Standards of Living, Housing and Urban Planning in the City during the 19th and 20th Century

During the long course of the 19th century, cities overcame significant changes in their urbanistic development, construction of technical infrastructure and improving the housing quality. This process accelerated at the turn of the 19th and the 20th century and in the case of cities in the territory of today's Slovakia, especially after the creation of Czechoslovakia (1918). The emphasis during this evolution was on improving the quality of life in a city including development in areas such as technical and transportation infrastructure, modern building methods and architecture, or public hygiene and healthcare. However, it also included the culture of living, ways of spending leisure time, and relationship to the surrounding nature. In general, the process of the modernization of a city was neither balanced nor continuous. It was influenced by frequent changes in political regimes, with a significant change in models of urbanism and culture after 1918. The authors of this issue of Forum Historiae characterize the changes of the "city in Slovakia" using examples, especially the ones of Prešporok/Bratislava, Košice, Prešov and Žilina.