Search

In 2001 Zagreb metropolitan area, defined as a socioeconomic urban region, comprised an area with almost a million inhabitants, 70 % of which lived in the central city. That alone indicates a lower stage of the urban development, and the fact that 9 out of 10 jobs in 1991 were found in the city (more recent data are not yet available) substantiate the conclusion. However, since 1971 Zagreb urban region has been showing decentralization tendencies in its population development, but the decentralization of employment significantly lags behind. Until recently satellite towns have been the dominant form of suburban growth, so that 40 % of the population and two thirds of the jobs are concentrated in five of them, while other settlements (most of them more or less urbanized, some still rural) are predominantly small and lack employment. Increasing growth rates of the other settlements and relative decline of the satellites since 1981 indicate suburban expansion into the broad commuting area, especially along main traffic routes. Satellite towns still have the most favourable dynamic and structural features of the population, while other suburban settlements display a pronounced differentiation of population development, depending on their functional integration in the region and the consequential level of urban transformation. Weakened emigration potential of the regions from which Zagreb has been gaining population, the residential suburbanization and the decrease in natural growth have lead to a small but significant decline of its population in the last intercensus period, representing a shift into a new phase of development of the Zagreb urban region. The principal component of the population change is migration.