Podgorica Municipality

Podgorica demonstrates that capitals concentrate everything—population, power, and the consequences of national decisions. This municipality of 177,000-190,000 residents holds nearly one-third of Montenegro's entire population, a density ratio exceeding most European capitals. The city became Montenegro's administrative center in 1946 when Communist Yugoslavia moved the capital from mountain redoubt Cetinje to the Zeta-Morača river plain, closer to transport corridors and Yugoslav economic logic. For 46 years it was Titograd, honoring Josip Broz Tito until a referendum on April 2, 1992—eleven days after Yugoslavia formally dissolved—restored the name Podgorica. Capital cities accumulate both the apparatus of state and the people who operate it.

Yugoslav planners built Titograd as an industrial center, not merely an administrative one. The Kombinat Aluminijuma Podgorica (KAP) aluminum smelter, commissioned to process bauxite from Nikšić mines, consumed 580 GWh annually producing 75,000 tonnes of primary aluminum. The facility employed thousands and anchored the city's industrial sector alongside tobacco processing, furniture manufacturing, and pharmaceutical production. This diversification distinguished Podgorica from single-industry towns like Berane or Mojkovac: the capital had options. Then on December 31, 2021, KAP's electricity supply contract with state-owned EPCG expired. European energy crisis pricing made aluminum smelting unprofitable—electricity costs rose faster than aluminum prices despite 40% price increases. KAP shut down primary production, idled electrolysis cells, and laid off workers. The 2025 announcement of final closure eliminated the last hope of restart.

The closure revealed capital city dynamics. Montenegro now exports electricity (€200 million in 2023, the country's top export) rather than consuming it to produce aluminum. The 580 GWh that KAP consumed became exportable surplus the moment production stopped. From a national accounting perspective, this transaction improved Montenegro's trade balance: selling kilowatt-hours generates more revenue than processing them into aluminum for export. But from Podgorica's employment perspective, the city lost its industrial anchor. What remains is service economy: banking, government, telecommunications, and the ecosystem of restaurants, shops, and services that exist because government employees need lunch.

By 2026, Podgorica's population concentration—one-third of Montenegro in a single municipality—creates gravitational pull that compounds advantage. Youth leave Mojkovac, Plužine, and Berane for jobs in the capital. Government expands because that's what governments do when housed in growing cities. The airport, railways, and highways connect to Podgorica first, reinforcing centrality. But the city that holds one-third of the population also concentrates one-third of the unemployment when industries fail. The aluminum jobs are gone. The workers are still here. Capital cities absorb shocks because they have nowhere else to go—they are already the destination people flee toward.