)