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Abstract
New Belgrade rose “from scratch” on a wasted empty marshland by the river Sava, just across the oldest city center. It started after World War II as an ambitious plan for a future administrative center of socialist Yugoslavia, to be later transformed into a gigantic, grey dormitory. Since 1990s, the role of New Belgrade has completely changed due to the collapse of the state economy, the reappearance of a real estate and land market, an open door policy for foreign investments and a project-oriented type of planning. This was a powerful trigger mechanism for emphasizing the latent advantages of this municipality: its unique central position, abundant space for new construction and good transport connections. The municipality became the primary destination for massive investments that dramatically altered its economic and employment function, especially the area in the vicinity of the city's core business district.
Acknowledgements
This paper contains the research results of projects Nos. 37010 and 176017 supported by the Ministry of Science of the Republic of Serbia.
Notes
1 For new investments we used Statistical office of the Republic of Serbia data, for population and employment changes – 2002 and 2011 Census (raw material) data and for net-urbanized area – City geodesy office data (for definition of neturbanized area see note 8).
2 The term mikro-rayon (‘microdistrict’) was first used in the 1935 Moscow Plan, defined as a self-contained residential district with an area of 75–125 acres and a population ranging between 5000 and 15 000 (Bater, Citation1980: 109–111). Four to five microdistricts, each with a service radius of 300–400 metres, made a residential complex. For years, after the WWII, mikrorayon was established as a planning norm in former Yugoslavia, also.
Microdistrict schema was essentially similar to the neighbourhood unit idea, although neighbourhood unit, in contrast, tried to “disguise class conflicts in capitalist society by creating a social and geographical unity.” (Lu Citation2006: 39)
3 Nevertheless, New Belgrade was often under severe criticism, described as: “unfinished modernist project”, “the crisis of non-concept”, total segregation of the housing function (deprived of central urban functions), alienated, with complete lack of identity etc. (Blagojević Citation2004).
4 Due to the lack of urban dwelling units, housing deformed into specific form of award. The governing nomenclature, and the employees whose work was more valued, received the biggest state subsidies for housing (Sailer-Fliege Citation1999; Smith Citation1996; Szelenyi Citation1983).
5 Until 1990s, during socialist regime, construction of the informal housing was reserved only for the urban periphery, for former agricultural areas not properly covered with urban planning (Žegarac Citation1999; Göler, Lehmeier Citation2012), where many (blue collar) employees illegally built their houses (due to the pronounced public housing shortage). In 1990s, although illegal housing construction mushroomed all over Belgrade, it left New Belgrade relatively unharmed – because it mostly took form of construction of additional floors on the very top of the buildings, with slope roofs, (often under premises of some small investment into building renovation – facades, elevators … ) (Waley Citation2011).
6 Today Belgrade's GDP per capita is 80% higher than Serbian average. (Belgrade's share in Serbian national income increased from 23% to 34% between 1995 and 2005).
7 Statistical circles are spatial units used only for Census purposes (for example, municipality of New Belgrade consists of 30 statistical circles, municipality of Stari grad – 44 statistical circles, etc.). Hence, we used these raw Census materials (‘statistical circles’), to obtain more precise results.
8 Method used in this analysis is essentially modified and improved clustering method of defining employment centers (see: Anderson Citation2001; Giuliano, Small Citation1991; McMillen, McDonald Citation1998; Redfearn Citation2007), which requires expert knowledge of the study area. To identify old CBD and New Belgrade's new business district, we used the following six criteria: 1) High spatial concentrations of absolute number of jobs (working places) in “statistical circle”, 2) High density of jobs (working places) (number of jobs per net-urbanized area), 3) Pronounced economic function (number of jobs/working places per number of residents), 4) Decreasing number of residents in 2000–2011 period, 5) Very high (%) share of net-urbanized area in total area. 6) Clear spatial continuity of the “statistical circles” with five (above-mentioned) characteristics. Also, we used here only net-urbanized area, not the entire gross area (of the administrative unit) because the latter includes non-urban land, such as agricultural land, forest, and others. Gross (administrative) area is of no particular use for our analysis, since it includes an arbitrary amount of non-urban land (depending on how far out the boundaries are set, etc. (Barter Citation1999: 107). Gross (administrative) area of New Belgrade, for example, is 40.7 km2; net-urbanized area only 20.7 km2, while gross (administrative) area of Stari grad is 5.4 km2, net-urbanized area 4.3 km2.
9 New Belgrade's NBD (new business district) represents the second most important concentration of jobs in metropolitan area of Belgrade (after old CBD). Even in 2002 it already had 3.6 times higher than average density of jobs – 7.4% of all metropolitan jobs, concentrated on only 4.73 km2 (2.08% of the entire Belgrade's neturbanized area).
10 This is similar to population changes of Stari grad municipality (the oldest part of Belgrade's CBD) that has been steadily losing residents since 1961 (during 1961–2011 period, its population halved).
11 Due to the methodological shortcomings, 2011 census did not properly cover the spatial dispersion of jobs on the level of ‘statistical circles’. Hence, number of jobs of CBD and New Belgrade's business district can not be calculated for 2011.
12 Minicipality Stari grad represents the oldest, the most central and the most important part of CBD (21 out of its 44 statistical circles are part of CBD, its ‘CBD territory’ is only 0.9 km2, with 47 644 working places – hence, it has absolutely the highest density of working places per km2 in Belgrade – 52 445 jobs per km2)
13 In 2003 Master plan Belgrade is divided into: central, middle, outer and edge zone. New Belgrade extends through central, middle and outer zone of Belgrade. (Unlike many other Belgrade's municipalities, it is completely covered by Master plan area).
14 Before 1990s, in Belgrade, like in any other former socialist city without land market, “land was allocated purely according to planning decision … (while) A characteristic of market-oriented development is that because individuals and firms have property rights in land, and these rights can be alienated, there is an incentive to redevelop land as a city grows and the “highest and best” use changes. (Bertaud, Citation2006: 94)
15 Greenfield investments are a form of foreign direct investments where a parent company starts a new venture in a foreign country by constructing new operational facilities from the ground up.
16 Value of the nationalized property in Serbia is approximately 220 billion Euros (European Parliament, Citation2010, p. 119).
17 Brownfield investments are a form of foreign direct investment where a company or government entity purchases or leases existing production facilities to launch a new production activity.
18 Project-based approaches – Emphasis on the encouragement of private investment created the tendency for urban planning to be fragmented into individual projects, with comprehensive city planning giving way to project-driven practices, that often resulted in a piecemeal approach to urban development that lacked strategic foresight or long-term planning (OECD, Citation2007: 10).
19 While shopping centers (malls) became the distinctive feature of American suburbs, in metropolises of the Western Europe – malls usually (in the first phase – during 1970s) were built in the city centers, then, in 1980s – in the suburbs, and finally, in the 1990s, returned to the city centers again (as a part of the regeneration of neglected central neighbourhoods) (Lowe, Citation2000).
20 Actually, according to the National Bank of Serbia, during the 2004–2011 period, financial sector attracted € 4.7 billion of foreign investments, or 28% of the total amount of foreign investment (€ 13 billion). The lion's share of these € 4.7 billion was invested in banking and insurance (Business Info Group Citation2012: 61).
Additional information
Dr. Miomir Jovanović is Professor of Urban and regional economics and Economics of environmental protection at the Department of spatial planning and Department of environmental protection at the Faculty of Geography, Belgrade University. His research focuses on urban and regional development, urban transport and environmental protection.
Dr. Ivan Ratkaj is Professor of Economic geography and Social geography at the Faculty of Geography, Belgrade University. His research focuses on organization and development of urban and regional economies, with their implications on different social groups and communities.