Ms. Jelena Stanković (p), Ms Marina Stanojević (p), Ms. Ivana Marjanović

Contemporary urban and regional development is increasingly shaped by intertwined economic, technological, demographic, and environmental transitions, which amplify uncertainty and policy complexity. In this context, the expansion of digital data, spatial analytics, and modelling tools enables a shift from fragmented, experience-based decision-making toward evidence-based territorial governance—supporting more transparent, adaptive, and evaluative policy cycles. Regional science highlights that integrating socio-economic, environmental, and administrative datasets, alongside network perspectives (transport, institutional, knowledge, and economic linkages), can improve how territories diagnose challenges, prioritize interventions, monitor sustainability and resilience outcomes, and address regional disparities. However, in many post-socialist and catching-up contexts, these opportunities remain constrained by data gaps, interoperability limitations, uneven institutional capacity, and weak translation of analytical insights into actionable policy design.
This paper examines Serbia as an illustrative case of a transition economy where data-based policy-making is both urgently needed and unevenly implemented. The aim of the paper is to assess the current landscape of data availability and usability for urban and regional policy, the institutional and technical barriers that hinder systematic uptake of spatial analytics and digital decision-support, and practical pathways to strengthen policy design, implementation, and evaluation through improved data governance and capacity building. Empirically, the paper presents and interprets key findings from the research conducted for the purpose of creating Best City report in Serbia, using them to illustrate how evidence can be operationalized into actionable policy insights at the city and regional level. Based on these results, we draw conclusions on priority governance and capacity-building measures needed to move from fragmented information toward “territorial intelligence,” with particular emphasis on interoperable indicator systems, monitoring of sustainability and resilience outcomes, and clearer mechanisms for translating analytical outputs into policy decisions in structurally transforming regions.

Dr. Tanja Obradovic(p)

This paper explores the pioneering experience of the City of Niš in conducting the first Voluntary Local Review (VLR) in Serbia during 2023–2024, marking a significant step towards localising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a post-transition urban context. The VLR evaluated 26 indicators across 12 SDGs, providing a structured assessment of the city’s progress and establishing a framework for translating global sustainability agendas into local development priorities. As Serbia’s inaugural VLR, the initiative offers valuable lessons on how municipalities in post-socialist settings can integrate international sustainability standards into local planning and decision-making processes.
The research analyses the institutional and methodological processes behind the preparation of the VLR, including data collection, indicator selection, interdepartmental coordination within the local administration, and stakeholder engagement. Particular attention is given to the role of the VLR as a governance mechanism that enables municipalities to translate global sustainability goals into locally measurable development priorities.
The case of Niš is situated within the broader context of regional disparities and development challenges in Serbia and the Western Balkans, where post-socialist institutional legacies, uneven economic development, demographic decline, and limited local data capacities continue to shape territorial development outcomes. In this context, voluntary reporting mechanisms such as VLRs represent an emerging tool for strengthening evidence-based policymaking and improving coordination between local development strategies and global sustainability agendas.
By examining both the governance and analytical dimensions of the VLR process, the paper identifies key opportunities and limitations of SDG localisation in post-transition urban contexts. The findings highlight the importance of strengthening local data systems, institutional coordination, and multi-level governance in order to address territorial inequalities and support more inclusive and sustainable development pathways.
Finally, the paper reflects on how the experience of Niš can inform the development of more structured analytical frameworks for monitoring and evaluating SDG implementation at the local level, contributing to broader debates within regional science on place-based development and territorial governance.

Prof. Claudia Van Der Laag (p), Eirik Toresønn Myrvold, Dr Isin Can Traunmüller, Prof. Ruth Hunter

As research on segregation as a dimension of urban social sustainability has grown, Northern Ireland’s capital, Belfast, has been subject to sustained scrutiny from this perspective. It has become closely associated with the notion of the ‘Divided City’, reinforcing the need of social sustainability. The city’s divisions ‘peace walls’ are structured along sectarian lines that divide neighbourhoods with different ethno-national and religious identities. On one side are communities variously identified as Unionist, Loyalist, British, or Protestant – often overlapping in definition. On the other side are Nationalist, Republican, Irish, or Catholic communities, likewise intersecting in identity.
This study investigates the spatial and socio-economic characteristics of neighbourhoods that stand out in terms of residents’ national-identity composition. It does so by applying a Space Syntax analysis to Belfast. Analysing pedestrian movement potential during both daytime (open gates) and nighttime (closed gates) offers insight into the functioning of Belfast’s mobility system as a whole, with indications of land-use as a socio-economic indicator. Understanding the segregation of Belfast through the peace walls to identify opportunities and challenges for its desegregation is therefore a formidable challenge. As in any urban context, residential geographies are shaped by a complex interplay of housing markets, economic opportunity, transport and mobility systems, neighbourhood characteristics, and both personal and collective identities. Yet Belfast’s spatial configuration is distinctive: sectarian separation overlays much of the urban fabric, structuring the urban landscape/street network system through territorially defined communities. Nevertheless, important exceptions exist. While the underlying drivers of segregation are relatively well documented, potential pathways toward desegregation remain open to debate. Examining areas that diverge from dominant patterns may therefore yield valuable insights. Therefore, this study seeks to address the following research questions:
(i) To what extent does Belfast’s spatial centrality – and thus pedestrian movement potential – vary between daytime and nighttime across the urban system as a whole and within community interface areas?
(ii) Can higher levels of strategic visibility at peace wall gates support increased socio-spatial interaction and voluntary residential mixing across divided communities?
(iii) How can insights into temporal variations in spatial centrality, pedestrian movement and strategic visibility at peace wall gates inform sustainable policy interventions aimed at advancing the desegregation and social integration of Belfast?

Dr. Umut Türk (p), Prof. John Östh, Dr. Marina Toger, Prof. Aura Reggiani, Prof. Claudia van der Laag, Dr. Marija Dzunic, Dr. Ivana Marjanović, Dr. Marina Stanojevic, Professor Jelena Stankovic

Long-term population dynamics in regenerative economic systems depend not only on a region’s ability to absorb and adapt to structural pressures, but also on how interurban network connections transmit competitive and complementary effects across space. Using longitudinal census data (primarily 2011–2021) for 65 urban areas in the Western Balkans, we examine population change as an indicator of long-run regional development within a spatial interaction framework. Road-network accessibility is derived from OpenStreetMap, while contextual urban indicators—including infrastructure density, cultural, financial, child-oriented amenities, and regenerative economy capacities—are generated using GIS-based kernel density methods.
We estimate three weighted least squares regressions corresponding to alternative spatial interaction formulations (negative exponential, log-normal, and inverse distance decay), where origin–destination relationships are weighted by destination population size. Results show that the log-normal specification, emphasizing medium-distance interactions, provides the strongest explanatory power for cross-national population change. Local amenities and regenerative economy capacities at origin cities are associated with greater resilience, while destination-city characteristics exhibit mixed and often competitive effects. Shared language significantly moderates network effects by reducing spatial and institutional frictions.
Overall, the findings highlight the importance of integrating regenerative economies, network connectivity, and spatial interaction into the analysis of long-term regional adjustment processes. The proposed approach offers a transferable framework for studying long-term regional dynamics in data-scarce international contexts.