Ljubljana on the Way to a Sustainable City
Janez Kozelj

City potentials
Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, lies in the centre of Slovenian ethnic and state territory, at a natural gate that has provided the most convenient natural passage between the Adriatic and central Europe for millennia. With a population of 283,000, today’s Ljubljana is a regional city and its conurbation with a population of 650,000 produces more than a third of Slovenia’s GDP.

Ljubljana is a green city: half of the municipal territory is urbanised, and the other half comprises rural land with fields, meadows, forests, marshes and nature parks. The city developed at a nexus between two ecosystems, the Ljubljana Plain and the Ljubljana Marsh, and between the Ljubljanica and Sava rivers, in a star‑shaped urban layout with wedges of open landscape between the branches of dense construction along the main roads.(fig.1)

Transition
In the process of the city’s adaptation to the capitalist system and free‑market economy following Slovenia’s independence in 1991, the city centre began emptying out and the suburbs began spreading without control. Because development moved to the edges of the city, many infrastructure and other development projects that were of great strategic importance to the city fell through. Since 1995, more than 20,000 people have moved out of the city, mostly to neighbouring municipalities. The consequences of this emigration are still evident today, with more than 100,000 daily commuters driving to the city in their cars to get to work, run errands or shop. Because of the concentration of retail activities and services in large shopping centres in the suburbs, retail in the city centre began to gradually decline. In addition, industry also began moving from the city centre to the outskirts.

Redirecting the development
In 2007, the City of Ljubljana decided to redirect the city’s negative development trends. In order to start making good use of the competitive advantages of the city and its region, the city government has been striving to activate the available planning instruments as best as possible to promote more sustainable alternatives to the emerging generic city.
Following the model of advanced European cities, it decided to give the development plans a clear vision and to immediately start implementing sustainable principles while carrying out the goals set.(fig.2)

The “Ljubljana 2025” Vision
The “Ljubljana 2025” vision, which the City of Ljubljana developed in order to make it part of the planning documents, specifies where the city will spread to, where new development will be able to take place, what role the city will play in the EU, Slovenia and the local region, what changes it will experience and what the key urban development goals will be in the future:

The city’s sustainable development will provide direct access to open space within an interconnected landscape system. The city’s development will take into account the limitations arising from the available environmental capacity of the area. Any partial spatial project will be checked in terms of natural limitations and long‑term objectives. The city will retain its star‑shaped pattern of settlement with interspersed green wedges and ventilation corridors. New compact construction will fill up the space inside the highway ring, and dispersed construction in the countryside will become denser and attach to larger centres.

The historic centre will gradually be fully renovated, and young and active residents will move into the city centre, changing its demographic structure and stopping its depopulation. A vibrant artistic quarter will develop next to the new design and architectural centre and will link arts academies with the museum centre and the alternative culture centre on Metelko Street (Metelkova ulica). The construction of new multi‑purpose residential buildings in empty lots will preserve the urban character of the city centre and increase its share of active population.

The main radial roads will be converted into avenues and will obtain pleasant and comprehensively designed street infrastructure. City parks and green areas will be remodelled following the principles of modern landscape design. With new bridges, footbridges and rafts, the comprehensively renovated banks of the Ljubljanica River will expand the city’s public space and connect it to the river. Recreational trails will be extended to the tourist trails and cycling paths in the countryside surrounding the city.

The biological centre and ecological park will promote the latest technology that ensures an unbroken cycle of resources and environmental sustainability in managing waste and natural resources. A new regional waste management centre will be built and the existing dump in the Ljubljana Marsh will be renaturalised. Sufficient high‑quality groundwater will be available in protected water‑supply areas. Rainwater runoff through the sewage system will be replaced by managing rainwater as a water resource, based on storage, filtering and use of rainwater in settled areas.

The residential neighbourhoods from the post‑war construction of the industrial city will be modernised to become more energy efficient, and the residential landscape will also be fully redeveloped. The construction of new faculties, academies and a science promotion centre will follow the model of a university in the city.(fig.3)

The planning of mixed‑use areas along the radial roads will reduce traffic and the environmental impact in densely built‑up areas. Redevelopment carried out as part of the development projects Partnerstvo Šmartinska (the Šmartno Street Partnership) and Partnerstvo Celovška (the Klagenfurt Street Partnership) will reactivate the large brownfield sites in the Šiška and Bežigrad neighbourhoods. Compact residential quarters and neighbourhoods of various shapes will be built strictly in line with the principles of sustainable construction and mixed use. New forms of low‑density construction surrounded by trees and green areas will revive the idea of the garden city on the basis of environmental ethics. Housing will be built for the most vulnerable groups of the population and residential communities will be established for young families and elderly people.

Ljubljana will become a bicycle‑friendly city; its cycling route network will increase by twofold, and the number of pedestrian areas will increase throughout the city. A system of integrated and single‑ticket public transport linked to park‑and‑ride terminals will be put in place in the city and its surrounding area. A new passenger centre with a bus station will be built where the old railway station stands, and a new intermodal logistics centre is planned in the Moste neighbourhood. Motorised traffic density will be regulated by smart sensor systems and a special tax will be charged for entering the city centre.

The City of Ljubljana will continue to promote the introduction of natural gas–fuelled buses and, with the help of the technological centre for alternative energy sources, it will set up electrical charging stations with fuel cells that will supply power to important institutions. An efficient urban rail transit system will be gradually set up along the main radial roads.

The city will use increasingly more renewable sources of energy. The set of three power stations on the Sava River dams north of the city will improve the city’s self‑sufficiency in energy. An extensive sports and recreation park will be developed in water and park areas to allow the development of horse‑riding and flat‑water sailing and rowing. Large water reservoirs will recharge the aquifers and serve for irrigation purposes. Water retention and discharge facilities will be built in the southern part of Ljubljana to protect the city against catastrophic floods. In the Ljubljana Marsh regional nature park, farmers will manage the cultural landscape and ensure the preservation of biodiversity of endangered animal and plant species, especially in the wetlands. The residents of the Ljubljana Marsh will take an active part in managing the park, which will offer alternative forms of eco‑ and bio‑tourism. Controlled nature protection in the recreational areas surrounding the city will be provided in the newly established Mount Saint Mary (Šmarna gora) and Polhov Gradec Hills (Polhograjski Dolomiti) nature parks.(fig.4)

The farms in the rural areas surrounding the city will continue to switch to sustainable farming, which also includes maintaining the cultural landscape and protecting the natural landscape. Greenhouse vegetable and fruit production will ensure the city’s self‑sufficiency. New rural development and renewal programmes will promote various forms of coexistence between the city and its surrounding countryside. Centres for developing new supplementary activities on farms and shared tourism products will be established. The city will support the development of new forms of community gardening and establish a model farm that will become an education centre for integrated production of high‑quality and healthy food.

Based on the guidelines presented in the long‑term vision for the city, a municipal general plan was formulated in 2010. Its strategic section clearly set down that in the future the city will develop on the inside through densification of the existing built‑up areas, and its implementing section defined a series of operational sustainable development tactics referring to:

• Renewal of the city centre and sustainable mobility;
• Redevelopment of already urbanised and brownfield sites;
• New urban development along public transport lines;
• Redevelopment of large residential neighbourhoods;
• Densification of dispersed development in the suburbs and the periphery;
• Protection of greenways and greenbelts;
• Protection of wetlands and urban forests.
  (fig.5)

 

The beginnings of sustainable urban renewal
By definition, sustainable urban design involves an appropriate balance between development and conservation, which has a direct effect on public health and public wellbeing. Therefore, the City of Ljubljana started by converting the public spaces in the old town into pedestrian zones. It renovated and refurbished the squares, streets and river banks, which is expected to gradually encourage comprehensive environmental, monument, economic and social renewal of the entire city centre. In order to expand the pedestrian zones, it began to redesign the river banks and continued to remodel the parallel streets and squares along the river. The city restricted motor traffic in the old town and moved the parking areas from the squares and streets to the central parking garage under Congress Square (Kongresni trg).

Restricting the use of cars was of key importance for beginning the city’s sustainable transformation. Consistent concentration of housing and social and service activities along the public transport routes stimulates walking, cycling and using city buses to make daily trips. A higher density of settlement and activities in the city also reduces utility costs and saves people time and energy.

Further sustainable urban renewal
Designing a sustainable city is a long‑term goal that is difficult to attain. It requires a long‑lasting process of complex restructuring, which the urban municipality must systematically direct and drive. Densifying the city and reducing motor traffic are only two of many city development measures that must overlap and coincide. Sustainable policy demands synergy between a sustainable transport system, sustainable construction, sustainable infrastructure, a sustainable energy system, a sustainable economy, a sustainable community and sustainable urban management.

Transforming the city in a sustainable manner, especially redeveloping public areas, is already showing positive changes. Investing in infrastructure and converting public areas into pedestrian zones have halted degradation of the historical centre despite strong competition from large shopping centres in the suburbs. A number of projects for densifying the development and mixing the activities in degraded areas within the built‑up parts of the city have already been carried out; some are still underway and some have been put on hold. The process of implementing sustainable measures continues and awareness of the necessary densification of the city is growing. How to promote sustainable development so that people will accept it as a new lifestyle remains a future challenge for the city administration.(fig.6)(fig.7)