Sociology and Space, No. 115-116, 1992.
Conference paper
The social aspects of urban life in the war
Dušica Seferagić
Abstract
This article is an attempt at a sociological
approach to a current event. It speaks
about the effects of war on urban (partly
also on rural) life.
The main effects are: a) drastic
demographic changes: the migration of
thousands of people from villages and
towns destroyed or damaged by the war
into settlements spared from war
destruction. The »Saigon model« of
fleeing from villages into towns in search
of safety caused many problems in
housing, unemployment, tensions between
hosts and immigrants, and is threatening a
demographic debalance in the whole of
Croatia; b) the disfunction of the social
and technical public utility system, an
adaptation to the decrease of sanitary
conditions to a medieval level and
returning to the community as the
dominant type of interpersonal relations;
c) social disintegration because of national
tensions and social homogenization based
on the victim principle and nationality
temporarily erase normal social
differences; d) psychological problems
appear among all people, especially those
who lived through the horrors of war and
those who fought in the war. The author
considers that psychological problems will
be the most lasting effect of the war,
although they are hidden at first glance;
e) urban pathology is rife. Crime and
terrorism are increasing. There is also
»grey pathology«: black marketing
humanitarian aid, weapons etc. While
great cities favour these kinds of activities,
in villages there is frequent maltreatment,
murder and expulsion of the unprotected
population; f) all this leads to a great
decrease in the quality of life, starting
from elementary technical conditions to
more complex social and psychological
tension. The basic characteristic of the
decreased quality of life is a return to
primary needs.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
119754
URI
Publication date:
12.6.1992.
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