DOCSLIB.ORG

Health Care and Community-Based Interventions for War-Traumatized People in Croatia: Community-Based Study of Service Use and Mental Health

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Health Care and Community-Based Interventions for War-Traumatized People in Croatia: Community-Based Study of Service Use and Mental Health Clinical Science Health Care and Community-based Interventions for War-traumatized People in Croatia: Community-based Study of Service Use and Mental Health Tanja Frančišković1, Zdravko Tovilović1, Zoran Šuković1, Aleksandra Stevanović1, Dean Ajduković2, Radojka Kraljević2, Marija Bogić3, Stefan Priebe3 1University of Rijeka School of Aim To explore the use of health care and community-based services in Medicine, Rijeka, Croatia war-affected regions of Croatia and its relation to mental health. 2Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, Methods A sample of 719 adults exposed to at least one war-related University of Zagreb, Zagreb, traumatic event were selected by random-walk technique from three Croatia Croatian counties and interviewed for socio-demographic data, men- 3Barts and the London School of Medicine, Queen Mary tal health status (Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview), and University of London, London, service use (Matrix for the Assessment of Community and Healthcare United Kingdom Services) in the period from 1991 to 2006. Descriptive analysis of ser- vice use was performed. Relations between service use, current mental health, and recovery from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were analyzed using logistic regression models. Results The traumatized population used a wide range of health care and community-based services. Health care was the most frequently used service category, especially primary health care (92.5%), followed by accommodation support (57.9%), financial support (57.7%), and employment support (32.5%). Compared with participants without mental disorders, participants with current PTSD were more likely > Correspondence to: to use only legal support (odds ratio [OR], 2.15; 95% confidence in- Zdravko Tovilović terval [CI], 1.15-3.99), while participants with other mental disorders Center for Psychotrauma University of Rijeka School of Medicine were more likely to use social support and contacts (OR, 1.72; 95% 15 Cambieri Street CI, 1.08-2.75). Receiving accommodation support (OR, 2.05; 95% CI, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia 1.03-4.06) was the only significant predictor of recovery from PTSD, [email protected] while seeking legal support (OR, 0.28; 95% CI, 0.08-0.92) was related to slower recovery. Conclusion Although a wide range of services were organized to help > Received: February 14, 2008 the traumatized population in Croatia, only the solution of housing > Accepted: June 9, 2008 issue significantly predicted recovery. The organization of help services should take into consideration the existing infrastructure and local specificities, and respect the needs of people in war-affected areas. > Croat Med J. 2008;49:483-90 > doi: 10.3325/cmj.2008.4.483 www.cmj.hr 483 Croat Med J 2008;49:483-490 It has been widely accepted that victims of war in order to help developing the forms of help need organized help (1-4). However, the tim- that would satisfy the needs of traumatized ing and the type of this help are also impor- population and to identify the services related tant to best satisfy the complex and interrelat- to traumatic stress recovery. The aims of this ed needs of the victims. study were to identify organized forms of help Authors often disagree in their definitions in war-affected regions, determine the preva- of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and lence of use of certain services, examine the as- psychological trauma intervention. According sociation between service use and PTSD and to some, PTSD is mostly present in a popula- other mental disorders, and analyze the associ- tion that has survived a traumatic event (5,6) ations between PTSD recovery and use of cer- and usually comorbid with other psychiatric tain services. disorders, causing significant disabilities (7- 10). The widely accepted approach in PTSD Methods treatment is that interventions should focus on psychological trauma and that help should This study was a part of the international re- be provided through systems of mental health search project Components, Organization, care (1,2,11,12). However, the critics claim Costs, and Outcomes of Health Care and that such an approach creates a “pseudo-condi- Community Based Interventions for People tion,” which is as a product of Western culture with Posttraumatic Stress Following War and “exported” to other cultures and communities. Conflict in the Balkans (CONNECT) (16), According to them, it leads to medicalization co-financed within the 6th Framework Pro- of psychological distress, points to psychologi- gram of the European Union. cal interventions as the only solution, and dis- Participants regards the specificities, tradition, systems of meaning, and current priorities of local popu- A random sample of inhabitants was selected lation (4,5,13,14). from three randomly selected Croatian coun- The 1991-1995 war in Croatia left a large ties directly exposed to war (Lika-Senj County, number of traumatized people and caused se- Karlovac County, and Sisak-Moslavina Coun- vere damage to social structures. National and ty). Households were selected by a random- international institutions and non-govern- walk technique (14). Within each household, mental organizations (NGO) created a range we selected a member aged between 18 and of programs in an attempt to reduce the ef- 65 years whose birthday was the closest to the fects of traumatization. Foreign and Croatian day of the interview. If the member was avail- NGOs providing psychosocial help joined in able and agreed to participate, he or she had to the National Program of Psychosocial Help meet the following inclusion criteria: born in to War Victims (15). This included accom- the former Yugoslavia, experienced at least one modation for refugees and displaced persons, war-related traumatic event, and aged at least humanitarian aid, development of recon- 16 at the time of the last war-related traumat- struction programs, programs for the return ic event. The traumatic experience was deter- of displaced persons, and unemployment re- mined by a brief screening list. Mental retar- duction programs (11,15). Previous research dation was the exclusion criterion. We made has mostly covered psychiatric and psychoso- contact with 1241 potential participants, 328 cial forms of help (11,12), but not service use. (26.4%) of whom refused to participate and However, research on service use is important 186 (15.0%) did not meet the criteria. This 484 Frančišković et al: Service Use and Mental Health of the War-traumatized in Croatia left 727 participants. Eight more participants (18). It is divided into modules, each corre- were excluded because we were not able to ob- sponding to a diagnostic category with DSM tain information on their use of health care Axis-I disorders (18). Modules consist of very and community-based services. The final sam- precise questions about psychological prob- ple consisted of 719 participants. Participants lems or symptoms, and clinical assessment were aged 45.9 ± 10.9 (mean ± standard de- consists of evaluation of the participants’ an- viation) years and 54.1% were women. There swers in terms of clinically relevant dimen- were 6.9% participants who had not com- sions (ie, time frame, frequency, severity). pleted primary school, 20.2% completed only Clinical judgment of each symptom is then primary school, 56.4% completed secondary registered in the form of yes (symptom was school, while 16.5% completed a two-year or clinically relevant) or no (symptom was not a four-year college. According to employment clinically relevant) answers. At the end of each status, 38.5% participants were currently em- module there is a diagnostic frame, which doc- ployed, 36.5% unemployed, 23.9% retired, uments if the diagnostic criteria were met for while 1.1% still attended school. According to each disorder. Compared with more extensive marital status, 70.3% participants were mar- and time-consuming clinical interviews (such ried and 21.6% were cohabiting. There were as Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Dis- 32.2% participants who actively participated orders), MINI has similar metrical characteris- in the war and 57.4% who became refugees or tics and satisfying levels of sensitivity and spec- displaced persons during the war. ificity (17,19). Use of health services and various forms of Instruments and method community-based help was assessed with the After being familiarized in detail with the ob- Matrix for the Assessment of Community and jectives, methods, and procedures of the study, Healthcare Services (MACSI) – a specific in- the participants gave their written consent and strument developed within the CONNECT underwent a face-to-face interview. The inter- project, designed for registering health care use views were carried out by a psychologist well and a specific and non-specific forms of help in trained in application of the instruments and the area of former Yugoslavia after war (house procedures. The research was approved by the reconstruction, refugee camps, humanitarian Ethics Committee of the University of Rijeka aid, support groups, etc.). The MACSI ques- School of Medicine. tionnaire is designed as a table and lists 9 basic Data on the participants’ age, sex, educa- help forms provided in war-affected areas from tion, employment, marital status, and war ex- the beginning of the war until the day of the perience (active participation in the war, refu- interview (going to the dentist, psychother- gee or a displaced person status) were obtained apy, house reconstruction, child benefit, and by
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Croatia Page 1 of 20
    Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Croatia Page 1 of 20 Croatia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2007 Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor March 11, 2008 The Republic of Croatia is a constitutional parliamentary democracy with a population of 4.4 million. Legislative authority is vested in the unicameral Sabor (parliament). The president serves as head of state and commander of the armed forces, cooperating in formulation and execution of foreign policy and directing operations of the intelligence service; he also nominates the prime minister, who leads the government. Parliamentary elections on November 25 were conducted in accordance with electoral legislation, although out-of-date registers of voters living abroad created a problem. Civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces. The government generally respected the human rights of its citizens; however, there were problems in some areas. The judicial system suffered from a case backlog, although the number of unsolved cases awaiting trial was somewhat reduced. Intimidation of some witnesses in domestic war crimes trials remained a problem. Courts continued to hold in absentia group trials for war crimes in both Vukovar and Rijeka. The government made little progress in restituting property nationalized by the Yugoslav communist regime to non-Roman Catholic religious groups. Societal violence and discrimination against ethnic minorities, particularly Serbs and Roma, remained a problem. Violence and discrimination against women continued. School officials continued to segregate Romani students into substandard schools. Trafficking in persons, violence and discrimination against homosexuals, and discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS were also reported.
    [Show full text]
  • (Rural) Tourism: a Case Study of Lika-Senj County
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE Soc. ekol. Zagreb, Vol. 28 (2019.), No. 3 Anita Bušljeta Tonković: (Un)sustainable (Rural) Tourism: A Case Study of Lika-Senj County DOI 10.17234/SocEkol.28.3.3 Preliminary communication UDK 338.48:502(497.5) Received: 4 Oct 2019 502.14(497.5) Accepted: 19 Dec 2019 502.131.1(497.562) (UN)SUSTAINABLE (RURAL) TOURISM: A CASE STUDY OF LIKA-SENJ COUNTY Anita Bušljeta Tonković Institute of social sciences Ivo Pilar, Regional centre Gospić Trg Stjepana Radića 14, 53 000 Gospić e-mail: [email protected] Abstract Sustainable tourism is a carefully planned activity with clear, specifi c and long-term goals that does not cause environmental devastation, and respects the social, ecological, cultural and economic value of the space in which it occurs. Th is paper presents the (un)sustainable rural tourism practice in Lika-Senj County in Croatia through a case study of the Linden Tree Retreat & Ranch and Plitvice Lakes. In order to understand the concepts of sustainable rural tourism, overtourism and undertourism, the case study begins with an analysis of statistical data, secondary literature and examples of overtourism in Lika (Plitvice Lakes Nati- onal Park). Qualitative insight (preliminary data) is used to refl ect on the Linden Tree Retreat & Ranch campaign called CIDER (Community, Integrity, Development, Evolution and Responsibility), which can be considered as the point of departure for the enhancement of undertourism development. Keywords: neo-endogenous development, overtourism, sustainable tourism, undertourism 1. INTRODUCTION1 Tourism is one of the most important social phenomena of the 20th and 21st centuries.
    [Show full text]
  • Integrated Action Plan City of Zagreb
    Integrated Action Plan City of Zagreb Zagreb, May 2018 Photo: Zagreb Time Machine - M. Vrdoljak Property of The Zagreb Tourist Board Zagreb Economy Snapshot HOME TO ZAGREB 790 017 19,2% GENERATED PEOPLE OF THE CROATIAN 33,4% MEN 48,3% POPULATION OF NATIONAL GDP WOMEN 51,7% LIVE IN ZAGREB TOTAL ZAGREB GDP 14 876 MIL EUR 377 502 1.2 ZAGREB: JOBS, WITH AN MILLION VISITORS BEST CHRISTMAS UNEMPLOYMENT TOTAL IN 2017 MARKET IN EUROPE RATE @ 5,1% 203.865 DOMESTIC VISITORS, 137.160 NON- DOWN FROM EUROPEAN 10% IN 2005 VISITORS SmartImpact: City of Zagreb IAP SmartImpact: City of Zagreb IAP Executive Summary As in most other cities within the URBACT network, the objective and biggest challenge of the urban The funding scheme is based on a combination of existing proven and innovative financing and development of Zagreb is to provide efficient and cost-effective service to citizens and businesses. procurement methods. The majority of the measures in the IAP are also included as measures previously mentioned in other major programmes and plans of City of Zagreb and are being SmartImpact project aims at exploring and developing innovative management tools for financed by the city budget. However, the application for EU funding that has been used before municipalities to finance, build, manage and operate a smart city by developing approaches that will be necessary for the IAP implementation as well. New forms of public-private collaboration for support decision making, investments, management and maintenance of smart solutions to achieve smart city investments and innovation-based procurement are included in IAP measures, actions the city’s development goals.
    [Show full text]
  • (Rural) Tourism: a Case Study of Lika-Senj County
    Soc. ekol. Zagreb, Vol. 28 (2019.), No. 3 Anita Bušljeta Tonković: (Un)sustainable (Rural) Tourism: A Case Study of Lika-Senj County DOI 10.17234/SocEkol.28.3.3 Preliminary communication UDK 338.48:502(497.5) Received: 4 Oct 2019 502.14(497.5) Accepted: 19 Dec 2019 502.131.1(497.562) (UN)SUSTAINABLE (RURAL) TOURISM: A CASE STUDY OF LIKA-SENJ COUNTY Anita Bušljeta Tonković Institute of social sciences Ivo Pilar Regional centre Gospić Trg Stjepana Radića 14, 53 000 Gospić e-mail: [email protected] Abstract Sustainable tourism is a carefully planned activity with clear, specifi c and long-term goals that does not cause environmental devastation, and respects the social, ecological, cultural and economic value of the space in which it occurs. Th is paper presents the (un)sustainable rural tourism practice in Lika-Senj County in Croatia through a case study of the Linden Tree Retreat & Ranch and Plitvice Lakes. In order to understand the concepts of sustainable rural tourism, overtourism and undertourism, the case study begins with an analysis of statistical data, secondary literature and examples of overtourism in Lika (Plitvice Lakes Nati- onal Park). Qualitative insight (preliminary data) is used to refl ect on the Linden Tree Retreat & Ranch campaign called CIDER (Community, Integrity, Development, Evolution and Responsibility), which can be considered as the point of departure for the enhancement of undertourism development. Keywords: neo-endogenous development, overtourism, sustainable tourism, undertourism 1. INTRODUCTION1 Tourism is one of the most important social phenomena of the 20th and 21st centuries. Th is activity accounted for 10% of the global and 3.9% of the European Union’s GDP in 2018.2 According to available data, there were 1.3 billion tourist arrivals in the world in 20173 meaning that approximately one sixth of the (privileged!) world’s population travelled for leisure in 2017.
    [Show full text]
  • Croatian Metal Processing Industry
    CROATIa – yOUR RELIABLE BUSINESS PARTNER: Stimulating investment climate Highly educated, Stability & safety of multilingual & competent business activity workforce Unique geostrategic Modern transport location in Europe infrastructure Possibility of using Long tradition in industrial EU funds production EU member – access to a market of over 500 million people STIMULATING INVESTMENT ENVIRONMENT: Tax incentives: reduction of profit tax to 9-0%; regular profit tax: 12% and 18% Employment grants: up to 9,000 EUR for newly employed Incentives for capital expenses and labour intensive investment projects – increase Croatian Metal of support for opening new workplaces up to 100% Additional incentives for development-innovation activities, business support activities and high added value services Education grants: coverage of up to 70% of education costs Processing Industry Tradition. Quality. Excellence. Croatian Chamber of Economy International Affairs and EU Sector Investment Promotion Division Tel: +385 1 4828 382, Fax: +385 1 4828 379 Rooseveltov trg 2, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia [email protected] www.investincroatia.hr, www.hgk.hr METAL IndUsTRy In nUMbERs: MosT IMpoRTAnT METAL Highly skilled and educated High-quality products - competitive pRodUCTs: workforce prices Long tradition in metal manufacturing Reliable and quality supply chain on € 5.5 billion Ships, floating structures the spot Continuous investment in new income (10.38% of GDP) technologies and production Metal constructions improvement 68.3% of total income from export Screws
    [Show full text]
  • 3 April 2007
    Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe OSCE Mission to Croatia News in brief 21 March – 3 April 2007 UK denies Croatia's request to extradite Serb convicted in absentia of war crimes In late March, a British first instance court refused Croatia's request to extradite Milan Španović, who in 1993 together with 18 other Serbs, was convicted in absentia for war crimes by Sisak County Court in central Croatia. During the 1993 trial, Mr. Španović and his 18 co-defendants were represented by one court-appointed attorney and the five page verdict failed to specify the individual contribution of each defendant to the crimes for which they were convicted, although required by Croatian law. Mr. Španović and the others were given twenty-year sentences for looting, assault and harassment of civilians in occupied villages in central Croatia in August 1991. Ruling in the recent UK extradition proceeding, the judge found that although Mr. Španović was legally entitled to a re-trial if extradited, serious impediments existed to the fair conduct of such a re-trial. Noting the lengthy passage of time since the crimes took place, the judge concluded that it would be difficult to find reliable evidence, including witness testimonies. The judge further found that Mr. Španović had cause to reasonably expect he would stay in the UK when granted leave to remain in 2000. At the time the British immigration authorities had been aware of Mr. Španović’s in absentia conviction. On this basis, the court concluded that it would be unjust to extradite Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • Spatial (Regional) Differences of Demographic Development of the Republic of Croatia
    A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Nejašmić, Ivo; Njegač, Dražen Conference Paper Spatial (Regional) Differences of Demographic Development of the Republic of Croatia 41st Congress of the European Regional Science Association: "European Regional Development Issues in the New Millennium and their Impact on Economic Policy", 29 August - 1 September 2001, Zagreb, Croatia Provided in Cooperation with: European Regional Science Association (ERSA) Suggested Citation: Nejašmić, Ivo; Njegač, Dražen (2001) : Spatial (Regional) Differences of Demographic Development of the Republic of Croatia, 41st Congress of the European Regional Science Association: "European Regional Development Issues in the New Millennium and their Impact on Economic Policy", 29 August - 1 September 2001, Zagreb, Croatia, European Regional Science Association (ERSA), Louvain-la-Neuve This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/115281 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte.
    [Show full text]
  • ACFC 2Nd State Report Croatia
    April 2004 ACFC/SR/II(2004)002 SECOND REPORT SUBMITTED BY CROATIA PURSUANT TO ARTICLE 25, PARAGRAPH 1 OF THE FRAMEWORK CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF NATIONAL MINORITIES (Received on 13 April 2004) ACFC/SR/II(2004)002 Table of contents: INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 6 PART I.............................................................................................................................. 11 From the report of the Ministry of Justice ........................................................................ 11 From the report of the Office for National Minorities of the Government of the Republic of Croatia .......................................................................................................................... 20 From the report of the Commission on Relations with Religious Communities.............. 34 From the report of the Central State Administration Bureau............................................ 38 From the report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs .......................................................... 38 From the report of the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports .................................. 38 Albanian national minority ............................................................................................... 43 PART II............................................................................................................................. 46 Answers to the Questionnaire of the Advisory
    [Show full text]
  • Discover Hidden Treasure Towns and Sites of the Adriatic Area with Us
    Welcome! Discover Hidden Treasure Towns And Sites Of The Adriatic Area With Us Are you small or medium enterprise, supplier of tourist services, policy-maker on a local or regional level, tourist Blogger or influencer? If yes, join us on a journey of discovering hidden treasure towns and sites of the Adriatic Area. We are 12 partners from Italy and Croatia gathered around project Excover. During the following two years we'll be mapping the potentials, developing capacities and including local population in building innovative solutions and tourist products, improving the tourism supply chain, and trying to contriBute to better territorial and seasonal distribution of tourist flows in Croatia and Italy. Overlooking the Kupa river, Ozalj Castle is one of the pearls of Karlovac County (Croatia). Excover - Karlovac County as a Starting Point of a Cross-Border Cooperation Project Aiming at Developing Tourist Potentials of Hidden Areas of Croatia and Italy Italy and Croatia are rich with small towns with very relevant historical, cultural and natural assets. But such sites are visited by a small number of tourists. This is something where project Excover will try to make a change. The main goal of project Excover is to reduce this gap between resources and tourists, contributing to a better territorial and seasonal distribution of tourist flows in Croatia and Italy still over-concentrated on some sea-side areas along the coasts and a few art cities. Excover will try to create basis for the increase of the tourist flows toward the communities involved in the project, foster a community-led participation process in the tourist development based on a sustainable valorisation of the natural and cultural endogenous resources, and enable a wide participation of residents in using their underutilized skills, goods, rooms, cars, kitchens etc.
    [Show full text]
  • Croatia Replies to Questionnaire on 3Rd PR
    Strasbourg, 21 May 2007 MIN-LANG/PR (2006) 4 Addendum 2 EUROPEAN CHARTER FOR REGIONAL OR MINORITY LANGUAGES Third Periodical Report presented to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in accordance with Article 15 of the Charter CROATIA Replies to Comments/questions submitted to the Government of Croatia regarding its Third Periodical Report Preliminary Section 1. Before the Republic of Croatia became independent, the Constitution of the former state guaranteed the status of a constitutive nation to Croats, Serbs, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians and Bosniaks (which were at that time called "Muslims"). The status of a national minority in the former state was enjoyed by: Italians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Ruthenians, the Roma, Ukrainians, Albanians, Vlachs and Jews. After independence, the Republic of Croatia granted the status of a national minority to the existing national minorities and to all the constitutive nations from the territory of the former state. With the adoption of the Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities, which recognised the status of a national minority to each ethnic group guided by the wish for the preservation of its special characteristics, the number of national minorities in Croatia increased, so there are 22 national minorities in Croatia today. On the basis of the Constitution of the former state and the Public Administration Act, which was then in force, in 1981 the Decree on the manner of, and the conditions for the use of languages and scripts of national minorities in proceedings before public administration bodies and organisations vested with public authority was passed ( Official Gazette , no.
    [Show full text]
  • Budget Transparency in Croatian Counties, Cities and Municipalities (November 2016-March 2017)1
    NEWSLETTER Zagreb l Smičiklasova 21 doi: 10.3326/nle.2017.112 [email protected] l www.ijf.hr l tel: +385(0)1 4886 444 No. 112 l July 2017 l ISSN 1848-4662 Budget transparency in Croatian counties, cities and municipalities (November 2016-March 2017)1 KATARINA OTT, MIHAELA BRONIĆ, MIROSLAV PETRUŠIĆ, BRANKO STANIĆ The overall average level of budget transparency in Croatian local government units, measured by the number of budget documents published on their respective official websites, has improved year by year. In the current research cycle, it averages 3.1 (the maximum rank is 5), with counties already being very transparent (4.6 on average), cities fairly good (3.7 on average), but municipalities still inadequately transparent (2.8 on average). Despite the relatively solid averages, there are too many extremely non-transparent local government units. Four cities (Gospić, Imotski, Valpovo and Vrgorac) and as many as 39 municipalities have not published a single budget document that we were searching for, and another seven cities and 50 municipalities have published only one such document each. As in previous years, the most transparent local government units include very sparsely populated ones, such as Ribnik and Dekanovec, and local government units with low per capita income (e.g. Jarmina and Đelekovec). On the other hand, among the least transparent local government units there are units with very high total and per capita budget revenues (e.g. Sutivan, Šolta, Dugopolje and Bol). Detailed results for all counties, cities and municipalities are given later in the text and are also available on the interactive map and in the Excel table.
    [Show full text]
  • Luščić – Producing the New Urbanity
    Europan Hrvatska Productive City Europan 15 Europan 15 Karlovac (HR) LUŠČIĆ – PRODUCING THE NEW URBANITY Urban transformation of the former military barracks „Luščić“ Site brief Europan Hrvatska Dobrodošli! Welcome! Dear participants, we would like to welcome you and thank you for choosing the location in Croatia for your participation in the EUROPAN 15 competition. This year, our national organization has offered the location of the former barracks in the city of Karlovac for considering the possibilities of urban transformation in the context of the main competition topic - Productive city. Karlovac is the ninth largest city in Croatia, located at the place where the lowland meets the highlands, on an important traffic route and a strategic point that determined its formation exactly 440 years ago. The city is proud of its four rivers, military and industrial heritage, numerous parks and green spaces that contribute to the image of a pleasant city. As a powerful industrial city, Karlovac has a tradition of a productive city, and its strategic position required the presence of a numerous military facilities. This military history lasted until recently, and the wounds from the war in the early 1990s are still fresh. Former military locations within the urban fabric are now vacated and seeking new programmes. Karlovac shares the problems of other Croatian cities, the most notable of which are unfavourable demographic trends, economic crisis and emigration of young and educated people. However, Karlovac also shares the optimism inspired by Croatia’s accession to the European Union and the possibilities that this integration offers. One of the great spatial possibilities for the future development of Karlovac is the area of the abandoned “Luščić” barracks, located not far from the city centre and within the main urban axis that has been planned as the main axis of the spatial development of the city since the middle of the last century.
    [Show full text]