Housing for the new socio-economic elite - a case study of novi sad

Abstract

This paper examines the spatial dimension of economic inequalities that occurred in Serbia over the last 2 decades. The paper presents a case study of a city of Novi Sad, which has undergone radical changes both within its social and spatial structure that even today remain unparalleled in the region in terms of their nature and rate. In the 1990s, the specific political and economic conditions have led to the great transformations in demographics and the overall social structure, since the city, formerly experiencing negative population growth rates, has been rapidly populated by refugees from the wars in former Yugoslavia. At the same time, a large gap between the poor and the wealthy was created as the result of changes that marked the transition to the post-communist society. This has caused great changes of the built form that previous master plans could not anticipate. The implications of this process for housing involved the spatial segregation of diverse socio-economic groups. The paper presents 2 urban fragments where the houses for the new economic elite were built, both of which represent inadequate models. Both cases represent monotonous environments that lack spatial complexity and not encourage community binding. Therefore the paper also includes a proposal of a new concept for the housing for the inhabitants with higher-incomes

Urban Geographies of Hesitant Transition: Tracing Socioeconomic Segregation in Post‐Ceauşescu Bucharest

“…Dunford and Smith, ; Stenning, ; Smith et al ., ; Smith and Timár, ), and geographers are particularly concerned with the spatial expressions and implications of these costs. With this in mind, many scholars — though certainly not all, as opposed to what Kostreš and Reba (: 331) opine — have associated social and/or income polarization with mirroring developments in urban space (Vendina, ; Węcławowicz, ; Sailer‐Fliege, ; Brade et al ., ; Polanska, ). However, systematic attempts at socio‐spatial pattern description have been produced only recently (e.g.…”

Post-socialism and urban transition: Transforming the socialist city

“…The social structure of residential areas may be described as the most visible indicator of location-specific conditions, but also of very influential global residential trends (Kostreš, Reba, 2010). Due to sky-rocketing prices of centrally located real estate and poor housing conditions in pre-war and socialist buildings, the upper middle class started moving to suburbs and newly built neighborhoods, while the well-off elite opted for luxury apartments in gentrified areas or single-family houses in closed suburban communities.…”

Analysis of Compatibility of Contemporary Residential Housing in Nis with Current Standards in the Republic of Serbia

“…The process of social division between the rich and the poor is significant part of the overall transformation that occurred as a consequence of various factors -some were caused by globalizing trends and the others came as the results of post-communist transition and the specific historical and political circumstances. Along with social polarization, there are definite signs of a spatial dimension to this process [2]. The size of the apartment is often dictated by increasing poverty of population and market demands.…”

“…The aim of this paper is to determine the extent of deviations from adopted design standards through the analysis of representative sample of residential housing buildings constructed during this period in the central zone of Niš, and identify some potential factors that influenced it. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]…”