The possibilities of survey to collect and use micro-urban data about new collective housing in Serbia

Abstract

Urban dimension of housing is an important topic in the research related to post-socialist urbanism. Nevertheless, the level of “micro-urban” research of housing, which deals with the relations between housing buildings and their plots, nearby structures and streets, is certainly less represented in research. The reasons for this consideration probably arise from the specificities of local context. In Serbia, this is evident in the case of new collective housing, which has been dominant type of newly-built housing in the last years. Knowing that it is often developed for free market, the influence of investors, who tend to maximise built capacities, is immense. In result, there are many open questions and challenges about the suitability of this housing at “micro-urban” level. The aim of this paper is to find solutions to overcome the gap between current state in new collective housing in Serbia as a dominant type and the general lack of adequate research in the micro-urban characteristics of this housing type. Thus, the proposed paper will use the methodology of a survey to collect the information which has not been achieved by other scientific methods. The survey was conducted among the participants of the Summer school of urbanism in Kragujevac, Serbia, in May 14-15 2015. Therefore, respondent group were Serbian experts in urbanism and related professional disciplines. Their professional view and experience in this topic is analysed to form recommendations and guidelines for the improvement of current state in the practice of housing as the main contribution of the paper.