With the construction of Kobro City, a completely new face of Łódź is being created. Łódź emerges as a dynamic city attracting young people, as a European centre of art, culture, science and business. The University of Łódź, which celebrates its 65th anniversary, together with the EC1 Fundacja Łódzka invites the students of Łódź to participate in the ‘65+5’ project. Do not wait to share with us your expectations, conceptions and dreams about Łódź in five years’ time.

Łódź is changing its image of a backward industrial city and is becoming a place that offers interesting prospects and opportunities to make use of creative potential. We all deeply believe in further development linked to great investments, novel technologies and the title of the European Capital of Culture. Much depends on daring ideas such as Kobro City. It is a great chance for the city to make up for a few decades of neglect and to join the avant-garde of transformations in Poland and in Europe. To the citizens of Łódź, it brings hope for a better future – modern education, good employment prospects, fast and easy connections with the rest of the country and with Europe, as well as high-quality cultural projects.

That is Łódź we all dream about but this is a particular opportunity for the students because in a few years they will be the ones to shape the city’s character. Therefore, we wish to make them realise as fully as possible what role Kobro City is going to play in the future of Łódź and in their future. We wish to invite them to join the great revolution in terms of urban planning and the society, which is going to take place in the years to follow. The commencement is scheduled for the year 2010 – that is when the first spades will start to dig in the area of the new centre and the operation on an open city will start. This is also a jubilee year for the University of Łódź which is celebrating its 65th anniversary. Anyone now starting to study at the largest university in Łódź decides to spend the next few years in the city, and thus to be able to watch on a daily basis how Kobro City is built. Today those years are mere plans, expectations and dreams that we will attempt to fulfil. But these can be watershed years in the history of Łódź, too.

Therefore, to the 65 years of the University of Łódź we add 5 years for the construction of Kobro City, which is also the five years of your studies. The ‘65+5’ project offers you an opportunity to show how you would imagine the future of our city. The floor is yours. Share your knowledge, ideas and enthusiasm with Łódź so that the city can use them at the right moment. In five years’ time, when the University of Łódź celebrates its 70th anniversary, we will all have a chance to confront those dreams with reality.

If you have any ideas and you want to join the initiative please contact the ‘Pociąg do Łodzi’ association established by the students and staff of the University of Łódź to promote Kobro City and the new image of Łódź as an energetic city highly attractive for young people.