Lea Petrovic

Lea Petrovic (2010),  Impact of the World Exhibition on Urban and Regional Development, Institute of Urbanism; 1st reviewer: Grigor Doytchinov, 2nd reviewer: Srecko Pegan; 374 pages, English.

World exhibitions as large-scale events, which attract the largest number of visitors and last the longest, are since the first World Exhibition in 1851 the subject of the debate about their benefits for the host city. Questions about the impact of world exhibitions on the development of the host city and the region, as the instrument of city policy and planning, are present in the professional and scientific circles also in the early 21st century. The aim of this research is the contribution to the illuminating of the influence of the world exhibitions on urban and regional development through the interdisciplinary approach to the research subject, and to draw attention to the positive and eventually negative aspects of their impact. Research is carried out on four selected examples of European cities, Brussels, Seville, Lisbon, and Hanover, in which in the second half of 20th century world and international exhibitions under the jurisdiction of Bureau International des Expositions took place, and that according to their characteristics they enable comparability and representative qualities of the research results. The analysis is made according to the established multidimensional model of impact of world exhibition on urban and regional development, based on manifest and latent space dimensions, observed in the pre-exhibition, exhibition and post-exhibition period. The effects of the exhibitions on urban and regional development are explored through interventions in the transport infrastructure and suprastructure, the functional and structural transformation of intervention zone and the socio-economic criteria observed at the level of the city and other higher levels of territorial organisation. The regularities of the world exhibitions impact are determined by the comparative analysis of the received results and by the method of generalisation through common and special characteristic indicators. In long-term, the organisation of the world exhibition has positive effects on the development of the host city and the region. World exhibition may result in negative effects, which are usually of a short-term, and it is possible to reduce some of them by the comprehensive planning in the initial period of the preparation of event.

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