Citizens without Borders

Overpromising Technocracy’s Potential: The American-Yugoslav Project, Urban Planning, and Cold War Cultural Diplomacy

“…23 By the mid-1960s, however, Yugoslav sociologists, like their counterparts in other parts of the world, began to critique modernism and in particular modernist housing developments and advocate for scientific, multidisciplinary urban planning methods. 24 It is perhaps no surprise that it was at this moment Yugoslavia's planners looked outward toward international exchanges to develop expertise, this time to the United States, where comprehensive planning and computer modeling had already taken hold. 25 The move away from modernist ideals and toward scientific planning coincided with a "new role of importance in socialism" for Yugoslav planning practitioners.…”

“…28 At around the same time, the first urban planning associations were founded in Yugoslavia by architects who wanted to forge a multidisciplinary professional identity distinct from their colleagues who were foremost building designers. 29 With the introduction of a new 5-year plan in 1957 that prioritized improving housing and the national standard of living, urban planning institutes like UPI became selfmanaged organizations, no longer part of federal ministries and suddenly obliged to support themselves by generating income through their relationships with communal governments. 30 The same year, at the Sixth Conference of the Association of Urban Planners of Yugoslavia, prominent members advocated for regional comprehensive planning as the mechanism through which to address uneven development within and between republics.…”