11. Social Urban Geography of Ljubljana Dejan Rebernik, Marko Krevs
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GeograFF 8 11. Social urban geography of Ljubljana Dejan Rebernik, Marko Krevs Cities are heterogeneous with respect to the social composition of their populations. We take social structure to mean the spatial distribution of particular social groups of the population and the differences arising from it in the social composition of the population of different parts of the city. Uneven spatial distribution of different social groups can also be termed spatial social segregation. Since the basis for the spatial social segregation of the population is the place of residence, we can also refer to residential social segrega- tion; segregation can be seen also in education, employment, and social networks. The social structure of the city is primarily a reflection of the more general social stratifica- tion of society. The social stratification of Slovenian society is, according to the findings of sociologists, comparable to conditions in western European countries. During the time of the economic transition in the 1990s, social differences in the population increased, but nevertheless in the European context Slovenia is ranked among countries with rela- tively small social differences. This is also shown by the socioeconomic stratification, or the income classes based on the methodology of the Institute for Macroeconomic Anal- ysis and Development (Socialni razgledi, 2006, 16). The shares of people in the lower and upper income classes are relatively small, and a large majority of the population, about 85 %, fall in the middle income bracket. The level of risk of poverty was estimated at 10 % for 2003, which gives Slovenia the second lowest risk of poverty in the European Union. Between 1998 and 2002 there was a continued reduction of social inequality, since the level of risk of poverty dropped from 11.8 % to 10.0 %. In this connection it should be stressed that the population under the previous socialist socioeconomic system was also socially stratified. Differences in income among particular occupations and classes of population were limited, but they were in no way negligible. It is clear from an analysis of the social geography of Ljubljana in 1991 that at the end of the “socialist” period there was present a moderate social segregation of the population (Rebernik, 2002). Table 31: Income distribution in Slovenia in 1998 and 2002. 1998 2002 Income class Persons (%) Income (%) Persons (%) Income (%) Lower 14.0 6.1 11.9 5.3 Lower middle 54.1 4. 1 55.0 38.3 Upper middle 26.9 36.5 28.2 38.3 Higher 5.1 12.2 4.9 11.1 Source: Socialni razgledi 2006, 17. In this chapter we attempt to provide answers to some basic questions: What are the main characteristics of spatial social segregation in Ljubljana? Which factors influenced the present-day social geography of the city? Is social segregation of the city a reflection of the general social stratification of society? Is the social geography of Ljubljana in keep- ing with the theoretical underpinnings of urban geography and comparable to condi- 143 Challenges of spatial development of Ljubljana and Belgrade tions in European cities? Is the social geography of Ljubljana undergoing a pronounced transformation, and which processes of social transformation are most important? To what extent do the housing market, national housing policy, and the attitude of the population to the living environment influence the social structure and transformation of the city? Can we identify and spatially delimit characteristic and specific social areas in the case of Ljubljana? The study of the social composition and transformation of the city is based on an analysis of data from the 2002 population census. The basic method used was an analysis of the educational, income, and age structure of the population in the territory of the Urban Municipality of Ljubljana based on a comparison of the share of selected population groups in the former local communities. Local communities were a form of local self- management that were replaced with neighborhood or district communities with the local self-management reforms. We selected local communities as the basic spatial unit since their size and spatial extent is very well suited to our study. Due to their pronounced non-urban nature the area of the former local communities Besnica and Lipoglav were excluded from the analysis. A comparison of the census data from 1981, 1991 and 2002 enabled an outline of the basic processes of social transformation of the city. The results of a study of the social structure of Ljubljana using factor analysis performed on census data from 1991 (Rebernik, 1999) were also used. The main features of social structure thus obtained are placed in the context of general socioeconomic and spatial processes. In this connection the influences of the operation of the housing market and housing and urban planning policy were highlighted. A categorization of the city into social areas represents a synthesis of the findings from particular phases of the study. Factor analysis, along with similar methods, has become the preferred and most com- monly used approach for measuring urban social spatial differences. It is an inductive procedure for the analysis of a wide specter of social, economic, demographic and hous- ing characteristics of an urban space with the goal of determining a common pattern for the social structure of cities. Factor analysis makes possible the identification of common factors, i.e. new, hybrid variables, which exemplify the complexity of the variability of the originally measured variables. It involves a series of mathematical-statistical procedures which make it possible for a larger number of correlated variables to determine a smaller number of basic variables which explain the correlation. These are called common fac- tors. In the case of studying cities, the original observed variables are data on the social, economic, demographic, and ethnic composition of the urban population according to certain spatial units, usually census districts or areas. The factors are defined in terms of content using factor weights, which are coefficients of the correlation between the origi- nal variables and the common factors. The study of the case of Ljubljana (Rebernik, 1999) included variables on the income, occupational, educational, ethnic and age structure of the population and the structure of households and standard of housing. It turned out that a large degree of the variance can be explained by three common factors: the socioeconomic, family and ethnic status of population. The socioeconomic status of the population is determined by the educational and occupational structure and the income of inhabitants. The family status of the population is determined by the age structure of the population and the structure of households. The ethnic status of the population is a reflection of the national and religious structure of the population. The social structure of Ljubljana is thus reflected in the socioeconomic, family or demographic, and ethnic or 144 GeograFF 8 national-religious differentiation of the population, and fits in well with the theoretical model of factorial ecology. The spatial distribution also follows the theoretical underpin- nings of factor ecology: the socioeconomic position of the population has a sectoral distribution, the family position a concentric one, and the ethnic position a multi-nuclear one. Figure 38 thus shows the family status of population, where low family status corre- sponds to high share of small and old households and high family status to high share of families with children. Below we present the characteristics of socioeconomic and ethnic segregation of the population in more detail. Figure 38: Factorial analysis, family status of population, Urban Municipality of Ljubljana, 1991. Source: Rebernik, 1999. 145 Challenges of spatial development of Ljubljana and Belgrade 11.1. Socioeconomic segregation Using factor analysis based on census data from 1991 (Rebernik, 2002), the study showed that the greatest part of the variance of the original variables which were included can be explained by the factor socioeconomic status of the population. From this we can conclude that the social structure of Ljubljana is influenced to the largest extent by dif- ferences in the socioeconomic position of the population in particular parts of the city. An analysis of socioeconomic segregation of the population based on census data from 2002 showed no major changes compared to the situation in 1991, but that due to the privatization of socially owned housing and the formation of a housing market and ac- celerated housing construction for the market there was some increase in socioeconom- ic segregation. Figure 39: The share of population with higher education, Urban Municipality of Ljubljana, 2002. Source: 2002 Population Census, Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 146 GeograFF 8 A large part of the city has a relatively average and heterogeneous socioeconomic compo- sition of the population. However, within areas with an average socioeconomic composi- tion, there were characteristic large differences in the socioeconomic status of the popula- tion over a small distance, for example between individual apartment buildings. This is, for example, highly characteristic of the old city center and particular neighborhoods of blocks of apartments. These are areas with a highly heterogeneous social composition of the population which is primarily a result of the urban planning, population development of the city over the entire postwar period, and of the low social stratification of the popula- tion under the previous socioeconomic system. The operation of the housing market and the spatial mobility of the population within the city were limited up until 1990, which impeded the spatial social differentiation of the city. This was connected with strong state intervention in housing construction and supply, which was expressed in a high share of public housing construction. The phenomenon of spatial social differentiation was con- sidered negative and unacceptable by the values of the socialist social system.