Zagreb is the largest city in Croatia, with an official population of three-quarters of a million, and an actual population of about a million. The difference between the official and actual populations has to do with people continuing to claim as residence their home on one of the islands, or a village in the mountains. They do this to help out their home village with voting population, while staying in Zagreb to earn a living.
People are free to live where they choose and could easily switch their residence to Zagreb, but opt not to do so. I think it's like people in the U.S. continuing to support their home-town sports team, even though they live across the country.
Thirty years ago when I went to Europe I saw cars that looked really different from those in the States. That is a lot less true today. The nameplates are different, here I see Peugeot, Skoda, Citroen, Renault. But the body styles aren't very different, at least here in the Balkans. I haven't seen any three wheelers, and relatively few Smart Cars which we are now beginning to get in the U.S. One exception is a Mercedes Benz vehicle that is a small van, or a short-nosed, four-door SUV that looks like it would sell in the U.S.
We are in a downtown area now and it is likely many people don't own cars. Away from the city center everybody has a car, and drives it in spite of high gas prices. The roads are narrow, the buses and trucks are full-sized, the cars are small, and there are a fair number of motorcycles. Oh, yes, and the bicyclists ride on the sidewalks at considerable hazard to pedestrians. On the other hand the road from Split to Zagreb is a first class, limited-access tollway
Driving on streets shared with streetcars has to be a specialized skill, one few Americans have. Our tour bus stopped in the middle of the street to offload us as there were streetcar tracks along both sides of the street. We were warned to watch out for the light rail before getting out of the bus. The trolleys move along at a good clip, and I'm not clear whether they are supposed to obey stop lights. At busy times the streetcars are packed like sardine cans, you can imagine Japanese subway packers shoving the people in.
The other DrC says she likes Zagreb and I'll admit it has some charm. I persist, however, in my long-held view that living in cities is unattractive and to be avoided if possible. It is no accident that I live in rural areas, I grew up in one. I rode the big yellow bus to school from the third grade on.
