Pécs to the XXI ^E century is a dynamic city, rich colors, famous for its cultural activity and its life. If Budapest is excluded, it is in Pécs that one finds the site network cultural densest of the country and that the intellectuals with the service of the culture are most numerous.

·         Pécs, university town. Nearly 30' 000 students courses follow there. While providing more than 5000 stations, the university of Pécs is the first employer of the city.

·         Pécs, city of arts. The representatives of the artistic branches the most varied propose to the inhabitants and to the tourists a complete sampling of all that is done as regards art.

·         Pécs, town of museums, the most important hearth of province of the modern arts and contemporary. A number impressing of exposures and collections has to the public their artistic richnesses (decorative fine arts and arts), histories, archaeological, ethnographic and scientific.

·         Pécs, city of the festivals. Spring with the autumn, it accommodates in a cordial environment of the festivals of theater, films and of music (folk music including).

·         Pécs, multicultural city. Various ethnic minorities, representing each one a different culture, cohabit there in good intelligence.

·         Pécs, city of the world heritage. This urban area has seemed to be for more than 2000 years the place of predilection of many outstanding people. Those which followed one another there left at this place of the invaluable vestiges for practically each century. Inherited the late Roman epoch (IV ^E century), the necropolis early Christian of Pécs is registered on the list of the world heritage of UNESCO.

·         Future Pécs capital European of the culture in 2010. The city prepares with this event by carrying out important investments and by developing high level cultural programs.

Today, Pécs is the center of an area which stagnates. The saving in this city rests on the services (on teaching in particular), but so that its growth and that of its surroundings start again a financial support is necessary. The fields which would possibly contribute to an economic opening of Pécs and its area are culture industry and tourism. It is precisely an expansion based on this kind of activities which the title of “European capital of the culture supports”. With this designation, not only the prospect to carry out important investments and to start cultural developments opens in front of Pécs, but the possibility of becoming again a city worthy of this name, the occasion to return its streets more animated, to create there a more livable medium and for its inhabitants opportunity of discovering his cultural heritage and architectural are also given to him.

Although to extend Pécs more nature invested, the wooded slopes of the Mecsek solid mass, the downtown area preserved its traditional role. It is an urban area of intermediate size which offers a model of urban life different from that proposed by the metropolises or the small towns. During these last decades a large number of European cities were uniformly touched by the drop of the traditional industrial production and mining. It followed from there an increase in unemployment and a reduction of the receipts thus, a reduction in the public expenditure. This situation involved itself a fall of the quality of the abundant services by the public corporations. The population started to desert the cities, the working districts were put to be impoverished and the investors did not express the least interest for the industrial waste lands (factories left with the abandonment, unused mines). The municipalities then tried to support the expansion of data processing, to encourage the realization of cultural events and to privilege the development of the quality of the life.

These is exactly the process which is currently moving with Pécs. The municipality thinks of the best manner of investing in the restoration of the buildings and of public spaces of the historical quarters of the city, she seeks solutions to cause the rise of the various existing industrial branches and to ensure the development of her possible economy. She wonders about the adequate means to on the spot retain the generation of the young creators and endeavors to find how she can preserve her cultural richnesses in the long run. It is the possibility of concluding the ambitious projects, outlined here, that we offers the program of the “European capital of the culture 2010”. This one will take part in the development of our city by starting three principal processes: it will accelerate the reconversion of Pécs, industrial town and mine downtown of the culture. It will help it to continue its evolution towards the statute of regional city and finally it will contribute to its transformation into regional and international arts center.