Analysis of the concept and main factors of urban competitiveness

Recently, the researchers pay great attention to the analysis of problematic of competitiveness. The concept of competitive-ness is used for the analysis of various issues: the product or service, business, industry, city, region or country. European Spatial Development Perspective contains a provision that regions can become competitive only if they contain the economically powerful cities. This justifies the relevance of the problematic of the article. However, the relatively little (especially among the scientists of Lithuania) is considered the concept of urban competitiveness, which differs from the competitiveness of company, product or ser-vice. In many scientific studies the urban competitiveness is analyzed in the comparison the city to the other city by one or many different indicators or spheres. Different factors that determine urban competitiveness are identified in scientific literature: human resources, demographic situation, effectiveness of city government, geographic position of the city, infrastructure, taxation system, economic structure, com-petitiveness of business, culture, living standard, level of productivity, innovation, business environment, etc. What factors are im-portant for the improvement of urban competitiveness in Lithuania will be analysed and which of them are the most important will be evaluated by experts in this article. The objective of the article is to analyze the concept of urban competitiveness and identify the main important factors of ur-ban competitiveness in Lithuania The analysis let to identify, that the use of the approach to the city as to a system, characterized by openness, complexity, dynamics and which the success depends on the change of certain factors, allows analyzing the city as a living economic social sys-tem. Such approach allows analyzing the competitiveness of the city in dynamic aspect.The use of the approach to the urban com-petitiveness as the ability to create the right conditions for business to be competitive and strengthen their competitiveness, while maintaining a high standard of living conditions, allows analyzing the urban competitiveness as the continuous and cyclical process, where the present competitive factors create the future competitive factors and they become the present competitive factors for the new process of improving the urban competitiveness. The classification of factors affecting the urban competitiveness by various criteria let identifying the main factors of urban competitiveness and interrelations among them and creates the methodological basis for identification of the importance of the impact of the factor on total urban competitiveness. According to expert evaluation, the greatest impact on the competitiveness of cities in Lithuania makes the company competitive, urban economic openness and invest-ment attractiveness of the city. City tourist attraction, education and training infrastructure, the level of material well-being are attrib-utable to the basic and necessary conditions for business competitiveness and increasing economic openness. Urban management efficiency, labor market efficiency (adaptation to market conditions) and the transportation infrastructure are attributable to necessary but not sufficient conditions for the competitiveness of city. There is a direct link between emigration, the working-age population and labor market efficiency. Recreational and cultural facilities, public safety, medical care facilities, home purchase / lease options, home environment quality (pollution) are attributable to the urban social economic development factors, rather than to factors of competitiveness