Planning Capital Cities

Suburbanisation in Sofia: changing the spatial structure of a post-communist city

Fig. 6
New housing construction with
dubious quality in the inner city
neighbourhood Reduta.
(Google Earth)

now has two contrasting population groups: the rich and better-educated

newcomers and the lower-income, less-educated indigenous inhabitants. The

commercial suburbanisation has consequences on the outer areas as well.

New shopping centres and stores, warehousing and distribution facilities and

increasingly office developments, have mushroomed along the major highways

and important transport intersections.

There are some signs of differentiation in the large panel housing estates too.

Those with a relatively higher quality of infrastructure, a better accessibility

and a more balanced social mix have maintained their status and attracted

some investments in new construction on vacant plots. Others, with lower

quality of living environment and higher concentration of manual workers and

less educated residents have begun to decline.

These are general trends observed in a lot of the Central and Eastern Europe

cities. Tosics, for example, documents the dramatic fall (30.1 %) in population

living in the centre of Budapest from 1980 to 1998.^19 During the same period the

population of the outer districts grew by 5.6 %, although the total population

of the city declined by 9.6 %. Before going on to analyse the processes in Sofia,

a brief information about the historical development of the city and its spatial

structure will be provided.

The spatial structure of Sofia

Sofia is situated in the southern part of a small plain (Sofiysko Pole) surrounded

by the mountains of Stara Planina in the north and of Lyulin, Vitosha, Plana,

Lozen in the south. The southern periphery of the city reaches the foothills

of Vitosha, which has a National Park status and has played an important role

in Sofia’s development as a favourite place for sports and entertainment. The