Resilient Functional Urban Regions: Spatial Planning in the Light of Climate Change

In European documents, practice and policies of regional and spatial development, functional urban regions (FURs) are recognized as the regions with one or more urban settlements and their in (direct) impact zone(s). The historical connection of the city and its surroundings, as well as the contemporary trends in networking of cities and their hinterland, imply the issues of better modalities for the establishment of such FURs that would be economically more productive, socially inclusive and more environmentally sustainable. The concept of urban governance, along with supporting segments, is proposed as the model for future planning of resistant FURs. It was considered what cities and their functional areas should take in order to prospectively enable an establishing the sustainable spatial and regional development of the Republic of Serbia. The paper tries to answer how much are FURs adjustable, what is their “threshold” of vulnerability, to which they can face the side effects of climate change.