Basing on the sociological theory of conflict, the article presents the significance, roles and functions of civic movements in the process of articulating and solving social problems which emerge in the city and concern its inhabitants. The use of the conflict approach has double justification. Firstly, the city is treated (following D. Harvey) as an area of conflicts and tensions that have economic and social class roots. Secondly, civic movements are understood (following Touraine) as a manifestation of a social conflict, consisting in the division of society into two opposing groups, disunited by the subject of the fight over which they try to take control. The constitutive feature of this conflict is the fact that it refers to real (organised) social actors and is directed at the articulation and realisation of interests of the urban community. The conflict activates inhabitants as it is a form of a civic participation, a tool of change and modernisation, an instrument of transformations within the urban structure and culture.