The urban policy of open public spaces in an arising cultural-tourism destination: Golubac town in Iron Gate Gorge, Serbia

An ordinary practice in urban planning and design in an already existing urban space is to study the local needs and aspirations to understand how this space should be regenerated, both physically and functionally. The regenerated place that can address them can be a new driving force for the revitalisation of wider urban fabric or, even, the entire settlement. However, in some unusual situations, it is very hard to explore and evaluate “local” needs and aspirations. This is the case with the settlements with strong tourism industry, where tourist visitors periodically outnumber local residents. Therefore, their influence for the context of these settlements is immense and it cannot be omitted in any future urban plan and project for this space. Golubac Town in Eastern Serbia is a perfect example for this consideration. The town is located at the entrance of the largest gorge of the Danube, a major European river and water-transit corridor. This unique position of a “guardian” at the entrance has left medieval Golubac Fortress as a cultural heritage of national importance. Furthermore, the gorge is protected as a national park, with preserved landscape and many endemic species. Nevertheless, all heritage sites are not in Golubac Town. Moreover, the town itself is small and weighted with socio-economic problems from post-socialist transformation. Thus, the recent inflow of cultural tourists has not been sufficiently responded by local tourism sector. One of the main reasons is inadequate physical environment in the town, which requires general modernisation and, even more, better adaptation to prospective cultural tourists. The aim of this research is to explore if official urban policy towards open public spaces in Golubac, as the main elements of its physical environment, corresponds to the current needs of the prospective cultural tourists. It is organised through the analysis of the main urban plan for the settlement, the implementation of relevant planning actions and the actual use of open public spaces in Golubac by different users, done through modified method of space syntax. The findings of the presented research are the gaps between the official urban policy of the town and reality. Finally, they are a base for recommendations for new planning directions, which mainly refer to the improvements of open public spaces