Sarajevo Urban Plan 2040
Core idea
Valley-constrained nodes + corridors
Why it matters
Post-conflict strategic plan
Description
The Sarajevo Urban Plan 2040, prepared under the authority of Canton Sarajevo and adopted in the early 2020s, is the first comprehensive strategic spatial plan for the Bosnian capital since the war of the 1990s. Working within the tight physical constraints of the Miljacka valley, it organises future growth around a series of nodes linked by transport corridors along the valley floor, while seeking to limit informal hillside construction and protect the surrounding slopes. The plan addresses reconstruction legacies, air quality, transport modernisation and the coordination of the canton's municipalities within a single spatial framework.
Significance
The plan matters as an instance of post-conflict planning: an attempt to re-establish a shared, long-range spatial vision for a city whose institutions, property records and urban fabric were fractured by war and by decades of largely unregulated rebuilding. Its polycentric, corridor-based structure reflects the wider European turn towards metropolitan regionalism, adapted to an extreme topographic setting. Debates around it centre on implementation capacity, informal development and the governance complexity of Bosnia and Herzegovina's layered administrative system.
What shaped it
- Urban resilience (2013)
- The compact city (1973-1990s)
- Transit-oriented development (TOD) (1993)
Sources
- https://zpr.ks.gov.ba/urbanisticki-plan-grada-sarajeva-za-urbano-podrucje-sarajevo-stari-grad-ce
- https://www.novigradsarajevo.ba/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/urbanisticki_plan_urbanog_podrucja_sa