Re-imagineering Belgrade and Skopje: urban megaprojects between politics and struggle

ABSTRACT

This comparative study on the urban re-imagineering performed through large-scale urban refurbishment focuses on the specific post-socialist and post-conflict contexts of former Yugoslavia. Through the analysis of legislative and planning documents, expert interviews, reports, and media coverage, this study shows how initiatives for the implementation of grandiloquent urban megaprojects (UMP) in the capital cities of Serbia and Macedonia became extreme examples of national image reconstruction, carried out through autocratic state-led interventions that disregarded public input. The two main insights that the study provides classify these cases as rather particular in the European framework. First, the national governments have played a decisive role in conceiving entrepreneurial strategies for national rebranding through urban re-imagineering of its capital cities. Second, this politically orchestrated processes advanced through non-transparent decision-making, in spite of the rising opposition by the civic alliances. In conclusion, autocratic implementation of UMPs in the urban contexts of the Yugoslavian successor states played out much more forcefully, overriding the imperative to satisfy genuine public interest.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban megaprojects
• urban politics
• urban imagineering
• national image
• civic initiatives

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the interviewees, for their time, dedication and enthusiasm in sharing all the knowledge and experiences. Special thanks are for the editors and the anonymous reviewers, for their very helpful and instructive comments on an earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Nebojša Čamprag http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5532-6548

Notes

1 For the purpose of this research, a non-systematic approach to data collection and data analysis was used. The material has been collected from the following major sources: (a) legislative and planning documents and reports; (b) media coverage; and (c) semi-structured interviews with NGO representatives. However, the first source was used only in the case of Belgrade, where several documents have been made publicly available–some of them only for a limited period of time. In the case of Skopje it was impossible to implement a similar approach, considering a complete lack of transparency and information on the project from the government level. Furthermore, regarding media-articles, an online database search of several national and international medias was performed. Targeted were the media-articles that analytically and critically addressed and followed up the processes of contracting and project implementation, as well as public protests. The interviews with representatives from the NGO sector (as listed under the references) have been conducted using a semi-structured method, performed in Serbian language, and translated to English by the author. Finally, all the collected data has been analysed in a non-systematic way, and thus used to provide relevant information and support for the main arguments in the text.

2 The project was declared of special importance for economic development of Republic of Serbia in accordance with the decision 05 no. 350-3533/2014 dated 1st May 2014.

3 A game of words, meaning ‘we won’t let Belgrade d(r)own’.

4 The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.