Author(s)

S.A. Hirt

Abstract

Centralization or de-centralization: sustainable development (or not) in planning the City of Sofia, Bulgaria S. A. Hirt Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toledo/ Department of Urban Planning, University of Michigan, USA Abstract Minimization of land consumption and maintaining compact urban forms, have become key components of pursuing sustainable development through land use planning means, at least in most of the Western World. This represents a substantial ideological shift in the Western planning profession, which from its inception to the mid-to-late twentieth century was dominated by notions of deurbanization, urban dispersal and de-centralization. Thls paper strives to understand where does the Eastern European planning profession stand in this eternal planning debate between advocates of compact and advocates of disperse urban forms. This question is particularly relevant today, as historic Eastern European cities are undergoing radical spatial transformations, broug

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