GREENWAYS AS AN ELEMENT OF URBAN PLANNING: BANJA LUKA CASE STUDY

The continuous presence of the landscape concept in planning and design of the Banja Luka area until the end of the 20th century influenced the formation of the identity of Banja Luka as a green city. However, in the last twenty years, there is the absence of the green city concept from planning and designing Banja Luka's area. In order to improve the state of urban greenery and achieve the satisfactory condition of the endangered landscape elements, this paper re-examines their significance for the city. The green infrastructure has ecological, social and aesthetic function and becomes an imperative in defining the strategic goals of a sustainable city. The study showed, that there are possibilities of increasing the size of green areas and improving the quality of the green area in the built city tissue. One of those possibilities is the transformation of the existing brownfields into green areas. From the perspective of urban planning, the purpose of this paper is to point out the possibility of implementing the greenways in the city structure for the case study in Banja Luka. In this context, the research focuses on the area of the former Incel factory and the ability to transform the abandoned railways into a greenway. In this research, the sustainable spatial development context of Banja Luka is regarded as a permanent category which includes, among the others, the ambient values, the spirit of the place and the features of a green city are important for the city's inhabitants.