Urban development in Belgrade in the context of global trends: chances of illegal housing integration

Abstract

One of the most important aspects of sustainable planning today is sustainable land use and managing city growth. Land use and transport planning have a key role in delivering social, economic, and environmental sustainability and can contribute a great deal in solving the variety of urban planning and transportation issues. By shaping the pattern of development, planning can help to facilitate an efficient transport and land use system through consistent application of sound planning principles and development guidelines to ensure the effectiveness of land use and transport policies. Urban sprawls, regardless of the reasons causing their spread, are considered as one of the biggest problems of the cities in developing countries. Belgrade has been witnessing a wide spread urban sprawls in form of illegal housing and settlements in its suburban areas during a long period. This paper will discuss the possibilities of using the instruments of land use and transport planning with the aim to achieve urban upgrading of informal housing and settlements on the outskirts of Belgrade. Thus the integration of informal settlements could become the true test of the integrated planning, since informal urban sprawls are one of the most challenging issues in Belgrade development, as well as in the other cities with similar urban problems.