"A new garage with 176 spaces in the city center!", they shout Iko (Ikara) Vukovic, the mayor of the Capital City, one of the four vice-presidents of DPS (healthy tissue), and the first confidant (or confidant - if you prefer that way) Mica Đukanović, our president.
"The insufficient number of parking spaces, especially in the center of Podgorica, is one of the biggest problems of our city," says Mr. Vuković.
OK, first I would like to remind you that from the year 2000 until now, at the head of our wonderful capital city, we have had a staff of the format, respectively: Muggia, Crumb and of course - to Ikar Vuković - and then I would state that the biggest problem of our city is that the disciplines of planning and urbanism were gradually rendered meaningless after 2000 - only to be rendered meaningless on October 3, 2017, when Filip Vujanovic, the President of Montenegro at the time, signed the Decree on the Promulgation of Paško's (and not Gvozd's) Law on Spatial Planning and Building Construction.
I'm not saying that before the year 2000 it flourished in the fields of planning and urbanism, far from it, but from the year 2000 onwards - the professional dignity of planners and urban planners was constantly trampled upon - and at one point, which definitely escaped us, the role of planners and urban planners reduced to the shameful formalization of the wishes of all those who are interested in building - and their friends from the ranks of the government, always ready to stand on the side of investments and to open up the roads for investors that lead to profits and mutual benefits.
If you don't believe me - contact me Svetislav Gavrilov Popović - the plume of defunct Montenegrin urbanism, which realized a long time ago that it is better for it to happen to things, people and events, than to wait for things, people and events to happen to it - and ask him to draw a line under the latter's twenty years of planning and urban planning practice in Montenegro. And never forget that Gvozdo, an imaginary character from epic planning and urban planning poems, was always ready to point out, in his time, that he never signed a single planning document - planning documents were always signed by the so-called authorized persons - exactly female urban planning friends (young) and urban planning friends (young).
Therefore, the insufficient number of parking spaces in the center of Podgorica is a regrettable consequence of the fact that there is no planning here - it is simulated here. We don't have something called an Institute for Planning and Urbanism - and we don't have something called a Research Center either - which would work within the Institute - and which would deal with the design and development of planning and urbanism methodologies. And what would an institute do for us, the way we are - at a time when planning (not only spatial planning - but planning in general) is becoming more and more complex and sophisticated discipline - and more and more interesting, certainly.
We don't have an Institute - but that's why we have our Ikarus - always ready to pull a planning-urban planning rabbit out of the hat.
"Aware of that fact," continues our mayor, Mr. Vuković, "due to the continuous increase in the number of residents and cars on the streets, we started implementing several important projects. One of them involves the construction of a prefabricated garage in the area behind BEKO" - and now we ask ourselves: are residents and cars in some kind of correlative relationship - more residents, more cars - and vice versa?
The continuous growth in the number of inhabitants of the Capital City is a consequence of migration - that is, disastrous policies, which made life in the north of our country (almost) impossible - and the continuous growth of cars on the streets is a consequence of spontaneous urban development - according to the formula: where it seems convenient to you, you build the building - and Fiko (Iko's oldest friend) will take care of all the paperwork for you.
If you ask me, the construction of an assembly-dismantling garage behind BEKO will have the same effect on demographic trends and traffic density in Podgorica - as would the ritual execution of one of the more visible CG planners or urban planners in the same position - behind BEKO - by burning at the stake , say.
But Icarus is not one to give up. After boss Mitke and Sir Žile hit him with a ramp on those 750 parking spaces under Trg Nezavisnosti - Ikara announces 176 parking spaces behind BEKO. It is not at all easy to reach Icarus.
And before I put an end to today's tirade, I would still like to remind you that communist comrades, cursed souls, immediately after the end of the war and the consolidation of power according to the new - socialist man - abolished the market - or rob - in the position of the central square of Podgorica.
The abolition of the bazaar was the first hasty and thoughtless decision - in a whole series of hasty and thoughtless decisions by which the communists definitely took the soul of old Podgorica - which is not so tragic, to be honest - but it is tragic that their anemic child - wonderful Titograd - still it did not develop into something that we would be completely proud of - and that someone would (perhaps) envy us.
Not long after, the communists packed the market along Ulica Balšića - which was far from the market as a wider cultural phenomenon, which would develop alongside the local mentality and which was inseparable from that mentality. That market along Balšića street miraculously survived the sixties of the last century - but after a modern, socialist shopping center was built next to the market, on the western side, in the late sixties - which at one point will be dominated by the textile giant BEKO (Belgrade clothing) - the markets the days were numbered. She held on heroically until the early seventies, or so, when she finally fell. Later, an atomic shelter took place in its place - the most bizarre spatial excess in Podgorica of all time.
And it was in that incredible place, behind BEKO, to the east, around the atomic shelter, that Iko imagined an assembly-disassembly garage - the mentioned 176 parking spaces - instead of directing all his intellectual capacities in the opposite direction - to remove from the city center 176 cars - which would be in line with the trends followed by mayors in organized urban areas - where reason reigns.
From Mugi and Migo, the predecessors of our Ikara in the position of the first citizen of Podgorica - we did not expect steps in the direction of general stabilization of conditions - but from Ikara we did. I'm not saying that we expected miracles from Ikara, far from it, but we did have hope, let's admit it friends and comrades, dear ladies, dear gentlemen - that Dr. Ivan Vuković would follow reason.
Bonus video:
