Instrumental Participation in Serbia: Online Platform for the Dialogue about Public Spaces, Their Availability and Public Usage

Abstract

This paper elaborates on the collaborative online platform for spatial resources in Serbia. This is an existing solution for the bottom-up involvement of stakeholders and communities in the revivification of non-functioning public spaces, a hideous legacy of the communist era compounded by the transition period and today’s neoliberal practices. This platform was launched on a web site in 2009 as a community-driven initiative to challenge uniform and centralized decision-making processes regarding the availability of special resources in order to gradually and systematically change Serbian society’s attitude towards institutionalized democracy, participatory processes, and urban sustainability. Any built environment always reflects political and economic processes, especially in turbulent social circumstances, such as the disintegration of Yugoslavia’s socialist system (destabilization of the institutions and the social value system). This situation continued to thrive in the wake of the break between socialist and neoliberal urban policies. A series of derailed political rights and deviant market initiatives culminated in the maximization of land use, suburbanization, and the general decline of the community and its culture. Such a scenario was possible due to the disintegration of existing zoning regulations and the lack of up-to-date ones, the collapse of key urban institutions, and the inability to react to rapid change during the transitional period, which finally caused the vast majority of visible urban, spatial and social conflicts. This paper will present how this participatory, online, user-friendly activity motivates inhabitants to engage in the public life of their city and, being exposed to the proof of urban problems, understand the need to participate in the decision-making process of the city’s genesis. Such a tool demystifies and specifically designates social actions in the transition period. This quality makes the platform applicable to a wide range of social contexts, regardless of their particular spatial characteristics.