Until the 60s, in Yugoslavia, the emphasis was mainly on the economic policy and instruments—in a narrower sense. Traditionally unprofitable activities started to appear to capture in a more excellent picture of development. The culture slowly became an integral part of social being by allowing the politics and policy to become social constructs (through self-governance socialism) and not the exclusively the construct of political elites. Cultural development represented one of the few most critical dimensions of social development, integrated in the sense of total development. Historical analysis regarding the cultural policy in sustainable development, and vice versa, will provide a better understanding of the place of the culture and its importance, for example, in Yugoslavia and Serbia. The critical discourse and content analysis, scoring on the endogenous knowledge, culturally-driven and further more environmentally-driven factors, will help capture the contributions of culture to a greater or lesser extent to the paradigm of sustainability in history of Serbia and its Yugoslav heritage. Historical conclusions are fundamental grounding for future assistance in re-solving environmental, social, cultural and economic issues and challenges resulting from economic policy trends and pressures. Economic history is not frozen, instead it is still being written, highly depended on the present: What is the relationship between culture, development, and sustainability from decolonized lenses? How and why it is still relevant to apply commonly inherited aspects of knowledge regarding Yugoslav self-governance in the contemporary context? What is meant by life-centered development—to be done for the future? Why is it essential to start form the decolonization of knowledge and epistemic erasures towards imagining future integrative cultural and environmental policies?