Urban transformation of Miroslav Krleza Street, Skopje

Abstract

After the process of privatization in the 1990s, each Municipality in the city of Skopje inherited the responsibility of maintaining the public space. As a capital city in post-state socialist system, in the period of transition toward a politically pluralistic society, the city of Skopje became a subject to physical and social decay, due to poor maintenance, lack of renewal, and instates migration in the 1960s and 1970s. The character of the renewal plan mainly depends on the organizational structure of Municipalities. Urban renewal usually takes place in public-owned properties on public-owned land, mainly with public financing depending on local budget. Following the result-based management, Municipalities rely on a nationally approved plan. Therefore, the renewal of public space is not ‘motivated’ by any processes managed between stakeholders’ interests, and it is not supported by any private sector interests. Engaging of different stakeholders in this project each group has different benefits. Since citizens pay taxes to participate in the state budget, they should also be involved in the decision-making process considering renewal of their neighbourhoods. By accepting an academic research project, the Municipality of Centar - Skopje presents the capacity for Process Management (PM) in accordance with city planning. They express willingness to manage the municipality problems on a local scale, in accordance with the global societal transformations toward resilient cities. During the research process, students involved realized the complexity of residents' psychological correlation with their real estate value and urban planning regulations. On the other hand, they play the role of facilitators between Municipalities as investors, managing the process of creating project paperwork by the operator/contractor. This research paper presents a participatory action project as a method of investigating urban renewal processes. To widen the scope of the investigation, it was realised that facility management is transversal between legal procedures and coherent urban design. This survey presents a social study method, prompting community participation. In the period of decentralization, the responsibilities from the central state were transferred to local governments. The Municipality of Centar, Skopje became the one with the largest budget in the Republic of North Macedonia. Their authorities became the most recognizable 19

when contribution in the public sector is considered. Urban renewal is recognized as a contemporary concept in transitional societies, in comparison with the ‘socialistic’ era. It became a strategic policy whenever European integration comes into question. The willingness to cooperate prevails pure political interests when public opinion becomes important in each election cycle.