Bulgaria’s Urban Development: City Is Engine of Civilization

What are the working ways for optimizing the costs of those living in the large cities of Bulgaria? To what extent do we have a choice between their possible housing, energy, logistical, health and cultural potential?

Dimitar Sabev, PhD in Economics, journalist and traveling person, commented for "Our Day" radio show.

"The cities we build and develop we leave to our children. The city is much more than economics, culture, biology... The city is the engine of our civilization – this is humanity.”

Initially, in the years of the establishment of the new socio-economic order, Sofia was quite a chaotic and bad place. Eventually, some kind of organization stepped in. But the huge amount of human resources that have been flowing into Sofia has taken away the active component of the small town. Sofia has drawn more of Bulgaria's resources than is good for Bulgaria."

Assoc. Prof. Georgi Nikolov, Head of the Department of Regional Development at the University of National and World Economy and creator of the new Master's program "Development of Smart Cities", commented in "Our Day" studio.

"The concept of the 15-minute city is good (the concept envisions urban areas decentralized, in order to allow residents to meet their daily needs with a 15-minute walk or bike ride from their homes - ed.’d note), but only under the condition of creating a brand new city. And given that the cities we are talking about were created many years ago, it is difficult to find such options that will allow to optimize our movement and transport to that extent. No one can limit our right to make choice and to want a better urban environment, better working conditions, higher salaries...

The digitisation of the economy and society as a whole enables us to implement new technologies in existing cities in order to facilitate our everyday life.

An EC study says that after 2060 over 90% of the population on earth will live in 600 smart cities. Research in Bulgaria shows that in the next 10-15 years 75% of the population will live in our 5 major cities.

“Bulgarian cities, following the example of Sofia, have been heading towards this pattern of development, have long realized this need. But LED lighting or smart apps do not make a city smart. It is the citizens who make their city intelligent," the expert concluded.

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