Urban megaprojects in post-socialist Serbia: the example of the City on Water project

Abstract

Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, has undergone tremendous changes since the beginning of the new millennium. The call for a transition to a market-driven economy and a democratic society happened overnight: the public protest that preceded the overthrow of the authoritarian political regime on October 5, 2000, left the country in a stalemate position with no institutional mechanisms for dealing with the new social reality (Nedović-Budić et al. 2012; Lazarević Bajec 2009). The absence of a smooth social, economic, and political transformation caused many negative effects, mainly seen in the dominance of wild neoliberalism and rudimentary political pluralism (Perić 2020a). Regarding the economic aspects, unregulated privatization of the state land and resources (e.g., dilapidated central city areas, and abandoned, bankrupted public companies) fuelled the capture of public land and facilities, first for the advantage of domestic oligarchs, and after 2012 also of foreign private developers (Zeković et al. 2015; Nedović-Budić et al. 2012; Perić and Maruna 2012)...