Towards an unsustainable urban development in post-war Sarajevo Jordi Martín-Díaz*, Jordi Nofre**, Marc Oliva*** and Pedro Palma*** *Department of Human Geography, University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain Email: jordi.martin@ub.edu **Centre of Sociological Studies-UNL (CesNova), Faculty of Social & Human Sciences, New University of Lisbon, Portugal ***Centre of Geographical Studies –IGOT, University of Lisbon, Portugal Revised manuscript received 25 November 2014 Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is located in a karst geomorphological environment. The topographical setting strongly influences the urban geographical distribution and urban develop- ment, as well as the sustainability policies implemented in the city. The incorporation of an environ- mental agenda and the focus on sustainable development have characterised urban planning in cities in Central and Eastern Europe that are transitioning from socialist to capitalist economic systems. Environ- mental policies in Sarajevo are defined within the Sarajevo Canton Development Strategy developed under the supervision of international experts at the end of the three-and-a-half years of siege in December 1995, and this is expected to last until 2015. This paper argues that, despite the consensus achieved for developing Sarajevo through strategies aligned with European regulations for sustainability, the built environment of the city has moved in an increasingly unsustainable direction as a result of the need to deal with vulnerable groups in the population and the international policies that tend to promote a neoliberal urban development. The first section of analysis focuses on Sarajevo’s existing particular geomorphological constraints on the development of a secure and sustainable built environment. The second section examines the increase in the geomorphological risks of new construction developed after the conflict in relation to the post-war and post-socialist urban processes. Key words: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, post-socialist cities, geomorphology, urban sustainability, strategic planning Introduction The geomorphological vulnerability of urban environ- ments has been widely studied over recent decades from a broad range of perspectives (Gupta and Ahmad 1999; Huang and Mu 2000; Adeli and Khorshiddoust 2011; de Waele et al. 2011). Flash flooding has been identified as one of the major hazards in Mediterranean karst terrains that can cause significant damage to urban areas (Maréchal et al. 2008). For cities in Eastern and South Eastern Euro- pean karst environments, several studies have focused on the impacts that geomorphological processes (namely, floods, slope processes, ground deformation and col- lapses) may have on new suburban areas (Stecchi et al. 2012; Papadopoulou-Vryniotia et al. 2013). However, the significant devastation produced by the recent floods of May 2014 in Bosnia and Herzegovina shows that these geomorphological risks need to be considered more seri- ously and assessed in a more effective way. The geographic setting of many cities strongly affects population distribution in urban areas and the geomorphological risks to which these cities are exposed. This is the case for the area of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The interactions between the urban environment and the geomorphology of this city have been poorly studied (e.g. Golobic and Cof 2010). In Sarajevo, the major urban processes that occurred after the end of the Bosnian War (1992–1995) have favoured the expansion of urban and suburban sprawl (Dematteis 1998; Champion 2001). This process was a result of the demographic pressure that emerged in the years immedi- ately following the war, as well as of the neoliberal urban policies driven by international actors (Martín-Díaz 2014). The primary cause was the increasing Area, 2015, doi: 10.1111/area.12175 The information, practices and views in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). © 2015 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)