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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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Under the surface of relative peace and harmony a new struggle with some forms of class confrontation is emerging within some European and American big city centers. Big businesses, municipalities, social welfare groups and sometimes even the governments are fighting against each other for scarce parcels of city downtowns. The final results reflect the relationship of the forces. This relationship will shape the look these urban downtowns will have one-two generations from now.

Paris, London, Brussels, New York, Boston, Montreal, Toronto, these all are large European and American cities, which downtowns were shaped by the industrial revolution of 19th and early 20th c. Some of these were and still are purely business cities, others were first developed as political centers. The common pattern was that millions of workers poured toward these centers during the late 19th c. with the only goal to find any work available. What we have now as city downtowns some 100 years ago was in most cases an anarchic mix of factories, storehouses, and residential areas that lacked proper sanitation and were often seen as sign for the incoming capitalism demise.

Ever since a lot of things have changed. The urban areas have been enlarged enormously thanks to the new means of transport and communication. The main production lines have been moved outside the old city downtown. The rising living standards helped the working class to find better residences in the quickly expanding suburbs. The companies have created their own administrative monsters that needed a lot of space to manage their business. The governments in some cases like Paris have used old urban areas for projects of prestige with little or no functionality. In parallel with these developments a new poor class has been formed, based not on the poorly paid work, but on the social welfare programs. This class has no other place to go except of staying within the old city downtowns.

Today's downtowns are arena for different social and economic interests fighting for scarce parcels. The business administration looks at these areas as a natural space for development of business centers. So do universities for their campuses. Upper classes look at the same areas as possible place for their new luxurious condominium projects. Governments and municipalities would like to preserve as much as possible space for public use and why not for some projects of prestige. The new urban poor are fighting to protect as much as possible from the large pool of old and low quality residential facilities. The municipal and sometimes the states' authorities are arbiters and players alike. In many occasions they must choose who will take the biggest and best chunk of the cake. Their choice will determine the way these city downtowns will look like one-two generations from now.

The extreme ideal types of downtowns that may be materialized are the following:

1. Business district, full with people from 9 to 5, with no activity during the late hours and at the weekends.
2. Luxurious residential areas that will gate the urban centers from any other social classes and activities other than directly related to maintaining the buildings' infrastructures.
3. Social ghettos that will gradually eliminate any other economic and social activity, with the municipalities paying less and less attention toward the population.
4. Urban museums that will please the tourists and perhaps will beef-up the country's prestige but will have little if any functional meaning to the population.

Fortunately enough none of these ideal types will be materialized in its pure form, at least in most of the cities. The lack of strength of any of these special interests to impose its vision will result most probably in a good mixture of them all.