During the last decades we observe growing importance of cities for socio-economic development, what concern especially larger cities. Currently patterns of socio-economic processes are very diff erent from those registered at the end of XX century. An important role in revival of cities played cohesion policy of European Union. Poland is an example of very well structured settlement system what could be used as an asset to avoid medium development trap for polish economy. In Poland issues of urban policy formulation are much better addressed in last generation of development strategies on central and regional levels.