Almost 30 years have passed since state-socialism came to an end, and several scholars sought to establish how the Romanian housing market has unfolded within a changing economic context and a strongly altered welfare system. This paper considers the most disadvantaged postsocialist groups in Romanian society and aims to advance our understanding of the housing situation in newly concentrated poor urban spaces. In developing such analysis, this article draws on local insights from Ferentari, a neighborhood in Bucharest where most residents I spoke saw a gradual degradation of their dwelling and living environment and do not expect any improvement soon. Not surprisingly, a strong indifference toward present-day politics and a potentially better and more inclusive space has colonized most minds. By studying their housing conditions and socioeconomic situation, this article aims to illuminate the sudden emergence and diverse character of Romania's underprivileged neighborhoods: the modern mahalas.
Postsocialist urban development is partially characterised by housing deterioration and the perpetual overrepresentation of Romanian Roma in substandard dwellings. These phenomena are particularly noticeable in the margins of larger Romanian cities. Many poor Romanians found, in urban peripheries, a last resort during a period of economic crisis and housing shortages. In the meantime, public policy and urban planning have focused on maintaining 'collective order' and accommodating the wishes of the 'decently' housed residents of the city. This is certainly the case in Bucharest, where squatters and homeless people have been expelled from central districts and where the same privileged districts receive substantially more attention. This collective order is apparently deemed more important than the needs of marginalised groups in Romanian society. This article examines how urban marginality is addressed at the municipal level and how 'parsimonious' public intervention in poor residential areas is justified. In doing so, I highlight the roles of postsocialist devolution, inadequate use of EU and national funds, and reviving racialisation in reproducing housing poverty.
This paper deals with the ways of categorising landscapes as ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ using a physicalist approach, where these terms have special meaning. The aim of this paper is to elaborate on the question whether such a division is still meaningful with regard to anthropogenic landscapes, not least in spatial planning. The concerns raised in this paper depart from the increasingly complicated structure of geographical space, including that of anthropogenic landscapes. Our standpoint is illustrated using cases of landscape ambiguities from Poland, Germany, Romania and Greece. Leaning on frameworks of physicalist (mechanicistic) theory, this paper suggests an explanation to the outlined semantic conflicts. This is done by pointing to the relationality between the impact of centripetal and centrifugal forces, the specifics of socio-economic development, as well as the varying landscape forms that emerge from the differences within that development.
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