Resident (Non)Participation in Croatian Housing Estates

Jelena Zlatar Gamberožić, PhD, Mirjana Adamović, PhD and Anamaria Klasić are the authors of the scientific paper Resident (Non)Participation in Croatian Housing Estates. The paper is published in “Urban Affairs Review“ by Sage Journals. The journal is indexed in Q1 in the Scopus database (2024) for Sociology, Political Science and Urban Studies.

Abstract: This paper explores public participation in socialist and post-socialist housing estates in Croatian cities. The quantitative (survey, N = 1,536) and qualitative research methods (focus groups with residents, semi-structured interviews with experts) were conducted. The focus was on the level of participation and obstacles for participation in Croatian housing estates. The results confirm the hypothesis that those citizens who do not believe that their participation impacts the decision-making process are less likely to participate. At the level of all estates, citizens are poorly acquainted with the actions of the city and local authorities, and poorly involved in decision-making processes. Citizens are mainly engaged when urgent situations occur that endanger the quality of life in the estate, which is most often related to environmental or infrastructural issues. That is also the most important ad hoc channel by which residents communicate their requirements with the formal government in cities, which is also called reactionist activism.

The paper is one of the results of the bilateral project “Quality of living in the Housing Estates of the socialist and post-socialist era: a comparative analysis between Slovenia and Croatia“ financed by the Croatian Science Foundation.

The paper is available here: http://idiprints.knjiznica.idi.hr/id/eprint/1218.

More information can be found at the blog: https://www.urbanaffairsreview.com/uar-archive/resident-nonparticipation-in-croatian-housing-estates.