14 Planning and societal context – The case of Belgrade, Serbia Miodrag Vujošević and Zorica Nedović-Budić Introduction Urban planning takes place in and is adapted to a rapidly changing and increas- ingly turbulent world. Despite the claims made for the shift from state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) as being a gradual process, the actual disman- tling of the communist system in the late 1980s constituted a substantial change in all aspects of societal organization. The extent of the CEE socio-economic and po- litical changes of the late 1980s and early 1990s prompted, among other shocks, "a new notion of planning" (Maier 1994, p. 263) there. The changes that most di- rectly influenced urban development and planning were the privatization of urban land and structures, the decentralization of government, and the relinquishing of the land development process to market forces and a multiplicity of investors and other participants. That societal transformation created turmoil and controversy in the planning profession. Although the formal legal power of planning survived and in fact new laws were enacted, from the viewpoint of citizens, planning’s le- gitimacy was challenged, and was a non-priority for the politicians (Sýkora 1995, 1999); planning was deemed ineffective in managing local urban issues (Maier 1998). Appreciation for the context in which planning is practiced in Central and East- ern European cities is essential for its effective adjustment to the new conditions and for development of new planning systems (Nedović-Budić 2001). However, there is a notable scarcity of research on the effects of the societal transformation on urban planning practice and theory, and also of methodical attempts to concep- tualize the processes and factors characterizing the contextual nature of planning. For example, in the case of Serbia, academics in the field of urban planning mostly replicate the approaches of neo-liberal or institutional economics (Begović 1995); only rudimentary steps are taken toward more ambitious alternatives in theoretical approaches to planning in the transition (Vujošević 1996, 2002a, 2003, 2004; Vujošević and Spasić 1996). This chapter uses the example of Serbia to illustrate the dynamics among the political and socio-economic context, governance, and the emerging planning sys- tem. The chapter proceeds from an overview of the post-WWII and pre-1989 planning system and its collapse, to a discussion of the new institutional arrange- ments and recent legislation. The chapter considers two recent planning docu- ments: the Regional Spatial Plan of the Belgrade Administrative Area and the Master Plan of Belgrade. This case study illuminates the interplay between urban