Railway Corridors in Croatian Cities as Factors of Sustainable Spatial and Cultural Development

Abstract

Transport and mobility in cities are important factors in the sustainability of the urbanized world. This article investigates one type of intra-urban transport: railway transport and the surrounding areas along the railway, i.e., whether railway corridors can be a factor in the sustainable development of cities in the 21st century. The aim of the article is to determine specific characteristics of railway corridors and identify problems and cultural-historical specifics related to the industrial cultural heritage of the railway. The article examines the importance of an integrated approach to the planning of railway corridors and emphasizes the importance of multicriteria analyses in the decision-making process for corridor areas. As a case study, the city of Osijek is selected because in the past the railway strongly influenced its economical and urban development. Concretization and specification methods applied to the city of Osijek prove that railway corridors can become factors of the sustainable development of cities. The article proves that railway corridors have the potential to transform sustainable urban development because they pass through central, often historical, city areas, they occupy large surfaces and have a long linear spatial continuity. The scientific contribution of the article is the identification and systematization of the contribution of the transformation of railway corridors to the sustainable development of cities.