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Dr Ranka Gašić

Institute for Contemporary History

Belgrade, Serbia

 

FACTORY AND TOWN: THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY AND THE URBAN DEVELOPMENT OF KRAGUJEVAC 1953–1991

Vol. XXXIV, 2/2016, pp. 99–116
https://doi.org/10.29362/ist20veka.2016.2.gas.99-116

 

ABSTRACT/RESUME: Kragujevac was an industrial town from the earliest period of the modern history of Serbia. Its military industrial complex was situated in the close proximity of the downtown area. The development of industry was given its greatest impetus in the 1960s with the establishment of the automobile industry and the erection of the automobile factory in 1962. In the mid 1970s the „Crvena zastava“ factory contributed by 80% to the economy of Kragujevac and its surroundings. The large investments in the automobile industry in the 1960s and 1970s triggered the speedy development of the town and of the building activities on such a scale that urban planning simply could not keep pace with spontaneous growth of the town dwelling area. The result was illegal building, one of the most characteristic and durable phenomena of the Yugoslav industrialization and modernization. The dwelling areas in the town were spreading fast from 1953 to 1973 (the period of the fastest growth of car industry), by cc.150 ha per annum. Multy-storey residential buildings have changed the traditional townscape. However, they could not be erected soon enough to provide accommodation for a neverending influx of population. The fast growing car industry led to another important feature of the development of Kragujevac – the creation of large urban agglomeration, by merging surrounding villages with the town. Since the 1960s the industry and dwelling zones were predominant in Kragujevac, in comparison with communal municipal infrastructure, which was seriously lagging behind (especially the water supply system and the road network). Kragujevac and its industry (like the Yugoslav economy as a whole) have reached the peak of their development in the 1970s. After the global oil crisis in 1979 the whole process of Yugoslav industrialization was brought to a halt, and the car industry in Kragujevac, as well as the town itself entered the phase of stagnation. However, regardless of the decline of car industry, the influx of population did not stop, but continued in a different form. Instead of workers in search of jobs, the refugees from Bosnia and Croatia, and the internally displaced persons from Kosovo kept coming to the Kragujevac during the 1990s wars in ex-Yugoslavia.

 

KEYWORDS: Kragujevac, car industry, „Crvena zastava“, urbanization

 

SOURCES:

 

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