Insight view

THE COUNTRY: ECONOMIC POLICY
Expectations 10 years ago Reality in 2016
Balanced spatial development through
more aspects (north-south, city-village,
center-periphery)
Cities are more pleasant for life and
work because:
• Public spaces are equipped and
there are enough of them.
• Public services are efficient and are
satisfying needs.
• Green areas are arranged and more
citizens are spending their time out
in the open in recreation and socializing.
• Pavements, pedestrian and bicycle
paths, and public transportation,
having in mind the size of our cities,
are bases of citizens’ mobility.
• Every city has a network of social
centres for cultural activities, youth
centres, and centres for the elderly.
• Every city has its own economic and
business zones.
• Expansion of cities is controlled and
in line with needs.
City planning is based on clear indicators
with the aim to reach balanced
sustainable spatial development.
Architecture and construction follow
modern trends especially when it
comes to respecting the existing values
and contexture, sustainability of construction,
the use of ecological principles
and energy efficiency.
• North region still has a negative demographic and economic trend, which
also influences negatively spatial development.
• Podgorica is slowly spatially “swallowing” north and south.
• Montenegrin villages are still unfavorable places for living and working, primarily
for young people.
• City peripheries have not developed into the most favorable places for living
as they should have.
• Public spaces are neglected and under constant pressure from construction
lobbies to transfer them to construction parcels, particularly at the seaside.
• There is an evident lack of public services such are kindergartens, schools,
and cultural centres.
• Open public areas are completely neglected and such areas are fewer in
number, while new ones are not planned; there is no reconstruction of
recreational spaces such are jogging trails, areas for open exercise and a
general network of sport facilities; there is no increase in network of bicycle
paths nor is this transport stimulated (only two cities have started to build
networks of bicycle paths).
• Existing areas in public ownership are not used fully; they are awarded in
an untransparent manner, and the construction of new ones, such are cultural
centres, science-investigative centres, and non-profit social centres,
is completely neglected.
• City management is hardly doing anything to support the local private sector
to develop, while the state is going out of its way to meet the selected
investors without clear proof that it is really in the public interest. Cities are
not encouraging the establishment of business zones nor is the economy
showing signs of recovery after unsuccessful privatization and the global
economic crisis.
• Cities are over-planned and are expanding in an uncontrolled manner devastating
peripheral zones.
• Cities develop spontaneously, without recognition and preservation of the
authentic character of each city and there is no vision of its relations with
neighboring cities or to the context of the whole of Montenegro.
Even though the quality of construction has improved we can’t be satisfied
with the following:
• The level of respect of inherited context (example of demolition of the Hotel
“Crna Gora”; actual extremely unacceptable attack on exceptional architectural
object – Hotel “Podgorica”)
• There is practically no use of ecological material for construction, such are
cane and recycled material for thermal-isolation of an object, as well as
the use of biological treatment plants for waste water treatment.
• Objects are still not energy efficient to a satisfactory level; good practices
such are green roofs and use of solar collectors are not used or not used
to a great extent.
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