CULTURE AND/OR DEVELOPMENT? MANAGING OF URBAN AND REGIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS IN THE EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE PROGRAMME

Since 2005 the budgets of European Capital of Culture programme has been significantly focused on large infrastructure projects in the title holder cities, that is, in the area of narrower or wider region. Th is trend of increasing infrastructure spending (particularly in Western Europe) has been followed by the tendency of assigning titles to midsize and smaller cities - from an average of 1.5 million people per host city in the first decade of the project to approximately 200,000 inhabitants per host city in period until 2012. However, some host cities faced a delay in the execution of infrastructure projects, while some projects were cancelled due to reduced cultural budget - all that as a result of the global economic crisis. Despite financial difficulties in the host cities, European Capital of Culture programme continues – in 2013 one of the two ECoC hosts is the French City of Marseille, in partnership with the region of Provence, with structural projects reaching EURO 660 million despite fi nancial crisis. In 2020 Croatian cities have an opportunity to participate in the programme of the European Capital of Culture for the first time. This will also mean an opportunity to complete urban transformation of the designated city. Infrastructure projects will certainly be of great importance in the selection of the first Croatian ECoC. Th is paper provides an overview of the infrastructure dimension of ECoC programme, and it tries to predict the ECoC trends, with a particular focus on Croatia and Eastern Europe.