Soviet Prefabricated Panel Housing Estates: Areas of Continued Social Mix or Decline? The Case of Tallinn

Abstract

Cities in the formerly centrally planned countries in the Soviet Union and Central Eastern Europe have transformed rapidly since the political and economic restructuring started in the late 1980s. To date, the main focus of research has been on new urban phenomena, particularly inner-city change and suburbanisation. However, these changes affect only a minority of the population, because most people still live in pre-transition housing stock. This study clarifies population changes in the most distinctive type of housing in the state socialist cities, high-rise prefabricated panel housing estates, in the light of the reform of housing privatisation. Many researchers have assumed that panel housing estates would quickly downgrade in the course of transition towards a market economy. However, the main results of the study show that these areas have maintained a relatively good image and social mix to the present day and that there are no straightforward signs of their socio-economic downgrading or becoming ethnic minority ghettos.

The Views of Neighbourhood Associations on Collaborative Urban Governance in Tallinn, Estonia

“…This is in line with the trajectories of inner cities elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe (Kovacs et al, 2013), where during the socialist years the pre-War residential quarters were left to decay (Hess and Hiob, 2014). The main efforts and investments of housing policies were directed towards the high-rise panel-housing estates (Kährik and Tammaru, 2010). In the context of severe housing shortages in growing socialist industrial cities, an apartment in a panel-housing district was a sought-after residential solution.…”

“…The apartments in housing estates gradually have lost their prestige and older inner-city districts have become attractive gentrified places . Although the panel-housing areas have maintained a certain mixed socio-economic status (Kährik and Tammaru, 2010;Temelová et al, 2011;Marcińczak et al, 2015), gradual sorting of high social status people from the socialist modernist housing and into suburbs or gentrifying districts is an ongoing reality. The former inner-city districts have transformed into diverse social environments, where both former residents (often less affluent, older, and with industrial worker background) live alongside newcomers (young households, students or specific lifestyle groups who value culturally attractive historical neighbourhoods near the amenities of the city centre).…”

Teenage overweight and obesity: A pilot study of obesogenic and obesoprotective environments in the Czech Republic

“…) 1 . The typical housing estates from the communist era with their concrete blocks of flats, housed a wide spectrum of resident classes from manual or blue collar workers to the intelligentsia and elites (Enyedi, 1998;Herfert et al, 2013;Kährik and Tammaru, 2010;Musil, 1987). Even today, these estates accommodate a socio-economic mixture of residents.…”

The Social Transformation of Large Housing Estates in Poland at the Turn of the 21st Century

“…The process of ageing of large housing estates was analysed in some comparative studies on European cities [Filius and van Kempen 2005;Dekker et al 2011] and on some Central and Eastern European cities [Kabisch and Grossmann 2013;Temelová and Slezáková 2014]. The ageing of estates relates to the time when estates were built and to the fact that estates fl ats were mainly assigned to young families [Kährik and Tammaru 2010;Temelová et al 2011;Kabisch and Grossmann 2013].…”