- Complementarity of Urban Plans and Strategies    500 kb by    Trkulja, Siniša | sinsa.trkulja@rapp.gov.rs    Short Outline The City of Niš in Serbia has an active strategic development and urban planning processes which are complementary. They can be evaluated through their objectives and monitoring modalities, or by comparing them to urban development documents in other areas. Abstract Niš is the regional center of south-eastern Serbia and an important infrastructure node in South-eastern Europe. Since Serbia has been a country with a very turbulent period for twenty years already, development challenges for the city of Niš are multiple. Two important documents (one planning and one strategic) contribute considerably to the urban development process in Niš. Those two documents are the Spatial Plan for the City of Niš and the Development Strategy of the City of Niš. Other urban planning documents that should be mentioned are plans for specific areas (infrastructure corridors and nature protection), general urban plan and urban regulation plans for parts of agglomeration. Lots of strategic documents have been elaborated recently for the city of Niš treating different sectors of development – for diverse economic topics, employment, housing, rural areas surrounding the city, environmental action plan etc. The quantity of planning and strategic documents can be observed as an advantage only if planning proposals and projects are realizable and if their implementation is effective. Effectiveness of both planning and strategic documents can be estimated in several ways. One way is the analysis of specific chapters present both in strategies and plans, like objectives formulated during the elaboration and modalities proposed to monitor their implementation. The choice of objectives and tools for monitoring can contribute to the quality of urban development process. Another way is by comparing the same or similar approaches in other areas what is the aim of various forms of urban, interregional and international cooperation (twinning, Eurobalkans, observatories). Exchange of experiences is in favor of better coordination and possible improvement of development activities. Both ways can contribute to evaluate the elements of sustainability in urban development of Niš as a result of parallel elaboration and implementation of strategic and planning documents. Keywords spatial planning, strategic planning, urban development, Serbia, city of Niš Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2010: Sustainable City - Developing World   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper