Millenials; shrinking city; city centre; revitalization; quality of life

City centres are particularly sensitive to changes in both internal and external conditions, as they are composed of historically built structures that must adapt to phenomena not envisaged at the time of their construction. On the inter-urban level we recognise a group of growing cities, represented mainly by capital cities and a few urban areas, and at the same time a much larger group of cities struggling with both demographic and economic decline (Scott, Kühn, 2012). It was observed that up to 42% of European cities with 200,000 or more inhabitants are facing a demographic shrinkage (Turok, Mykhnenko, 2007). However, the decline is not evenly distributed within urban areas. On the contrary, the inner-city-scape can be in short described as islands of cautious growth in the seas of decay (cf. Berry, 1985). The contribution focuses on the influence of the specific demographic and socio-economic group of the millennials on the development of Ostrava's city center, which in the past 30 years underwent a significant decline. The Milennials are gradually beginning to attract ever more attention for their specific preferences for living space (Rosenberg, Wilson, 2010) that can positively influence urban development even in shrinking cities (Moos, 2016). Many of the millennials can be considered as a new generation of the so-called creative class (Florida, 2002), as they represent young, college-educated members of society (Cortright, 2005) that seek out the benefits of living in the city, which provide them a combination of relatively affordable housing, proximity to their workplace, availability of services and host other amenities (Mallach, 2014). This contribution also seeks to answer the question of how the millennial generation’s preferences influence development of the Ostrava city center and whether the strategy of sustainable development of the urban center of a shrinking city can be based on this group.