Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Study of Vital Urban Communities

Abstract

Success of city development depends not only on its political or economic power, level of infrastructure or favorable geographic location. The key factor of success is people living in the city and their ability to collectively and proactively respond to challenges that 21st century cities are facing. In democratic societies local communities of cities are the most important cells of their structure as they facilitate or impede a sustainable and balanced local development. Although the term of (urban) community vitality is becoming more popular in political agendas and academic research, still there is a lack of consistent and scientifically-based definition of this concept and its research methodology. This article justifies the relevance of the urban community vitality for city development, reviews interpretations of the content of this concept from different sciences perspective and proposes an interdisciplinary definition. This article presents the initial results of a broader research, which aim was to create a methodology for identification and analysis of vitality of urban communities.