Original scientific paper
Urbanization Without Urbanity - the Account of the Growth of Towns in Serbia
Ksenija Petovar
; Faculty of Architecture and the Geographical Faculty, University of Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro
Abstract
Serbia (Vojvodina and Central Sebia) is today Srbija among the least
urbanized areas in Europe. The portion of urban population is estimated at about 55%. This indicator in itself is not of particular
importance for the estimation of the reached level of urbanization.
The indicators of the quality of living in urban and rural areas are much more important. At this moment, there is no systematic, reliable
and unified insight into the level of development and the achieved standards of the basic settlement contents (railway and road network
and communal infrastructure, public services, dwelling, green land) nor have been established indicators of the quality of living which
are regularly being used in European states. Marked migrations to
several great cities, in particular to Belgrade and Novi Sad, and dramatical ageing and diminution of rural settlements point at great
differences in quality of living and in possibilities of solving existential
problems. Urbocentric policy during the years after the Second World
War, in conditions of planned (command) economy, had increased the differences in quality of living between the urban and rural settlements and induced the metropolization of Serbia. These flows
were particularly accelerated and deepened during the last decade
of the 20th century which was labeled by the economic collapse of the
country, the fall in of the institutions, high corruption of the state
agencies and public sector, criminal activities permeating business
life, the establishment of pseudo-market relations and the intensified
populistic demagogy. From the point of view of the quality of living and the urbanity of settlements, the heaviest resultant of the dramatical flows in the last decade of the 20th century in Serbia is the
annulment of urbanistic norm as the fundamental instrument of the
settlements building, planning and use. The subject of this paper is the
research in the causes of the present state of the quality of living and
the urbanity of the settlements in Serbia, with a number of spatial-settlement dysfunctionalities, subcivilisational standards and vague
developmental prospects.
Keywords
urbanization; metropolization; urbocentric policy; quality of living; Serbia
Hrčak ID:
33301
URI
Publication date:
10.3.2009.
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