Notes
City is a conglomerate of physical, social, economic and cultural-civilizational space. Beside that, city is also a living area to the majority of population. Forms of living environment in the city are very diverse, from medieval buildings, old town houses, bourgeois villas, old dwelling houses, workers colonies, tenement houses and to the residential block neighborhoods. Residential neighborhoods, specifically residential block neighborhoods, represented basic concept in building apartments buildings, and were also the result of social status after the year 1945, because they suited at least three principles of social development, that were: social equality, support in forming small families and confidence in technological progress. At the time residential block neighborhoods were dominant concept of development of Slovenian cities until the end of the last century. In this research we studied the residential block neighborhoods in the city of Maribor, which we presented with their morphological, functional and social characteristics. We put extra attention to the fundamental parts of every neighborhood, which are apartments, that have been discussed at the level of block neighborhood. By doing so, we studied structure and number of apartments. Our research was followed by detailed analysis, where we took interest in each apartment individually, concentrating on its layout, room type and their concept in general. With morphological, functional and social analysis of block neighborhood we demonstrated the concept of the particular neighborhood and the objects in it, land use and activities in the chosen neighborhood. All of this was our framework from where we could determine four phases of construction of block neighborhood in Maribor, which coincide with political decisions concerning housing development at the time. Residential block neighborhoods in Maribor are unique example of solving housing problematics of the time and occupy a substantial portion of the urban area. This study is a contribution to better understanding the urban geography of the city Maribor, that show significant changes in morphological, functional and social characteristics of block neighborhoods in the second half of previous century.