The image of the city in the minds of young users of Rzeszów’s space

In the era of increased competition between cities, building a positive image of the city is becoming an important element of marketing strategies. The image of a city includes all subjective ideas of reality that are formed in people’s minds as a result of perception, the influence of mass media and informal information messages. The image of a city includes both physical and emotional elements. Physical elements are objective characteristics of a place, such as its size, location, spatial structure, condition of infrastructure and type of development. Emotional elements include people’s emotional attitude and sympathy towards a given place. Therefore, all promotional activities undertaken by the authorities and changes in the city space may affect these image elements. Some changes may have a positive impact while others may have a negative impact on one’s image. The aim of the article is to present the results of a study on the image of Rzeszów. The study was conducted in spring 2022 on a sample of 415 students of the University of Rzeszów. The CAWI technique was used to collect data. These are not the first analyzes of the city image phenomenon. Previous publications show that the subjective image of the city in the minds of its inhabitants is positive. Residents point out to many good changes that have taken place in urban space in recent years. The most important ones included increasing the city’s aesthetics, improving the quality of streets and expanding the city to include surrounding towns. Unlike previous studies, which were mainly devoted to measuring hard and soft quality of life indicators, this time the focus was on assessing the specificity and originality of Rzeszów in the minds of the respondents.