City competitive ability: subject-matter, criteria and indicators

Nowadays a city is gradually becoming an independent entity operating in competition processes at all levels. However, the ambiguity of interpretation of "the competitiveness" category and the lack of its practice applying to a city concept have led to the fact that there is no convincing theory combining the competitiveness in the scale of state and industry sectors. So, understanding of competition essence ongoing between cities, mastering the methods of its evaluation, and city competitiveness management are becoming increasingly actual for the federal government and local authorities. The author in his article attempted to clarify this vital topic.