POPULATION CHANGE AND URBANISATION PROCESSES IN LJUBLJANA URBAN REGION AFTER 2002

Sa？etak The main objective of the paper is to analyze spatial and population development of settlements in Ljubljana urban region after 2002. On the basis of population change we determined the main urbanization processes in Ljubljana urban region. Ljubljana and its urban region had a very dynamic population development in the period after 1945. Up to the end of the seventies fast population growth was a consequence of strong immigration from rural parts of Slovenia and the rest of Yugoslavia. Urbanization with concentration of population in Ljubljana and some other small towns in the region was typical. In the eighties and nineties deconcentration of population within the region with intense suburbanization were the main urbanization processes. After 2002 the fastest population growth was registered in settlements in the rural hinterland of the region. In this way suburbanization passed to periurbanisation. Dispersed settlement pattern with all negative implications of urban sprawl is thus characteristic