This article presents central settlements in Slovenia and their main characteristics in 2016. We defined central settlements based on services of general interest and the population of an individual settlement, and developed the analysis further by using competitiveness indicators. We defined 360 central settlements at six levels of centrality, among which the significance of Ljubljana as a national center of international importance and the significance of intermunicipal, local, and rural centers are increasing. The significance of certain regional centers at the second and third levels of centrality is decreasing. The level of services of general interest supplied to Slovenian territory is relatively appropriate, but it should be improved by promoting competitiveness, especially in centers of national and regional importance.

The aim of the chapter is to assess how post-socialist cities and towns encourage the involvement of their citizens into decision-making outside electoral procedures. It presents an analysis of the structures, mechanisms, and specificities related to participatory planning in five municipalities of Central and Eastern Europe: Prague 9 (Czech Republic), Velenje (Slovenia), Székesfehérvár (Hungary), Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria), and Vaslui (Romania). It is based on the self-assessment of public administrators providing their identification and evaluation of the mechanisms as well as their subjective perception of participatory planning at the strategic and neighborhood level. The results revealed that participatory planning remains a great challenge in a post-socialist urban context. We conclude that it is important to work with both citizens and public officials if we want to enforce participatory planning as an efficient governance model.

The article deals with the transport accessibility of regional centres in Slovenia, which was determined with the analytical model of transport accessibility. In this case the accessibility was defined as the travel time which the inhabitants of Slovene settlements spend driving their cars to the nearest regional centre. The results show areas of various levels of accessibility and the regionalization process of Slovenia according to the criterion of transport accessibility. With the help of statistical correlation analysis we also determined the measure of correlation of the accessibility factor to regional centres with the laying out of major transport routes and the diversity of the surface.

This article examines the contemporary industrial semiotic landscape in the town of Velenje, Slovenia, to determine the (positive or negative) collective imaginaries and discourses about industry in the local community. To this end, the semiotic landscape is mapped for signs and symbols of past and present industry, 33 randomly selected short interviews are conducted to understand the residents’ attitudes towards industrial symbols and industrial development in general, and a content analysis of official strategic documents is conducted to determine how industry is represented by officials and whether there are efforts to reimage the town. We found that the industrial past and present are well represented by industrial symbols and are a matter of pride and collective identity for the residents. However, the industrial tradition is hardly represented in official documents: Influenced by the prevailing post-industrial discourses, local authorities have begun to construct new territorial identities in order to increase the town’s attractiveness and economic growth. Currently, both ideas seem to coexist in Velenje. We argue that industrial symbols can become a reference point to create an alternative perception of a modern consumer society based on past industrial values, such as collective well-being, solidarity, and equality.

The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical and conceptual introduction for the Special Issue on the role of green creative environments in sustainable urban and regional development. The idea is based on the assumption that concepts of creativity mostly address economic issues and to a lesser extent social issues, while green concepts predominantly deal with environmental aspects. Therefore, we lack a deeper insight into the interrelations between creative and green environments in urban and regional development. This special issue addresses this research gap through investigating 1) the residential preferences of the creative class in city-regional, urban and rural settings, 2) participatory urbanism as a tool for creative interventions in urban planning, and 3) the importance of green amenities as spatial attraction factors for small creative actors. We argue that green creative environments can contribute to sustainable urban and regional development.

Industrial towns are often framed as marginalized and less innovative compared with service-oriented urban agglomerations. Their specific trajectories create both opportunities and constraints for new concepts, such as social innovation. However, little is known about their innovative capacity in relation to societal and cultural norms and social capital. The objective of this article is therefore to analyse the capacity of an industrial town to generate social innovation on the case study of Velenje, Slovenia. By employing a concept of industrial culture and an interactive process of research and action with the local community, we try to link territorially embedded norms, values and social capital to producing past, present-day and possible future social innovations. Velenje can be described as ‘innovative milieu’ since many social innovations, strongly territorially and historically embedded, were developed in the town. The main drivers of these innovations seem to be socialist and industrial values, which largely persist in the modern era, also due to very engaged youth. The town‘s capacity to produce social innovation is further enhanced by a culture of collaboration. The article challenges contemporary notions of non-innovative (post-socialist) industrial towns and highlights the capability of industrial culture to unlock the local innovation potential.