Dubrovnik-Neretva County, renowned for the City of Dubrovnik, grapples with tourism challenges affecting its UNESCO-listed Old City. This study advocates for promoting less-explored inland areas to ease the strain on the heritage site and alleviate coastal tourist pressure. By diversifying tourism and supporting sustainable rural development, the region can spur economic growth, foster local businesses, and improve infrastructure through EU and national funding. The research explores financial investments in less-developed areas, emphasizing sustainable tourism practices for socio-economic and environmental benefits. The analysis highlights the project’s positive impact on sustainable tourism development inland, preserving natural heritage, and fostering economic benefits for local communities. According to the cost–benefit analysis, the proposed idea outperforms all alternatives with new attractions and enhanced infrastructure, contributing to overall municipal growth. External funding is crucial for viability, with a negative net income until 2040, offset by municipal support. Economic indicators justify social and economic benefits, emphasizing project resilience. The active tourism centre project, emphasizing eco-friendly outdoor activities, highlights the role of cost–benefit analysis in rural tourism infrastructure investment, recommending external funding for success.

The paper examines a paradigmatic example of post-conflict economic development of Vukovar, Croatia. It represents a pertinent case study for localities encountering analogous challenges, most notably urban areas in Ukraine in the near future. The war that broke out in 1991 brought significant human casualties, population displacement, and extensive destruction of residential, social, and economic infrastructure. The completion of the peaceful reintegration of Vukovar into Croatia’s legal system in 1998 marked the beginning of the socio-economic revitalization process. The research scrutinizes the primary impediments and prospects for Vukovar’s economic growth, probing why substantial investments in reconstructing housing, transport, communal infrastructure, and fiscal incentives for businesses have not paralleled its economic performance. It concentrates on the local business climate and influential factors as potential explanations for this discrepancy. The topic was designed as a case study and was covered by document analysis, survey method, and semi-structured interviews. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, the study collates perspectives from entrepreneurs and business support institutions. The results confirmed that reconstruction of housing and social infrastructure is necessary, but more conditions are needed for successful post-conflict economic development, and that the business climate in lagging local units highly depends on state- and locally designed business-support measures.

As food tourism is becoming more significant, producers are encouraged to ensure more high-quality products as the local gastronomy basis. While some EU Member States, such as Italy, France, and Spain, have already developed regional gastronomy offer based on labeled products, others, for example, Croatia, are lagging behind. The aim of this paper is to explore the market performance of small agricultural producers in Croatia offering high-quality products with potential to contribute to further development of the local gastronomy. Data have been collected through governments’ databases, online survey and interviews. The results indicate that the production increase of high-quality products with a strong representation on the market is a very demanding process in Croatia. Various obstacles affecting producers have been identified. The most relevant are the level of administrative regulation and low purchasing power of the consumers, affecting the products price level and preventing producers from achieving higher prices. Removing many of the identified barriers requires more effort from key actors, primarily the policy stakeholders at the national level.

Accession to the EU enabled Croatia to invest significant financial resources from the Cohesion policy to support its socio-economic development and catch up with more developed member countries. The availability of EU grants accelerated the recovery of public investments after their sharp decline following the outbreak of the 2009 economic crisis. In addition to the enormous financial impact, the Cohesion policy played a crucial role in changing the main features of public investments in Croatia. This chapter explores in more detail how the Cohesion policy has changed and is still changing the public investment policy in Croatia. Significant changes occurred in strategic planning, cross-sectoral and vertical cooperation, monitoring and evaluation. Numerous actors at the national and subnational levels had significant direct and indirect benefits from the Cohesion policy. However, putting new policy tools and approaches into practice and ensuring efficient spending of the available financial resources is anything but a simple exercise. On the contrary, implementing an ambitious and effective investment policy was challenging for the Croatian administration. <!----> <!----> <!----> <!---->

One of the biggest threats to today’s society is climate change – the result of an increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas­es (GHG), produced by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels for energy production, transport and industrial processes. One of the larg­est GHG emissions sources is agriculture, but also a whole food system. This paper aims to analyse people’s awareness of the food system’s impact on climate change and if they are familiar with mentioned mitigation oppor­tunities. The research on people’s awareness of the impact of the food sys­tem on climate change was conducted among three groups of respondents – chefs, teachers and lecturers and students. The research showed that al­though people are aware that climate change is a serious problem, they are unaware of how it occurs and that the food that is produced, stored, trans­ported, prepared and finally consumed affects climate change.

Urban marketplaces are increasingly recognised in European policy debates as multifunctional public spaces that extend beyond their traditional economic role. Across the European Union, emerging trends point to a shift towards market models that integrate social interaction, cultural activities, tourism, sustainable food production and place-based urban development, thereby contributing to more inclusive and liveable cities. However, the extent to which such transformations align with local actors’ perspectives and existing governance arrangements remains underexplored, particularly in Central European contexts. This paper evaluates the transformative potential of urban marketplaces as multifunctional public spaces from the perspective of key stakeholders in the City of Zagreb. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining a desk analysis of European policy and practice trends with empirical research conducted at the local level. Data were collected through surveys of marketplace users (citizens) and vendors (tenants), complemented by focus groups with other relevant local actors. This approach provides insights into everyday practices, perceived barriers, governance challenges, and future expectations related to marketplace development. The findings reveal a strong alignment between stakeholder perspectives and European policy trends promoting people-centred and multifunctional marketplaces, while also identifying tensions with existing management and governance frameworks. Citizens emphasise the cultural, social, and tourism value of marketplace interactions, whereas vendors and governance actors highlight infrastructure needs and the importance of more participatory governance arrangements. The paper argues that stakeholder-based evaluation of transformative potential is essential for advancing inclusive, resilient, and sustainable urban regeneration through urban marketplaces.