"FORMING POST-SOCIALIST URBAN IDENTITIES THROUGH SMALL-SCALE HERITAGE-BASED REGENERATION: A ROLE FOR INTANGIBLES?"

Post-socialist cities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), shaping their new identities amidst processes of transformation, both Europeanisation and globalisation, may attempt to disown an `unwanted socialist past'. However, this can be also called on to influence positively urban regeneration initiatives. This paper is focused on the city of Velenje in Slovenia and its collectivist means of original production. Attention is drawn to both to the importance of this aspect of its intangible cultural heritage – and the problematic nature of appealing to it – to underpin citizens’ engagement in an urban regeneration project. Because socialist heritage – both tangible and intangible – will continue to shape CEE urbanity, the paper offers a set of insights drawn from a modest and small scale case study, part of an EU-fund project, where the Municipality sought to use tangible and intangible cultural heritage to motivate citizens’ participation in urban regeneration and to reform their urban identity, by drawing on recent past and living memory, through act of volunteer labour.