Arnajevo
Belgrade's peri-urban fade—Arnajevo's 853 residents survive in three dissolved municipalities' wake while the capital's gravity slowly empties the village.
Arnajevo exists because Belgrade's suburban sprawl needed somewhere to go—and because Yugoslav administrative reorganization kept redrawing the lines. This settlement of 853 in Barajevo municipality represents the quintessential peri-urban village: close enough to the capital to commute, far enough to maintain rural character, and administratively unstable enough to have belonged to three different municipalities in five years.
The administrative history tells the story. In 1956–57, Arnajevo belonged to the municipality of Beljina, a short-lived entity that also included Beljina proper, Manić, and Rožanci. In 1957, Beljina was dissolved and absorbed into Barajevo. This bureaucratic shuffling reflected the reality that small villages around Belgrade had no independent economic base—they existed in the capital's gravitational pull, their administrative boundaries less important than their commuting patterns.
Located in Barajevo's northwestern corner, east of Stepojevac, Arnajevo today is classified as a depopulating rural settlement. The classification is honest: young people commute to Belgrade for work and eventually move there; the elderly remain. Agriculture continues, but as supplementary income rather than primary livelihood. By 2026, Arnajevo's trajectory depends on whether Belgrade's housing market pushes development outward—either becoming a dormitory exurb or continuing its slow demographic fade.