- Michael M.: Too much going on. Life in flux, etc..
- Sunshine: Wow, I was soooo happy to see a new post in my rss reader. I was hopping this is already the comeback! :(...
- gandalf: Did you only get caffeine through Dr.p or did you drink coffee as well? I’m interested, since...
- neeka: nine kilos… wow… :) happy holidays to you, michael, and to all your loved ones! veronica
- m: It was a bargain. No strings attached.
Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Maribor, Slovenia.
Portoroz, Slovenia.
• AlienMelon
• Burger.si
• Heck
• Izklop
• si.blogs
• Sloblogi
• Blogorola
• Natalija Verboten
The castle of Celje, in all its majesty.
The current capital of Slovenia is a jumble of consonants known as Ljubljana,
commonly transliterated by helpless foreigners as "Loob-Yawn-Uh." It’s
the biggest city in Slovenia, although in this case "biggest" means just 250.000 people. (Estimates vary.)
Ljubljana is also the financial, commercial, cultural and
everything-else center of the country. That probably won’t change,
and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. For one thing, the rest of the country suffers
from a sort of localized brain-drain when people (*ahem*)
move to the capital in search of better opportunities. (This problem
also exists on a national level, with people fleeing the country
for better salaries in western Europe or elsewhere.)
But it’s also questionable whether Ljubljana should be the center of everything — a
problem best summed up by the old idiom about putting all your eggs in one basket.
It’s worth mentioning that some of the world’s most successful
economies are decentralized. Take the United States. Not only is its
largest city, New York, not the capital of the country, it’s not even the capital of the state
it’s in. In Germany, Europe’s largest economy, Berlin is the seat of the government, but Frankfurt is the
undisputed financial center, Hamburg the media one, and so forth.
The current Slovenian government does seem to be generally interested in "regionalization."
And thinking about this recently made me wonder if it would be better
for Slovenia to have a different capital. To at least move the
government out of Ljubljana. Obviously this will never ever happen
(ever) but, anyway, here are five reasons
why I think it would be a good idea to move the capital to Celje:
1) History. First, Celje has a legitimate historical claim to
the throne. In the Middle Ages, it was the seat of the mighty Counts of Celje, Slovenia’s only true noble line. If you’ve never heard of them, it’s because they were rivals of the prolific Habsburgs. And in the Middle Ages, that was the wrong thing to be. The rivalry ended when the last male, Ulrich III,
was terminated with extreme prejudice in Belgrade in 1456. For a moment, though, Celje was a force to be reckoned with.
2) Safety. In 1895,
an earthquake wrecked Ljubljana. Jolts were felt
as far away as Vienna, Florence and Split. It would be a disaster if
Ljubljana asplodes again — but even more so if the government
in’t around to
help coordinate relief efforts. Such considerations aren’t entirely
new. After the earthquake in Bam in 2003, Iran considered moving its capital away from potentially-at-risk Tehran for the same reasons.
3) Parliament. Leaving Ljubljana would provide the perfect excuse to abandon the old socialist parliament and build a new one, i.e. the one imagined by famous architect Jože PleÄ?nik.
As we recently learned, the government is planning on putting his
parliamentary design on Slovenia’s euro coins. Why not actually build
it?
4) Location.
Celje is equidistant from Maribor and Ljubljana. Taken together, the
three of them are the biggest cities in the country. Having Celje as capital
puts it closer to more people.
5) Economy. Moving to
Celje has two good effects. First, Celje gets an enormous boost as new
government buildings appear and government workers move to the city.
Second, Ljubljana gets decompressed. It loses people but gains space.
It’s worth mentioning that Ljubljana is currently outrageously
expensive. It frequently turns up on lists of the world’s most
expensive cities. This UBS report puts Ljubljana at 43rd in the world. This one
puts it in 82nd place. That may not seem excessive, but if you look at
some of the other cities in the rankings you’ll notice that they’re
usually a major metropolis with at least a million inhabitants. The
smaller ones are either oil-rich or bank-rich. Ljubljana is neither.
Getting rid of the government would help push rents down and maybe make
it a more reasonable place to live. So both cities would win.
quod erat demonstrandum
Comments
Comments for this post are closed.
Regionalisation in Slovenia. Nice one.At least it is not decentralisation…
Not to mention parking. You build a strong and cogent case, and I like
the idea of Celje based only upon its castle and its three stars on the
flag. However, Lasko is also an option. You think it’s a coincidence
that the seat of government is currently located within shouting
distance of Pivovarno Union?
sgazzetti: Definitely parking. I don’t know if it still applies, but a few years ago the magazine Mladina compared "the price of one hour’s parking in regional capitals and found
that Ljubljana is one of the most expensive. One hour’s parking in
Trieste (Trst) is USD 0.50, in Zagreb, 0.75. Ljubljana, at USD 1.10 per
hour, ranks just behind Vienna, at USD 1.65 per hour. The magazine
accuses the Ljubljana City Council of being more interested in filling
the city’s coffers than actually fixing the traffic problem."
Im from celje and I like this idea, but then again there will be bunch of people whoes speak ljubljana dialekt with all goverment buildings and you get ljubljana again :(maybe its better to move that goverment people somwhere else, kocevje maybe…:o
Does the word Jože PleÄ?nik display all funky to anyone here?
I agree 100 percent that Celje should be the capital city. Ive always liked Celje better and historically speaking it was the home of theCounts of Celje
Until the Trojane tunnel is built and functional, this is not even worth considering.Aa far as we are talking about places close to Celje, perhaps Vojnik would be a better choice for the government. From what I hear, the adequate facilities are already built.
With Celje, aren’t you in the same "lj" neighborhood of tough
pronunciation? True, you’ve moved from two "lj" to one, but
it’s still a chore. One of my aunt’s names is
Ljubica. Correcting my American wife’s pronuncation of her
name usually results in us going to couples counselling for a month or
two and my getting burnt toast each mornng for at least a week.May I humbly suggest Koper as the new capital? True, it’s not near any major Slovenian population area.But.1) It’s near the beautiful Adriatic.2) No "lj" problem.3)
Moving the capital here would infuse some capital (no pun
intended) for building gorgeous parliamentary buildings, all facing the
sea with huge windows, of course.4) Doesn’t the combination of
sea and sun make people less nervous and angry? Doesn’t that
combo batlle the agita of politics? The representatives would be
more attuned to a commonality of humour and good spirits.
Legislation would pass in a more efficient manner; who would want to be
stuck inside, when you could be out on the beach tanning and drinking a
pivo or two?
you propose moving the capital to Celje, and list the reasons, and don’t include the beer? that’s strange
Only when hell freezes over. They tried to put Dars in Celje.It started with the office in Ljubljana and right now more Dars is Ljubljana than in Celje. It takes a lot of will to make in happen. http://www.dars.si/?id=5&PHPSESSID=d26d9b3e9d2b9fca32bd1e4c925ed0ff
something’s wrong with David
yes, "Jože PleÄ?nik" doesn’t appear right
re. location - Ljubljana is still the biggest crossroads (though we
might built a new motorway e.g. from Logarska dolina through Laško to
Zagreb, while we’re already at throwing away money for the new
parliament)
Some time ago there was a remark in Delo ("Pa Å¡e to" section on the
last page) when the mayor of Celje brought up the idea of moving the
parliament to Celje. Delo (satirically) claimed that Ljubljana
responded with "Vi nam Å¡tadion, mi vam parlament."
as for spelling problem - we should simply stick to the general rule
that the place should be called like the natives call it: there are no
J’s in Lublana as far as I’m concernced. I’ve no idea why the linguists
stucked them in here.
hm, something’s gone wrong with processing Slovene… Apart from Joze Plecnik, all other messed up signs are S’s
if we put goverment in celje politics will all die in car accidents. there you have it. a perfect crime
This has NOTHING to do with this blog’s topic.In todays New
York Times (you have to eb registered to get to a free view of the
article), there’s an article titled "New Wine in Really Old Bottles",
by ERIC ASIMOV (Published: May 25, 2005).Rather than going into
details, just a note that half of the 2 page article talks about Mr.
Ales Kristancic of the Movia estate in Slovenia. In addtion, they
enven placed a very contemplative picture of Mr. Kristancic reading a
dusty bottle. Sounds like quite an interesting fellow.An excerpt:"The
French soldiers stayed here, married beautiful women and zak zak.",
said Mr. Kristancic, employing a phrase he uses frequently
to indicate the natural order of events".It’s worth the bother
of registering with NYT to read the entire article; Slovenija and
Mr. Kristancic come off quite well.
Here’s the article: http://tinyurl.com/bqdu8
There’s no significant brain-drain from Slovenia to western Europe and
other countries. Sure, people come and go, but I don’t think it poses a
problem. BTW, Trojane tunnel will be opened this summer.
Well, neprijavljen… Out of 20 people in my high-school class, 5 of us
are currently abroad (that I know of, could be more). We all graduated
with honors. Draw your own conclusions.
And are you satisfied with life in the United States, crni? I was born here (well, Canada) and I intend on moving to Slovenia somewhere down the line.I know many educated immigrants from poor countries like Romania, Russia, Belarus, and India who found themselves disillusioned upon coming here. Some plan on returning home, while others say they would if they didn’t have kids.If you are educated and love your country, why flee? Make your country better.What if PleÄ?nik said, "Forget small potatoes-Slovenia."
Well, |=|=|, my satisfaction or dissatisfaction with life in the US or Slovenia would be a very long debate :-)In
short, let me break it down this way - US is much better to work and
live in. But I have ties to Slovenia, family and culture and I will go
back. Hopefully pretty soon. I think some things need to change back
home, though and my posts regarding those things will always reflect my
opinions.
btw, I find it quite suspicious that "Glory of Carniola", based in
Styria, agitates for moving the capital from Carniola to Styria. 5th
column or what?
I seriously believe that you must show this to the government, you got some really strong arguments here.
///
Hehe, a very interesting article indeed. I was searching for some
Which
on-line material for my english classes seminar and stumbeled across
this blog. Nevertheless Celje is developing with ligh speed anyway.
Just last week they started building Tehno-Polis, some kind of a
technological park. It will create 3000 new jobs in Celje which i think
is an enormous number. The park will be a huge complex of institutes,
universities (yes Celje will FINALY become a uni town :), a
campus and infrastructure for private companies. Apart from
it our consumer and fun industry is booming. We have 3 MAJOR shopping
malls(which are constantly getting bigger and bigger) with two
multi-movie theaters We have the biggest and best footbal stadium in
the country and the biggest and best sports hall aswell
basicaly makes us the new sports city (all national football maches are
played here :) No matter what happenes Celje is
already rivaling Ljubljana on many aspects. With the creation of the
University of Celje, we will draw students from across Slovenia to the
city, and hopefully they will like Celje as much as i do and help
making it bigger, better and ofcourse more beautiful
Small is beautiful.