Divided cities as complex cities: transition and complexity in city of Mostar

ABSTRACT

The article analyses planning processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in order to offer insights into newly-shaping planning systems in South-Eastern Europe during the late phase of post-socialist transition. The article argues that societal complexity impedes a multifaceted transition (i.e. post-war, post-socialist, and neoliberal) in BiH, creating obstacles on the multifaceted transition path. Through a thorough literature review and a series of semi-structured interviews, the article shows that due to these, and many other, complexities, BiH is moving slowly on its transition path. However, it appears that the bottom-up processes are challenging the embedded notions of division.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban complexity
• societal complexity
• post-war transition
• post-socialist transition
• neoliberalism
• divided cities

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my appreciation to my fellow co-editors Dr Giulia Carabelli and Dr Renata Summa. Writing and coediting this special issue of Space & Polity has been the most rewarding academic experience and I am grateful to be in the company of these smart, dedicated, and exceptional women. I owe special thanks to my brother Milan Djurasovic for his encouragement, constructive criticism, and creative suggestions while writing this article, and all the support he has given me throughout my academic and personal life.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Aleksandra Djurasovic holds a Ph.D. from the Institute for Urban Planning and Regional Development, HafenCity University Hamburg, Germany. She obtained her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California Davis (UC Davis) in Landscape Architecture and her Master Degree in Urban Planning from the City College of New York (CCNY). Djurasovic’s academic interests lie in post-socialist, neoliberal and war-to-peace transitions in Southeast Europe, urban planning, urban sustainability, urban division, and general position of planners in transitional contexts, among other topics. Her most recent publications on transition in Bosnia and Herzegovina include a book titled Ideology, Political Transitions and the City: The Case of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina and a chapter in an edited book on planners titled Lost in transition: Fledgling planners in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Notes

1 The war was initially fought between the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) – mainly consisting of Serbs, and a Croat-Bosniak alliance. After Serbs withdrew from the city, the second part of the war (1993–1995) was fought between Croats and Bosniaks.

2 Serb population dropped from 23,846 in 1991 to 4421 in 2013. In addition to 4421 Serbs, Mostar is currently inhabited with approximately 51,216 Croats and 46,752 Bosniaks (Rezultati popisa za Mostar, 2016).

3 The RS is populated mainly by Serbs and has a more centralized political arrangement. The federation is decentralized into ten cantons, each canton representing an administrative unit.

4 Regulatory plans are short-term detailed plans important when issuing building permits.

5 Yugoslavia had a particular model of socialism characterized by a high level of decentralization between 1950s and 1970s (Horvat, 1989), market-socialism, and the self-management mode of decision making (Rusinow, 1978; Simmie and Hale, 1978).

6 Thirteen base questions were prepared prior to the interview. Questions were open ended to allow opportunities to address topics in more detail.

7 I conducted 25 interviews that informed the aforementioned publication (Djurasovic, 2016). Fifteen of those interviews were also used to develop additional complexities described in this article. Some other complexities (see Djurasovic, 2016, pp. 143–151, for more detail) include: Destruction, Social division, Corruption, The ‘Rule of Law’, Motivational rather than revitalization construction strategies and short-sighted planning, and Donor fatigue.