territory of the municipality covers an area of 1311 square kilometres and
includes the city of Sofia and 37 smaller settlements.
Four concentric zones, typical of most socialist cities, can be identified in the
spatial structure of Sofia: the city centre is the area with the highest built-up
and population density and includes the main administrative, representative
and cultural buildings. The centre has preserved to a considerable extent
its residential function. Since 1989 there has been an increasing tendency
for commercialisation. The most parts of the inner city were built up and
incorporated into the city in the period between the World Wars. A large
proportion of the built-up area consists of industrial land use, especially in
the northern part. There is a substantial disparity in the quality of the living
environment between the northern and southern areas, which dates back to
the period between the Wars and was not eliminated during the socialist period.
Most of the northern districts have a derelict infrastructure and housing stock
and exhibit bad ecological conditions, due to many industrial zones and the lack
of green areas. There was mass housing construction in some of the inner city
neighbourhoods, however most of it was implemented in the early 1960s with
traditional construction methods. The overwhelming part of Sofia’s socialist
housing estates is concentrated in four clusters on the periphery of the compact
city. Some of the housing estates were developed on the territories of existing
settlements, which were absorbed into the urban fabric with the growth of
the city and transformed into standard residential estates. The largest and
emblematic ones are Lyulin (115.000 inhabitants) and Mladost (100.000
Fig. 7
Modern residential and
commercial developments in
the largest panel housing estate
of Lyulin. (Google Earth)Yani Valkanov