The purpose of this article is to highlight the activities of the city authorities in the development of Odesa based on the materials of the «Izvestia Odesa City Duma», which in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the official journal of the Odesa city government. The article analyzes resolutions on the provision of land for the construction of public buildings, as well as publications and statistics on private construction. In addition, attention is paid to the issues of improvement in the city, namely, paving and landscaping of streets, laying of sewerage, lighting, etc. The analysis of the study showed that the materials of the «Izvestia Odesa City Duma» of the late XIX - early XX centuries require further study. After all, they allow not only to better understand the state of the municipal economy of this period, but also to study the activities of participants of city government at various levels to improve it.