Diversity of the methodologies and narrowness of the scope of the studies make the understanding, comparison and management local competitiveness factors in different countries very complicated. Although the importance of competitiveness of city economies is widely acknowledged, still there is a big lack of efforts to create methodologies and techniques to analyze the subject. Without such tools it is impossible to create effective city (consequently national) competitiveness improvement strategies.
The key scientific problem addressed in this study is that contemporary scientific discussions do not provide a clear definition of the concept “city competitiveness”, the most important factors influencing city competitiveness are not defined and the system of comparable and acceptable city competitiveness factors does not exist.
The object of this scientific research: key factors affecting city competitiveness.
Research aim: by referring to basic theories and concepts of city competitiveness to prepare the city competitiveness model indicating the process of formation of city activity’s competitiveness and suggesting the key factors and elements of micro and macro environment that affect the competitiveness of a contemporary city.
Methods of the research:
Scientific literature analysis was applied during the theoretical analysis of the problem. The greatest attention was paid to theoretical and empirical researches on the topic carried out in the fields of city theory, public policy, management, economics, sociology, geography.
The paper is based on a research, which aimed to prepare a city competitiveness model indicating the process of formation of city activity’s competitiveness and suggesting the key factors and elements of micro and macro environment that determine competitiveness of a contemporary city. Based on the theoretical model, a research aiming to identify the main factors of competitiveness of Lithuanian cities was carried out, and model of city competitiveness of Lithuanian cities was developed.