Defining urban regions in Serbia

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the coverage of Serbia's national territory with urban regions. In order to acquire the status of an urban region, a city and its surrounding area have to meet certain criteria. There is a set of criteria that apply to cities as the centres of urban regions, and there is another set of criteria relating to the settlements in their surroundings. The analysis and evaluation of the characteristics of a selected set of urban regions are very important both for urban geographical research and the planning of spatial and functional relations and links, as well as the management of regional development in Serbia.

Urban System in Serbia—The Factor in the Planning of Balanced Regional Development

“…Having left the virtually emptied rural areas, people found jobs in large factories, the majority of which would be closed in the 1990s, following an unsuccessful privatization. Regardless of the successful growth of medium-sized towns, the tendency towards settling in major urban centers, primarily Belgrade, was present throughout the period following World War II [75]. The small difference of coefficients (−0.6388 < −0.6202) reveals a slight increase in the nonuniformity of the urban population after World War II.…”

Delineation of the Urban Influence Area Using the Multi-Criteria Assessment Method. The Case of Focşani City, Romania

“…Several indicators were used in different studies to reflect the changes in population due to demographic relationships established between the city and its influence area, e.g. growth rate Ianoş et al, 2014;Živanović and Tošić, 2017;Vasárus et al, 2018), net migration rate (Pintilii, 2008;Drăghici, 2012;Kristóf, 2018;Vasárus et al, 2018), commuting flows (Živanović and Tošić, 2017;Landré and Håkansson, 2013), employment (Pintilii, 2008;Drăghici, 2012;Ianoş et al, 2014), share of people by level of education (Živanović and Tošić, 2017;Kristóf, 2018). Some authors use the commuting flows generated by a predefined employment urban centre as an indicator to delineate the urban influence area of Göteborg city (Landré and Håkansson, 2013).…”

“…In recent decades, valuable contributions have been made in delineating the urban influence area, taking into account several variables, such as: functions and size of the city in the urban hierarchy of a country (Ianoş, 1987;Surd, 2003;Rusu and Man, 2006;Surd and Păcurar, 2010;Koushik et al, 2015) time spent for travelling to the nearest town (Vojkan, 2013;Mutabdzija, 2016) and geographical position (Ianoş, 1987;Rusu and Man, 2006;Surd and Pacurar, 2010). Subsequently, various studies have proposed to delimit the influence area based on empirical analysis using new criteria, considering several aspects, namely: economic (Ianoş, 1987;Ghelfi and Parker, 1997;Nang et al, 2014), social and cultural (Pintilii, 2008;Tănasă, 1998;Merciu et al, 2012;Ianoş et al, 2014;Koushik et al, 2015;Randolph and Tice, 2017), political (Ianoş, 1987;Nicula et al, 2017), and demographic (Landré and Håkansson, 2013;Mutabdzija, 2016;Živanović and Tošić, 2017;Kristóf, 2018;Vasárus et al, 2018).…”

Urban development in Serbia - The economic positions and development processes of major cities.

“…For reasons of space, the following section of the paper will provide only a brief overview of the post-1991 development of the five major Serbian cities, which have pursued divergent development paths. In functional terms, fifteen to sixteen large and medium-sized cities are identified in the literature (Živanović & Tošić, 2017). The growth, splintering, decline and shrinkage of these cities is a popular area of scientific research (Miljanović et al, 2023).…”