LJUBLJANA URBAN REGION Territorial System Factsheet Territorial System Identification data Name: Ljubljana Urban Region Country: Slovenia Map 1: Satellite map Main urban centre: Ljubljana State/Region: Osrednjeslovenska statistical region (NUTS 3), Western Slovenia (NUTS 2) Territorial System Reference data Population: 537,712 Area (km2): 2,555 km2 Density: 210 persons/km2 Number of Municipalities: 26 Spoken languages: Slovenian Land use (% in the TS, as for the CORINE Land Cover level 2 data) Urban fabric (1.1): 4.2% Mine, dump and construction sites (1.3): 0.2% Arable land (2.1): 3.5% Pastures (2.3): 6.5% Forests (3.1): 58.5% Spaces with little or no vegetation (3.3): 0.6% Maritime wetlands (4.2): 0.0% Industrial, commercial and transport units (1.2): 0.9% Artificial, non-agricultural vegetated areas (1.4): 0.0% Permanent crops (2.2): 0.0 % Heterogeneous agricultural areas (2.4): 23.9% Scrub and/or herbaceous vegetation (3.2): 1.4% Inland wetlands (4.1): 0.0% Inland waters (5.1): 0.3% (Attachment: .shp file of territorial system and pilot area boundaries) Map 2: Land use map Criteria for delimitation of the Territorial System In Slovenia there are two levels of government – national and municipal. The regional level is currently defined in different laws that also attempt to regulate some activities on the regional level (i.e. in the case of regional policy), although the responsible authorities are still those from the national or local level. The regional level is the most evident in the regional policy, where it is based on three different institutions: - the Regional Development Council; - the Regional Council and - the Regional Development Agency. The regional Development Council is composed of representatives of municipalities, the business sector and NGOs. It is responsible for preparing a regional development plan and cooperation with other regions; it makes agreements with other parties, works on territorial dialogue and monitors activities on the regional level. The Regional Council is an assembly of mayors which ratifies the regional development plan and takes other decisions on the regional level. The Regional Development Agency is an administrative body that takes cares of administrative activities and provides technical support to the above mentioned bodies and for all activities at the regional level. In the case of spatial planning there is no compulsory body on the regional level; in the case of regional projects the municipalities involved are expected to formulate a joint regulation. Due to the above mentioned legal provisions, the role of municipalities is strong and prevails over the regional level. To minimise the negative effects of this fact, the regional level must be strengthened through informal cooperation. In the case of Ljubljana, its functional area covers half of Slovenia’s territory or even more (in terms of jobs and certain services), but the most relevant area for policy making in the sense of the urban-rural dimension remains the Ljubljana Urban Region (LUR) where municipalities undertake at least some joint endeavours. The Ljubljana Urban Region has 26 municipalities; more than half of its population lives in the City of Ljubljana, the capital of both the nation and region, and therefore its role for the broader hinterland cannot be neglected. To this end, the main criteria for selection of the pilot area are: 1. the Ljubljana Urban Region is the biggest Slovenian region with very strong functional ties among its rural and urban areas; 2. due to the role of Ljubljana and the strong urban sprawl tendencies in the past few decades many problems have arisen that could only be solved by joint policy-making and joint projects; 3. as there is no legal entity with decision-making power on the regional level an informal form of cooperation has to be found in order to deal with inter-municipal/regional issues, thereby assuring a cross-border dimension; 4. due to existing decision-making procedures in the scope of regional policy it is crucial to stay on a level where at least minimum cooperation among the political bodies involved is required (existing statistical/development regions); and 5. the Regional Development Agency, a partner in the project, already has some competencies that are closely linked to the Ljubljana Urban Region. Bearing in mind the goals of the RURBANCE project and pilot activities that are planned for Slovenia, the Ljubljana Urban Region is the most suitable pilot area to achieve the project’s goals and for successful implementation of the project. Characterisation of the Territorial System in terms of: Vulnerability The environmental dimension The Territorial System (TS) consists of a central alluvial plain (Ljubljansko polje plain, Kamniško-bistriška ravan) which in the south continues in to a marshy plain (Ljubljansko barje). This is the most densely populated and urbanised part of the TS. The surrounding hilly areas are mostly in karstified carbonate rocks and create a rural landscape with smaller urban centres. The quality of alluvial aquifers as well as karst aquifers is endangered due to excessive agricultural use of pesticides and fertilisers, the leakage of sewage waters (industry, households) and illegal waste dumping (in dolines, caves, gorges, gravel pits). Past gravel excavations have resulted in smaller and abandoned spatially dispersed gravel pits that remain unremediated regarding geomorphological and ecological landscape elements. Many of them are completely filled with waste and pose a risk to an underlying groundwater source. The pollution of rivers and streams is a consequence of agricultural activity, industry and urbanisation. Soil degradation is a problem along highways and at brownfield sites (abandoned industrial, mining and excavation areas) where it reduces the quality of harvested agricultural products. The plain area encounters strong urbanisation pressures in the form of uncontrolled suburbanisation and a dense traffic infrastructure. The consequence of this process is the irrational use of land for building purposes (houses, communal infrastructure, the road network) and further fragmentation of the landscape. The strong pressure of daily commuters travelling to Ljubljana from the region and from the other Slovenian regions as well as the very dense freight transport causes air pollution and worsens living conditions in the city. The air in the city is contaminated by nitrogen oxides and dust particles while the urban and surrounding zones are damaged by high concentrations of tropospheric ozone in the summer period. Some parts of the settlements on the plain are subject to the risk of flooding, while other parts of the hilly areas are subject to the risk of landslides. Due to the numerous faults crossing the region the territory is ranked high in terms of the potential for a seismic energy release. The economic dimension Economic vulnerability is defined as the exposure of an economy to exogenous shocks that arise from economic openness. The Ljubljana Urban Region is characterised by a mono-centric spatial structure with Ljubljana’s predominance as an employment centre (Ljubljana Urban Region, 2012). In 2002, 44.3% of all Slovenian enterprises were active in the region, which employed 32.3% of the total working population of Slovenia. In 2001, net sales revenues generated in foreign markets accounted for over 17.8% of total revenues, ranking the Ljubljana Urban Region in last place among all Slovenian statistical regions – the average was 27.5%. The fact the region has the lowest export orientation is a consequence of the concentration of service activities which the region performs for itself and the whole country. The concentration of public services/administration offices is the subject of financial reductions. Industry is the most export-oriented activity in the region, creating 39.6% of the region’s total exports. Due to the lack of administrative regions (provinces) in Slovenia, the cooperation between the City/Municipality of Ljubljana and the 25 other municipalities in the Ljubljana Urban Region (LUR) is insufficient to allow the effective implementation of different horizontal and vertical strategies. The region lacks various financial sources for investment in new technologies and R&D and for the development of new products and services. This is also connected to a lack of information about different public tenders and non-refundable financial support a company can obtain from national and European sources, which represent an inexpensive basis for the implementation of own investments. There is also a lack of financial stimulation or financial contributions to carry out different short-term courses for entrepreneurs or for scholarships supporting the transfer of knowledge and technologies (know-how). There is almost no knowledge or supply of services relating to the evaluation of the risks and feasibility of a particular investment regarding an initial investment and development of a product, and thus when entering new markets. There is almost no connection between the educational sphere and the economy and little transfer of applied research, ideas, knowledge and human resources from one sphere to the other. A special emphasis should be put on individuals who may have innovative ideas but lack knowledge about the system and are therefore excluded. The spatial development dimension Comparing the different indicators, the LUR is the most developed Slovenian region. Regardless of its prosperity, the economic crisis together with several company insolvencies have caused sectorial unemployment. Moreover, the region also has an above-average share of unemployed people with a tertiary education which indicates a deficient entrepreneurial mentality and weak collaboration between enterprises (and their needs) and university and research institutions. The LUR is distinctly a monocentric region involving a contrast between Ljubljana, the region’s political, economic, employment and population centre, and other cities and settlements in the region. The latter are lacking functions and a supporting environment for new enterprises. Nevertheless, due to the relatively favourable economic situation of the LUR in the Slovenian context, Ljubljana’s surrounding municipalities draw immigrants not only from other parts of Slovenia but also from the capital. While the rest of the region is growing residentially, Ljubljana is recording a slight loss of population largely due its high living costs and real estate prices. Such tendencies lead to strong urbanisation pressures in those municipalities with advantageous living conditions in the flat and well-accessible vicinity of Ljubljana. Uncontrolled suburbanisation including imprudent land use for detached housing stems from people’s rising demands for living space. The dispersed population is creating several adverse spatial problems such as higher costs for municipal infrastructure, demands for an expanded road network and increased traffic congestion. The uneconomical spatial structure is leading not only to further land fragmentation but also to the loss of high quality farmland and land important for the water supply. The less popular hilly rural areas of the LUR face the abandonment of farmland which, in turn, is gradually becoming overgrown and the identity of the landscape is thus under threat. The region’s agricultural sector also lacks an entrepreneurial mentality and the low profitability of the current land use means the LUR’s rural areas are in danger of being more strongly depleted, the ageing of the population and therefore a reduction of social opportunities. The transport and mobility dimension The Ljubljana Urban Region is situated on the crossroads of two Pan-European transport corridors. By virtue of its specific location, traffic flows have increased significantly in the last few decades. New motorways have been constructed in Slovenian territory, but on the other hand the railways have not been modernised. As a result, railways are not competitive with road transport. The level of car ownership in Slovenia and in the Ljubljana urban region is relatively high. As a consequence, demand for public passenger transport is low and so is the supply. Due to the dispersed settlement system dependence on the car is high and this can lead to the social exclusion of certain social groups who cannot not afford to buy their own car. The transport infrastructure network is vulnerable to natural hazards. Roads and railway lines in the Ljubljana Urban Region can be affected by floods, landslides and earthquakes, while in winter also by snowstorms. However, mobility is more vulnerable because of traffic congestion. The network cannot accommodate the increasing travel demand. The centralisation of economic activities in Ljubljana and suburbanisation in the Ljubljana Urban Region trigger greater travel demand and daily commuter flows. In addition, the construction of motorways clearly leads to employees commuting over longer distances. At the same time, the modal share of public passenger users has decreased significantly. The result of all of the processes mentioned above is traffic congestion in the Ljubljana urban area. The regional dimension There are two levels of government – national and municipal. In the LUR we have 26 municipalities and the lack of formal coordination of the region can be felt. Municipalities face problems performing basic tasks due to their small size; they are coping with a shortage of personnel and budget funding for the successful implementation of projects. There is no formal/administrative region, but only regional agency recommendations. Cooperation between municipalities does exist in some areas but it is insufficient, making the region more vulnerable in terms of bigger activities where cooperation is crucial. Resilience The environmental dimension In the hilly areas the agricultural use of land is being abandoned and gradually overgrown by bushes and forest or is transforming into organic farming in combination with sustainable rural tourism. The intensive farming on alluvial plains (Ljubljansko polje plain, Kamniško-Bistriška ravan plain) is turning into a more sustainable alternative (integrated farming) and it maintains its historically traditional food supply function. Waste separation and removal covers the entire area of the 26 municipalities of the TS. Using the 5R concept, the amount of reused and recycled waste is increasing. Consequently, the volume of waste deposited in central landfills (Barje) is on the decrease. The landfill biogas is accumulated and processed to create electricity to minimise greenhouse gas emissions. Sufficient and quality water supply resources are available on the assumption that they are protected from pollution. Potential industrial pollution sources are included in the national monitoring and kept under control. The wastewater treatment system is improving with a new central wastewater treatment plant in Ljubljana. The new public sewage systems in the countryside are replacing the individual removal of waste water (septic tanks). Ecologically important areas, Nature 2000 areas, natural reserves and protected areas on the local and national level have been established in the last two decades. The recently created Ljubljansko barje Nature Park covers the territory of seven municipalities. They work together when it comes to organising and financing the park. The economic dimension Resilience captures the ability of people and ecosystems together to adapt to changing risks and opportunities. Economic resilience refers to the policy-induced ability of an economy to recover from or adjust to the negative impacts of adverse exogenous shocks and to benefit from positive shocks. The economic crisis has also affected the Ljubljana Urban Region since 2008 and has directed attention to the resilience of its regional economy to these events. The Ljubljana Urban Region is the most developed region of all statistical regions in Slovenia, and economically the most powerful. In comparison with other European regions, in many parameters it exceeds the European average when statistical indicators are considered. Compared to other Slovenian regions, the Ljubljana Urban Region has a smaller industrial sector share, whereas its market services and public services are more developed. The region’s very good geographical position strengthens its economic, educational and cultural dominance in the country. The region has a diversified economy and promotes service sector and the R&D sector’s development and clustering. The City Municipality of Ljubljana and the Ljubljana Urban Region have become the most important locations of economic activities in Slovenia, while the goals of preserving the environment, social cohesion, and quality of life for local citizens are being simultaneously pursued. The movement of employment from the industrial to the service sector makes Ljubljana a specific case. The city and urban region have performed particularly well as a highly attractive business location but have conversely seemed to struggle with a decline in social cohesion. People migrate every day to Ljubljana mostly for work and education, but also for shopping. There is a large concentration of working places in Ljubljana in comparison with the whole country. Health services, educational and other institutions, ministries etc. are located in Ljubljana. Ljubljana’s role as a university city is very important. People are (highly) qualified. The Regional Development Programme of the Ljubljana Urban Region defines the advantages of all municipalities, sets the region’s objectives and development priorities and the regional development partnership and proposes the measures and activities to be taken to realise them. The Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana urban region supports integrated regional development based on the hierarchy of central places in the region rather than metropolitan polycentrism. The spatial development dimension Regional resilience not only stems from economic prosperity but also from its social and natural capital. The LUR has various prerequisites for further (sustainable) development and opportunities for improving its adaptive capacity (which is a foundation of resilience). One of the region’s strongest areas of potential is certainly human capital. Namely, in the LUR an above-average number of highly qualified individuals and researchers live. In line with that, the LUR, especially Ljubljana, has well-developed private and public research institutions and a diversified economic base. With the stronger encouraging of innovation and collaboration between enterprises and research institutions, the LUR has very good conditions in place for enhancing its economic structure. Further, strengthening the entrepreneurial mentality of the young, skilled and innovative workforce could also improve the economic diversity and contribute to the region’s resilience. Another strength of the region is its accessibility to quality education. Namely, Ljubljana is the headquarters of the University of Ljubljana and its several faculties. In addition, the LUR also offers many opportunities for lifelong learning. Although less important for the LUR’s economy, agriculture is an essential element of the LUR’s landscape. The flat area with its very fertile soil is ideal for intensive farming, while the hilly areas of the LUR are more appropriate for organic farming. However, agriculture is not only important for protecting the cultural landscape and maintaining the population in rural areas, but it can also be a generator of potential working places and therefore contribute to a more diversified regional economic structure. The LUR’s resilience also arises from its human well-being. The inhabitants of the LUR are privileged with relatively good access with respect to both transport and the natural environment. Besides the sufficient public transport and road connections for almost all inhabitants, the LUR offers also good access to the natural environment. There are several environmentally important protected areas such as water protection areas, regional parks etc. on one hand and numerous natural and cultural heritage sites on the other. The relatively unspoilt nature improves the quality of life, creates opportunities for recreation and thus contributes to people’s health. The transport and mobility dimension Due to the traffic congestion in Ljubljana and air pollution caused by traffic more sustainable transport planning in the region has begun. In the last five years, some measures have been taken to improve the public passenger transport system. Cooperation between the Ljubljana city municipality and surrounding local communes has started in terms of organising of public passenger transport. In some cases, city bus lines have been extended into the region. Further, the frequency of public transport has been improved and the ticket prices have decreased. Some new ‘park & ride’ sites have been built on the edge of Ljubljana city and close to certain railway stations in the region. On the state level, a project on integrated public passenger transport has started in 2008. Tariff integration is planned to be finished in 2014 and an increased number of passenger is expected due to the better offer. Bigger investments are also planned for the railway system so as to make it more competitive with roads. The regional dimension The Regional Development Programme of the Ljubljana Urban Region 2007–2013 was adopted by all 26 municipalities of the region. The programme defines the advantages of all municipalities, sets the region’s objectives and development priorities and the regional development partnership and proposes the measures and activities to be taken to realise them. Reasons for selecting the Pilot Area and a brief description The Ljubljana Urban Region with the capital city of Ljubljana connects 26 municipalities with approximately 536,000 inhabitants and is the central and most densely populated region in Slovenia. The region’s key advantages are its central position, good traffic and transport connections in all directions and the fact that the country’s capital is located in the region. The region’s fast growth also brings difficulties and challenges alongside the opportunities. As mentioned earlier, we have two levels of government in Slovenia – national and municipal. The national level encompasses the central government, located in Ljubljana, with all governmental institutions and offices; the majority of offices are located in Ljubljana, although there have been some attempts to dislocate individual services elsewhere in Slovenia. On the other hand, the authority on the local level is implemented in 211 Slovenian municipalities. They vary in their size, population and economic strength, although they have a very similar system of local governance. The head of a municipality is always a mayor. Eleven municipalities have the status of a “City”, where the highest political representative organ is the City Council. All of the country’s other 200 municipalities have Municipal Councils. There is a great disproportion in municipalities’ sizes and populations as the smallest municipality has about 500 inhabitants compared to the 280,000 inhabitants of the capital Ljubljana. Many problems occur with the implementation of projects – when projects are too small to be national projects implemented by the state, they might at the same time be too big for the municipalities to handle themselves (especially in the fields of public transport, spatial planning, waste management, flood protection…). Municipalities face problems performing basic tasks due to their small size; they are coping with a shortage of personnel and budget funding for the successful implementation of projects. There is also a question of the jurisdiction and influence of municipalities. For example, managing transport policies for railways and line bus transport are under state jurisdiction and thus municipalities are often not empowered to deal with their own problems. Since the 1990s we have seen several attempts to form regions. However, being a country with a highly spatially dispersed population, establishing regions is a never-ending and sensitive political project. Namely, experts and politicians largely have different opinions on the number, size, jurisdiction and administrative functions of regions. This lack of a proper regional organisation provokes a large and widening gap between the local and national level. For the purpose of the European NUTS III regional context, we have established 12 statistical and development regions, but they do not have their own elected organs, original executive powers or budgets. The statistical and development regions include some forms of governance, with regional councils as political bodies that assemble the mayors of the composing municipalities and regional development councils that represent business, NGOs and other local interests. All regions have regional development agencies that lead development processes on the regional levels. The Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region (RDA LUR) provides the necessary educational, financial, entrepreneurial, environmental and social infrastructure for the region’s development. The development agency connects all the regional development efforts, ideas and subjects, creates conditions for reaching a consensus about the region’s development strategy and its implementation among all social partners, authorities, management of companies, organisations, employers and employees, civil society and opens a space for dialogue and establishing a quality information flow among all interested parties. The agency directs development in the region in the operational conurbation, which enables the best access to public services and, at the same time, preserves the close proximity of nature and cultural goods to all citizens, harmonises regional structural policies and also prepares projects that apply for European funds. RDA LUR also participated in Action 1.1 of the First Action Programme for the Implementation of the Territorial Agenda of the EU, dealing with coordination between territorial and urban development in which it also served as an example of a successful inter-municipal partnership. Two major regional projects in the past years are Regional spatial planning concept and Regional plan of integrated public transport. Regional spatial planning concept has strengthened the common understanding of the development opportunities and their spatial distribution and helped identify key projects of regional importance for further programming. Twenty-two out of the 26 municipalities took part in this project. Regional plan of integrated public transport addressed a key challenge of the region and prepared for investments in basic infrastructure. Twenty-four of the 26 municipalities participated in this project. Both projects were initiated in autumn 2007 and were concluded at the end of 2009. At the moment, there are three major regional projects in the Ljubljana Urban Region: the network of ‘park&ride’ multimodal points in the region, the regional project “Let’s Go!” – Online guide to cycling, hiking and running trails in the Ljubljana Urban Region, and the Expert basis of the Ljubljanica River (four municipalities). Along with the preparation of national strategic documents for the new financial perspective 2014– 2020, RDA LUR is preparing the Regional Development Programme of the Ljubljana Urban Region (RDP LUR). The aforementioned regional development programme is the fundamental programming document on the regional level and defines the advantages of all municipalities in the Ljubljana Urban Region, sets the region’s objectives and development priorities and the regional development partnership, proposes the measures and activities to be taken to realise them, coordinates development goals in the region and provides instruments and resources for their realisation. It consists of two parts – a strategic part and the programme itself. The strategic part contains an analysis of potential areas of regional development, identifies key obstacles to development and the advantages of the region, the region’s development objectives and priorities during the programming period and determines the region’s development specialisation. The programming part includes programmes to promote development in the region with a time and financial evaluation system, monitoring, evaluation and organisation of the implementation of the Regional Development Programme. A new generation of the RDP is meant for the period 2014–2020, corresponding to the period of the financial perspective of the European Union. The RDP will be defined by the development strategy of Slovenia. However, the Ljubljana Urban Region has a particular form of cooperation that is noteworthy and a good example for the other regions. This is the cooperation within the Public Holding of Ljubljana, a holding of Ljubljana public companies. Public Holding Ljubljana encompasses four public companies, namely: - the public company Energetika Ljubljana, which distributes and supplies natural gas and heat to tariff consumers; - the public company Vodovod – Kanalizacija, which manages and maintains the public water supply system and connections as well as manages, maintains and cleans the public sewage system; - the public company Ljubljanski potniški promet, which is in charge of public passenger transportation in urban areas; and - the public company Snaga, which collects and transports municipal waste, cleans public areas and manages public restrooms. Public Holding Ljubljana provides modern and efficient services not only to Ljubljana, but to many surrounding municipalities. This is a very effective public service that covers a relatively large and densely populated area in Central Slovenia. Its decisions are always unanimous, which is appealing to the municipalities for cooperation. For the Pilot Area we selected the whole Ljubljana Urban Region. Despite the limitations of the current legislation, our goal is to strengthen the cooperation of municipalities within the region, find innovative ways of governance that will ensure greater effectiveness in the implementation of public tasks and the easier realisation of key regional projects. In the 2014–2020 programming period we would like to give a stronger emphasis to cooperation between the urban and rural areas. This cooperation would provide several benefits to the Central Slovenian region, which is quite densely populated but still a region with many smaller and bigger farms on its edges. Given this situation, the Central Slovenian region is a suitable place to carry out the RURBANCE project. To this end, we have conceived many measures that would enhance the development of such rural-urban cooperation. The main process we would like to stimulate is the development of a permanent expert dialogue between the relevant regional stakeholders. A constant exchange of opinions would facilitate the policy-making process and make the decisions more legitimate, relevant and applicable. Among other activities, we would like to invite the department responsible for rural development at the Regional Development Council to play a more active role in this field. Source: Kovačič, A., 2009. Competitiveness of Ljubljana city. Journal of Bioinformatics and Sequence Analysis Vol. 1(2), pp. 017-030. URL: http://www.academicjournals.org/jbsa/PDF/Pdf2009/June/Kovacic.pdf (18. 1. 2012). POLYCE Metropolisation and Polycentric Development in Central Europe, 2012b. ESPON, FOCI, Final Report, Version 31. URL: URL: http://www.espon.eu/export/sites/default/Documents/Projects/TargetedAnalyses/POLYCE/FR/POL YCE_FINAL_MAINREPORT.pdf (8.11.2012). POLYCE Metropolisation and Polycentric Development in Central Europe, 2012a. ESPON, FOCI, (Draft) Final Report |Version 27. URL: http://www.espon.eu/main/Menu_Projects/Menu_AppliedResearch/foci.html (8. 11. 2012). Regional Development Programme of the Ljubljana Urban Region 2007 – 2013, 2007. Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region. URL: http://www.rralur.si/fileadmin/user_upload/razvojni_dokumenti/prevedeni_RRP_LUR_20_04_07_1_10_ 07.pdf (17. 1. 2013). Strokovne podlage za pripravo regionalnega prostorskega načrta ljubljanske urbane regije, 2009. Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region. URL: http://rralurprostor.uirs.si/dokumenti/Porocila%20projekta/Zaklju%C4%8Dna%20poro%C4%8Dila/Zaklju%C4%8Dn o%20poro%C4%8Dilo%20za%20klju%C4%8Dno%20aktivnost%20%C5%A1t.%204-dopolnjeno.pdf
© Copyright 2026 Paperzz