Vectors of City Development in Kosovo in the 20th and 21st Centuries: Origins and Consequences

Abstract

The article explores the social and spatial phenomena in the development of three cities on the territory of Kosovo (and Metohija) — Pristina, Prizren and (Kosovska) Mitrovica in the history of the region in the 20th and 21st centuries. All these cities used to contain Turkish, Albanian, Serbian (and more broadly Slavic-speaking), Jewish and Gypsy quarters with shared urban (as opposed to rural) identities. The paper argues is that the interweaving (sometimes even conflicting) of two vectors — “inner logic” and “the logic of the victor” — forms the image of the city, thereby largely determining the everyday life and behavioral models of its inhabitants. Moreover, the evolving urban space itself can be viewed as an actor segmenting various social, ethnic and confessional communities. Thus, the author poses the following questions: What are the historical prerequisites for the transformations of the sociocultural landscape of the cities of Kosovo at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries? What spatial changes in urban space have followed the new social realities and the armed conflict in Kosovo? How can urban space be used to form and broadcast ideological attitudes by political elites?