Social sustainability and processes of urban transformation in Croatia

Two processes, more than others, open up new opportunities and challenges for the development of cities in the world, including in Croatia – they are globalization and decentralization. Integrating Croatian society into European associations will further stimulate dynamic urban changes, which also implies a comparative analytical perspective, especially in relation to Mediterranean and Central European cities. Recent research in the field of urban sociology shows that urban life takes place through a series of contradictions such as global-local, public-private, consumerism-poverty, social inclusion-social exclusion, which are sought to be balanced through the application of the concept of social sustainability. (For example, Polese, M. and Stern, R., (eds.) 2000., The social Sustainability of Cities: Diversity and the Management of Change, University of Toronto Press; Hamilton, Andrews, Pichler-Milanović, (eds.) 2005. Transformation of Cities in Central and Eastern Europe: Towards Globalization, United Nations University Press; Castells, M., 2000. Urban sustainability in the information age, City 4(1) 118-122.). Croatian cities are also faced with complex changes in the social, cultural, and economic sense, which are not without consequences for their physical, ambient and, ultimately, identity components. It is important to point out that these changes do not only affect big cities, but also that numerous medium and small cities, especially those on the Adriatic coast, are exposed to accelerated processes of urban transformation that often have negative consequences. The research is based on the hypothesis that social sustainability (immunity) is one of the necessary conditions for successful urban transformation. In addition, a socially sustainable community is most generally defined as fair, diverse, connected and democratic, and one that provides a satisfactory quality of life (Barron, L. and Gautlett, E. 2002. Model of Social Sustainability, in: Housing and Sustainable Communities Indicators Project , WACOSS). The main goal of the project is to answer the question of how to form an acceptable social basis for the urban transformation of a Croatian city through the analysis of the relationship between urban local communities and social sustainability. As a result of the work on the project and its contribution, the development of a conceptual framework for the sociological analysis of the planning/transformation of the Croatian urban space is expected.