7. Demographic Characteristics and Processes in Ljubljana Dejan Rebernik

GeograFF 8 7. Demographic characteristics and processes in Ljubljana Dejan Rebernik The city of Ljubljana and its urban region experienced very dynamic population growth after 1945. Up until the 1970s, population growth was mainly a consequence of intensive migration from rural and less developed areas of Slovenia and the rest of Yugoslavia. Im- migrants provided the labor force needed for the rapidly growing manufacturing and services sectors. Characteristic was concentration of population in Ljubljana as well as in other, smaller towns in the region. At the same time a positive natural increase is also characteristic of this period, which together with a positive migration increase contrib- utes to the growth in population. In the 1980s and 1990s the relocation of the population to suburban settlements at the edge of the city intensified. In this way the largest suburbanized area in Slovenia, with around 150.000 inhabitants, took form. The city centre and older areas of housing experienced depopulation. The natural increase declined due to a drop in fertility and in 1996 Ljubljana recorded a negative natural increase for the first time. After 1991 the Ljubljana urban region experienced rapid economic development, which attracted new migration flows. The region has the highest migration balance of all the Slovenian regions. In the same period, due to negative natural and migration growth, the number of inhabitants in Ljubljana itself decreased. The main objective of this chapter is to present the major characteristics of population development in Ljubljana and the Ljubljana urban region. Population development is placed and explained in the context of general demographic and urbanization processes in Slovenia. We attempted to determine to what extent the growth in population is a consequence of migration trends or natural increase. Special attention is given to particular parts of the city of Ljubljana and the urban region and to the latest urbanization and demographic processes. In the second part of the chapter we give greater attention to an overview of the demographic characteristics of Ljubljana, with an emphasis on the age structure of the population. Population development and demographic characteristics have a great influence on the spatial development of the city and urban region; we therefore highlight the problem of spatial planning in a situation in which the population is both declining and aging. 7.1. Population development and demographic characteristics of Ljubljana and the Ljubljana urban region before 1991 The current size, spatial distribution and demographic characteristics of the population in Ljubljana and the Ljubljana urban region are primarily the result of migration flows which occurred in Slovenia and in the former Yugoslavia after 1945. Although a relatively low degree of urbanization is still typical for Slovenia, with only slightly more than 50 % 85 Challenges of spatial development of Ljubljana and Belgrade of the population living in urban areas, during the first postwar period up to the end of the 1970s, the country was characterized by accelerated urbanization, which was fu- eled mainly by strong migration of the population from the countryside (Ravbar, 1994). The population immigrated from Slovenian rural areas and a large part, about one third, came from migrants from regions in the former Yugoslavia. Besides Ljubljana some larger urban settlements within the urban region also grew quickly, in particular Domžale, Vrh- nika, Litija and Grosuplje. The population of the present-day territory of the Urban Municipality of Ljubljana increased from approximately 120.000 to approximately 270.000 from 1948 to 1991, or by about 120 % (Figure 23). The rate of population growth after 1945 increased steadily and achieved a peak between 1961 and 1981. After 1981 population growth slowed considerably, and at the end of the 1980s it began to stagnate. The causes for this kind of population development can be found in demographic, urbanization, and socio- economic processes which took place in Slovenia during the period studied (Rebernik, 1999). Compared to other European countries, Slovenia is characterized by a relatively low level of urbanization, with just a bit over 50 % of the population living in urban areas. Nevertheless, rapid urbanization characterized the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s: the share of the urban population increased from 26 % in 1948 to 36 % in 1961, 45 % in 1971 and 49 % in 1981. Urbanization was mainly a consequence of the abandonment of farming, indus- trialization, and the migration of population into cities from rural areas of Slovenia and the rest of Yugoslavia. The population grew most rapidly in major regional centres and highly industrial cities. In the 1970s the fastest growth was shown by towns in the urbanized environs of Ljubljana, Maribor, and Celje. Here it should be stressed that urbanization in Slovenia was less pronounced than in other Yugoslav republics. The relatively weak urbanization in Slovenia was a result mainly of commuting by the labor force from rural settlements to urban centres of employment and the initiation of a policy of polycentric economic and urban development. Polycentrism in Slovenia became the basic concept of spatial development in the 1970s and 1980s. The development of industry and services in smaller urban and rural settlements and in less developed parts of Slovenia was actively encouraged. Access to jobs in the countryside slowed the rural-urban migration. In comparison with other major cities in the republics of the former Yugoslavia, the growth of Ljubljana was considerably slower. In 1948 about 8 % of the population lived in Ljubljana, and in 2007 about 13 %, which is a considerably smaller share than in the cases of Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo and Skopje. 86 GeograFF 8 Figure 23: Population development in the territory of the Urban Municipality of Ljubljana between 1945 and 200921. 300000 250000 200000 150000 100000 50000 0 l. 1948 l. 1953 l. 1961 l. 1971 l. 1981 l. 1991 l. 2002 l. 2008 Population number Source: Statistical office of the Republic of Slovenia. After 1981 a slower growth of the urban population can be observed. While the population in the majority of cities continued to grow, in the 1980s for the first time there was a drop in population in some cities. Large cities in the more urbanized regions lost population, while towns in less urbanized parts of the country continued to grow. It is thus clear that classical urbanization, i.e. the process of concentration of the population in cities, changed to the suburbanization of the more densely populated areas in the wider vicin- ity of larger towns and cities (Ravbar, 1994). In the 1980s, the highest rate of growth of the population occurred in settlements on the outskirts of major regional centres, due to the outmigration of the urban population. In the 1990s the processes mentioned further intensified. The total number of inhabitants in cities declined, most noticeably in major centres. The share of the population living in urban settlements thus declined by 1 % between 1996 and 2002. At the same time there was a continuation and intensification in the deconcentration of the population into surrounding suburbanized areas. In the first half of the 1990s population growth was most rapid in suburbanized settlements at the city’s edge, but between 1996 and 2002 small rural settlements with good access to major urban centres had the most rapid growth. Thus in the most recent period there has been an urbanization process in the broader hinterland of urban regions. 21 Data are recalculated according to the methodology of the 2002 Census for the territory of the present-day Urban Munici- pality of Ljubljana. 87 Challenges of spatial development of Ljubljana and Belgrade Tables 11 and 12 show the total, natural, and migration growth of the population for particular years, which enables a more detailed analysis of population development in Ljubljana. Data for the period between 1945 and 1964 were accessible for the area of the city of Ljubljana as defined by the Statistical Agency at that time—the settlement of Lju- bljana and selected settlements along its edge (Mauser, 1970). For the period between 1965 and 1993 data were collected for five Ljubljana municipalities (Center, Bežigrad, Moste, Šiška and Vič-Rudnik), which now comprise the Administrative Unit of Ljubljana and thus include a considerably wider area. For this reason data from the two periods are not directly comparable, but they nevertheless make possible the identification of basic trends in the demographic development of Ljubljana. The spatial extent of Ljublja- na municipalities is not the most suitable for our analysis, since it also includes entirely rural settlements in the municipality of Vič-Rudnik and also partially in the municipality of Moste, while it does not include the urbanized settlements in the municipalities of Domžale, Vrhnika and Grosuplje, which are closely connected to Ljubljana. Despite some deficiencies, the data cited are nonetheless a sufficiently good indicator of basic trends in population development in the territory of Ljubljana and its urban region. A more detailed view of population development shows that the annual growth of the population fluctuated greatly. The annual growth in the territory of the city of Ljubljana between 1945 and 1964 ranged between 2000 and 6000 inhabitants, with an average of 3500 to 4000. The rate of population growth reached a value of between 2-3 %, greatly surpassing the value for the whole of Slovenia as well as the values for urban settlements. Between 1965 and 1980 the annual growth in the territory of the five Ljubljana municipalities at the time was between 5000 and 7000 inhabitants, or 2-2.5 %. After 1980 there was a sharp drop, and in 1991 and 1992 it was even negative (Rebernik, 1999). Population growth in cities is the result of the natural increase of the urban population and immigration into the city.

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