The paper aims at proposing a contemporary typology of factors building attractiveness and competitiveness of cities. The notions of urban attractiveness and urban competitiveness have been covered in literature for many years. As such the authors approached specification of the current factors, in the way they are understood by relevant representatives of researchers and territorial authorities. The A&K [standing for Polish: Atrakcyjność & Konkurencyjność] Model is presented in the paper and a typology is derived upon it.

For a long time creativity, innovativeness and entrepreneurship have been at the heart of studies on economic growth of regions and cities. In the paper the three notions are scrutinised together to propose conceptual approach to establishing research and development pathways, based upon three-stage identification of: research problems, project patterns and relational mechanisms. The paper is concluded with a 63 Box – the approach helping to navigate throughout project preparation phase.

The paper presents a synthesis of approaches to development and functioning of Functional Urban Areas. The authors present typology of such areas and determine how they facilitate the flow of various types of potentials, paying particular attention to creativity and innovations. The emphasis is put particularly on non-spatial factors of development of such areas. The process of forming the functional area basing on common strategy of development founded on various types of potentials is presented on two examples.