Social and Economic Aspects in City Management in Context of Sustainable Development 79 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS IN CITY MANAGEMENT IN CONTEXT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Joanna Krzywda 1 , Barbara Majewska 2 Czestochowa University of Technology Faculty of Management Abstract: The article presents the issue of implementing sustainable development in cities with particular emphasis on the economic and social aspects, which together with the environmental one constitute the three pillars of this very concept. The most important social and economic problems of the world's largest cities are presented, as well as the current strategies of cities such as Singapore, London, New York and Dubai, which perform particularly well in these categories. A section analysing the operating effectiveness of cities on the basis of the Arcadis Sustainable Cities Index is presented. Keywords: development in cities, managing cities, sustainable development in the city DOI: 10.17512/znpcz.2019.1.07 Understanding of the concept of sustainable development The concept of sustainable development dates back to the late 1960s and early 1970s when a breakthrough took place in thinking about the natural environment and its links with social and economic development. It was argued that the concept of development oriented solely towards the growth of production and consumption was associated with over-exploitation of nature and deterioration of the natural environment. Increased awareness of this issue and the activities of environmental movements in those years led to support for environmental policy in a number of countries (Rokicka, Woźniak 2016, p. 6). However, as early as the 1980s it became clear that humanity could not limit itself to taking care of the environment. The process of mainstreaming development issues into environmental considerations and integrating ecology into development concepts began. This is how the concept of sustainable development was born with its main characteristics maintaining that social and economic development does not interfere with the functioning of ecosystems. Sustainable development criticises economic growth, stressing that the latter is supposed to be based on efficient use of available resources, while development is to be associated with a change in productivity generating new resources necessary for dynamic growth (Bojar, Paździor 2013). The origin of the concept and the way in which it has evolved make it a multi-layered concept that can be interpreted and understood differently. At the level 1 Joanna Krzywda, Dr., joanna.krzywda@wz.pcz.pl, ORCID: 0000-0002-1361-7718 2 Barbara Majewska, MA, basia_majewska@poczta.fm, ORCID: 0000-0002-0489-3729 Zeszyty Naukowe Politechniki Częstochowskiej Zarządzanie Nr 33 (2019) s. 79-89 dostępne na: http://www.wz.pcz.pl/znwz