N.Zagora, D. Šamić
In between formal and informal approaches
The role of urban planning departments and institutions in contemporary cities has recently been contested for several reasons. In general, the development of public spaces is confronted with its questionable economic profitability, in terms of strategic position and land value. Additionally, the accelerated processes of deindustrialisation and urban transformation, followed by shady privatisation processes, have led to a situation in which local planning authorities are struggling to find financial support for their numerous development projects. These circumstances led to a new entrepreneurial approach from local governance, in which competitiveness and the desire for economic growth are the dominant forces, and ruthlessly displace the notion of public interest: “Deindustrialization and suburban growth have meant that cities must compete against one another to attract itinerant, or ‘footloose’, capital investment by making themselves as attractive as possible to potential suitors. Many planning departments now serve primarily as economic development agencies, intent on attracting the top firms and the best and the brightest residents. These fundamental shifts in the political economy of cities have resulted in a transformation in how public space is produced” (Schmidt & Németh, 2010). The traditional top-down, tabula rasa approach to urban planning introduced by the modernist movement was most efficient in European countries destroyed by World War II. The weaknesses of this kind of institutional planning are currently emerging, especially due to long-term planning and a high level of vertical subordination between local master plans and governmental strategic plans. Local master plans and regulatory plans are often unable to follow real-time urban dynamics. This lack of planning (Hirt & Stanilov, 2009) is becoming more and more obvious especially in transitional countries, like those Balkan states characterised by post-socialist/postwar restructuring. According to Hirt & Stanilov’s report Urban Planning 148
