Socio-spatial aspects of cities' edges transformation: two Croatian examples

Ursić, Sara. (2014). Socio-spatial aspects of cities' edges transformation: two Croatian examples. PhD Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Sociology. [mentor Mišetić, Anka].

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Abstract

This thesis analyses socio-spatial aspects of settlement transformation on the large city outskirts where, under the impact of the number of processes, social and spatial structures are being changed. Urban theory and city research studies are mostly focused on the city centre area, and the interest in researching the fringe and the outskirts is marginalized both in theory and practice. With this discrepancy in mind, the paper deals with complex phenomena of suburbanization of cities and settlements within urban agglomerations of the two largest Croatian cities with the aim to identify and define various trends, which are created depending on the urban net in which they are situated. Theoretical frame is based on the analysis of the key concepts such as urbanization, space and place and the consequences for the urban and suburban everyday life that emerge from the reconceptualization of those concepts. Suburbanization processes are studied from sociological perspective which implies expansion of urban way of life and dodging from strict definitions of cities and their surroundings by stressing the permeability of the urban boundaries in contemporary spatial classification. Edge settlements, towns or villages, are affected by the central city which penetrates into surroundings in multiple ways some of which are visible like spatial transformation, but many are manifested at symbolic level and therefore emphasizing set of relationships that define space. Edge settlements are often arenas for social competitions between different social actors due to their access to something that city seldom lacks: empty space. The research is based on two case studies: the mucipality of Dugopolje and the town of Sveta Nedelja. Different research methods were used in case studies: content analysis and survey that included different groups of social actors. Research results prove the starting hypothesis that contemporary suburbanization processes changed both social and spatial structure of the settlements on the outskirts of the large Croatian cities where today we can find peri-urban hybrid landscape in which socio-spatial characteristics of lived space, vitality and placeness, are being lost in some extent.

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