Multi-Level Perspective on Sustainability Transition towards Nature-Based Solutions and Co-Creation in Urban Planning of Belgrade, Serbia

In recent years, nature-based solutions have been increasingly promoted as a climate change adaptation instrument, strongly advocated to be co-created. Achieving clear, coherent, and ambitious urban greening strategies, embedded in urban planning and developed in a co-creative, participatory and inclusive manner, is highly challenging within the EU enlargement context. In this article, such challenges are studied through two recent urban development initiatives in Belgrade, the Capital of Serbia: the first initiative focuses on planning the new Linear Park, within the framework of the CLEVER Cities Horizon 2020 project; the second initiative envisages the transformation of the privatised Avala Film Complex in the Košutnjak Urban Forest, primarily led by private interests but supported by the local authorities. The multiple-case study research method is applied, with an exploratory purpose and as a basis for potential future research on evaluation of co-creation processes for NBS implementation. The theoretical basis of this article is founded in the research on sustainability transitions, focusing on multi-level perspective (MLP) framework. The urban planning system in Belgrade and Serbia is observed as a socio-technical regime of the MLP. In such framework, we recognize co-creative planning of the Linear Park as a niche innovation. We interpret opposition towards planning of the Avala Film Complex as escalation, or an extreme element of the socio-technical landscape, comprised of civic unrests and political tensions on one side, combined with the climate crisis and excessive pollution on the other side. Moreover, the article examines informal urban planning instruments that can be implemented by the practitioners of niche innovations, that could support urban planners and NBS advocates in the Serbian and EU enlargement contexts to face the challenges of motivating all stakeholders to proactively, constructively and appropriately engage in co-creation.