Cross-Border Aspects of Sustainable Development in the Adriatic Region

Abstract

In the Adriatic region one could find several contradictory tendencies, as a result of local accommodation of social structures and systems to the political organization of space. The persistent planning and spatial divergence prevents the region from achieving the same potential common development visions, bringing forward that area as a special ‘development region’ within the EU. The discussed case shows the need for a more appropriate governance of different horizontal (spatial and sectorial) as well as vertical (hierarchical) policies in planning cross-border cooperation or social and spatial (re)integration of borderlands and population, especially if we try to create a more sustainable and “long-lasting” development plan for our increasingly globalized and co-dependent “common home” on the European and Mediterranean level.