This article analyzes the process of city center revitalization using the case of the City of Ljubljana. In 2016 it became the first and (so far) only post-socialist city to acquire the European Green Capital Award. In the process of transforming the city over the last ten years, many positive changes were achieved. These are primarily reflected in improvements to the urban quality of life; that is, changes based on the urban sustainability principles. More public spaces with greater accessibility were created in the city center (expansion of pedestrian and bicycle zones, reduction of car traffic and closure of certain streets to cars, a higher number of visits to the city center and hence more cultural and tourist attractions, more green spaces, etc.). The study was conducted using semi-structured interview methods and focus groups with selected experts (spatial experts from various disciplines). The results showed that the revitalization process in Ljubljana had more positive consequences than negative ones, although some experts also criticized the achievements and pointed out certain shortcomings. However, given the definite improvements in citizens’ quality of life, it can be argued that Ljubljana has become a post-socialist sustainable city that clearly follows western European urban development patterns, which is a clear deviation from the socio-spatial urban processes that still characterize most post-socialist cities, especially large ones.

The paper focuses on the aspects of housing privatization in the post-socialist period in Croatia. The transition towards the democratic system and market-oriented economy further empowered the privatization of ownership, especially home ownership. Former tenancy rights over socially owned housing were turned into an opportunity of purchasing flats. Socially owned flat thus became private property belonging to the post-socialist type of housing, as an anti-state housing, in which the role of state is marginalized. The state is now much less concerned for housing policy, which is becoming marginalized under market-oriented policy. The changes in the housing standard in the post-socialist period can also be seen in the number of rooms indicator and room size, which both show improvement compared to the socialist period. However, the consequences are visible in excessive privatization i.e. commercialization of the built urban environment, which leads to the reduction of public and green spaces. On the other hand, country’s unfavourable demographic trends are visible in the reduction of an average family size, and the increase in the number of families without children, which leads to different housing demands, especially in urban settlements.

In the post-socialist and transition period, Croatia and especially its capital city Zagreb have experienced many physical transformations of space but, most of all, remarkable social changes. For example, socially-oriented housing...

The paper deals with maintenance and management problems in multi-family buildings in Zagreb and other Croatian cities from the perspective of co-owners’ representatives. After 1990, when there was intensive privatization of housing, the responsibility for the maintenance of the housing stock shifted to private owners and management companies. Apartment owners have been given the obligation to maintain multi-family buildings and have faced problems and challenges in maintaining and managing common property. The empirical research was conducted on a convenience sample of co-owners' representatives (N = 353) using the survey method. The results are analysed according to three construction periods of multi-family buildings: built before 1945, during the socialist period (from 1945 to 1990) and the post-socialist period (after 1991). The results show that in all three construction periods there are certain bigger or smaller shortcomings regarding the building quality, and then the maintenance. The paper concludes that insufficient financial and organisational resources, insufficient engagement of managers, inadequate collaboration between representatives and managers, and weak energy renovation of multi-family buildings are some of the most important problems faced by co-owners’ representatives.

This paper provides a clear insight into the quality of life on the level of housing estates in European countries. In doing so, the questions of housing and satisfaction with the housing situation in the estates as well as with surrounding areas and the neighbourhood, in general, is being considered as an important dimension of a complex research concept called the quality of life. In analysing the quality of housing, we inevitably encounter an interesting division into the so-called two different versions of Europe or two types of housing estates. In the phase of planning and constructing, they shared a common idea of designing modern and functional, mixed estates that would solve the housing question of most residents, i.e. of different social classes. However, the first type is marked by the socio-historical context of Western Europe, and the second by Eastern Europe, or as some authors like to frame it, the differences in housing quality between `capitalist' and `socialist' cities. From that perspective specifically, it seems useful to analyse the quality of life and the possibility of renewing both types of housing estates, by now deprived and decrepit, built after the Second World War in both types of cities. This applies equally to those in Western Europe, often marked by a significantly worse image and higher levels of socioeconomic problems (crime, segregation, deterioration and other), as well as the estates in post-socialist Europe, where large housing estates built during the socialist period remain a desirable housing option, but that are increasingly facing problems related to maintenance and upkeep of buildings and built environments (both public and communal spaces). In the last decades, in both types of estates there has been an increasing depopulation of middle and higher classes of residents, which progressively causes segregation but also deterioration in the social and physical sense. All the mentioned negative aspects of the housing quality require adopting national housing strategies and renewal programs which exist and are implemented in Western European countries, while they do not exist in most post-socialist countries, and Croatia is not an exception. Housing estates renewal should be an essential part of every country's housing policy, aimed at alleviating or preventing further degradation of the quality of life for housing estate residents.

Since the 1990s transition period and especially since 2000 public space in Croatia has repeatedly been violated by private interest. This is visible in coastal regions, rural landscapes, urban green areas, parks, squares, and streets which have been completely or partly privatized. Urban actors (economic, political, civil, and professional) play different roles in these changes, and there is a hierarchy in their relations: economic and political actors are very powerful and have a prominent place in urban and suburban spatial transformations. Civil society actors and professionals, on the other hand, have very little control or influence. Urban actors have different interests and conflicting opinions. The results of our research (qualitative research method of semi-structured interviews with various experts) show that today spatial changes are mostly dictated by economic actors in a close alliance with political actors. It is therefore vital that in future we clearly define public space and public interest and educate society about their importance. Only then can inadequate private intervention in public space be prevented and a balance between private and public interest be restored with all actors making decisions together. This is, after all, a real, participatory democracy that all transition societies (including Croatia) aim to achieve.