Belgrade Waterfront, a €3.5bn (£2.5bn) project between the Serbian government and the Emirati property developers Eagle Hills. The majority of Savamala’s lower reaches are to make way for offices, luxury flats and a 140,000 sq m shopping mall, the biggest in the Balkans – a little slice of Dubai, basically, that will chafe incongruously against the area’s soot-stained, art nouveau houses and light industrial buildings.
In eastern Europe, the term “gentrification” still carries regenerative connotations, and can be a force for relative good. But there are multiple models of gentrification, and what’s happening in Belgrade isn’t a natural process of improving urban districts. It’s a state-driven model of what you might call “top-down” or “hyper” gentrification – and one that’s arguably more sinister than anything happening in Hackney or Williamsburg.
Frequently described as “megalomanic” by people that I spoke to, there’s a great deal of contempt for the project. Despite being built on state-owned land (in contravention of local laws), and requiring that Belgrade’s urban plan be redrawn to suit the developer’s demands, the city’s populace have been excluded at every step. There was no public consultation process and no transparency. The only dialogue has been one-way PR spiel. And at a price of roughly €3,000, a single square foot of Waterfront residential property costs between seven and 12 times the typical Serbian monthly salary. ... The project is so widely unpopular that it has been the focal point of numerous organised protests. But the battle being fought for Savamala isn’t simply a class struggle, it’s a conflict of values.
Savamala’s revival was fueled by the arts and an exchange of ideas. The first institution to open its doors in the area was KC Grad, a cultural centre that hosts debates, exhibitions and club nights. More recently, the area has become a nightlife hotspot, with dedicated bars, clubs and restaurants. This process – although not without its detractors, principally some of the original cafe owners – has generally been welcomed by a Serbian populace starved of culture, who live in a European capital where the museum of modern arts has been “closed for renovation” for eight years.
