Towards urban governance in Poland – European Capital of Culture Wroclaw 2016 as a driver of change?

The paper explains the state of urban governance in Central European cities while concentrating on the case study of Wroclaw, the 4th biggest city in Poland. Unfortunately, while the city’s economy is doing quite well, especially in comparison with other Polish big cities, local governance hasn’t become a key asset yet and the city lacks an appropriate citizens oriented-policy and urban governance framework. That’s why this paper is about the chance linked with the initiative of the European Capital of Culture 2016 (ECoC), which can be considered as an pretext to introduce new strategies which better meet deficit solutions for new modes of steering at local level. The paper, which considers the on-going evaluation approach, juxtaposes assumptions made for the bid Wroclaw as a ECoC 2016 with their current implementation (state: mid-August 2015) in the light of concept of urban governance. It answers the question, if Wroclaw as ECoC 2016 is on the way towards urban governance.