Centralization or de-centralization: sustainable development (or not) in planning the City of Sofia, Bulgaria

摘要

Minimization of land consumption and maintaining compact urban forms, have become key components of pursuing sustainable development through land use planning means, at least in most of the Western World. This represents a substantial ideological shift in the Western planning profession, which from its inception to the mid-to-late twentieth century was dominated by notions of de-urbanization, urban dispersal and de-centralization. This paper strives to understand where does the Eastern European planning profession stand in this eternal planning debate between advocates of compact and advocates of disperse urban forms. This question is particularly relevant today, as historic Eastern European cities are undergoing radical spatial transformations, brought about by the collapse of the socialist system, transformations which include the loss of the urban edge and the emergence of low-density development on the urban fringe. The paper uses a case study ― this of the City of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria ―to throw light on the historic and current standing of Eastern European planning. The paper finds that planning in Sofia has subsequently wavered between promoting compact and promoting disperse urban forms, with each school of thought claiming a temporary victory at some historic era. Based on the latest plan of Sofia, and on a few dozen in-person interviews with planners, the paper also concludes that victory in the latest, post-socialist, round belongs to advocates of urban de-centralization. If this is the case, Eastern European planners seem to embrace an ideology of sustainable development starkly different from that of their Western European colleagues, and seem intent on pursuing the current de-centralized Western model ― the very same model that Western planners are now trying to overcome. At the same time, the paper argues, due to the financial crises in Eastern Europe, the extreme de-centralized model, even if blessed by planners, has a limited chance of implementation.