A small river within the urban space. The evolution of the relationship using the example of Łódź

The aim of this article is to present the relationship between an industrial city and a small river within the last 200 years and the contemporary development and functions of rivers and valleys. The study was conducted in Łódź (currently nearly 699,000 inhabitants). In the 19th and in the early 20th century, the spatial development of the city also caused considerable transformations of rivers and their valleys. It was only at the turn of the 20th century, i.e. after the fall of the textile industry and a rise of the focus on ecological structures within a city, that the authorities decided to repair the utilisation of rivers and valleys