Incomplete Service Networks in Enduring Socialist Housing Estates: Retrospective Evidence from Local Centres in Estonia

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This paper introduces a Special Issue of the Journal of Housing and the Built Environment entitled “Housing estates in the era of marketization – governance practices and urban development”. The issue includes 10 European case studies on how marketization has impacted large housing estates (LHEs) across Europe. The collection includes novel contributions from well-studied countries like France or the United Kingdom, cases from Scandinavia and Mediterranean countries, as well as articles from post-socialist cities where the majority of LHEs are situated, and as such presents the diversity of experiences that has emerged in housing estates across Europe in the last two decades. Since the global turn towards neoliberal governance regimes at the end of the 20th century the commodification of housing, accompanied by the financialization of real estate, has not left any housing markets or market segments untouched. All articles focus on the interconnections between problems found in the development of housing estates and the processes of privatization and marketization. We aim to address two main research gaps: (1) we demonstrate that marketization and financialization are preconditions for the development of contemporary housing, incl. housing estate neighborhoods, and (2) we address the need for an up-to-date pan-European overview on contemporary urban governance and planning practices related to LHEs.

Section: • What Has Also Been Particularly Characteristic Of Neoliber...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Special issue Intro: housing estates in the era of marketization – governance practices and urban planning

Leetmaa

Bernt²

2022

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“…Centralized provision of neighborhood amenities was a critical aspect of socialism, and the allocation of housing to occupants was intended to establish an egalitarian society (Leetmaa & Hess, 2019). To cope with rapid urbanization and industrialization in Skopje, prefabrication appeared to be an ideal solution to rapidly and economically accommodate large numbers of occupants.…”

Section: Prefabrication and Domestic Space In Skopje Before 1991mentioning

confidence: 99%

Enlargement of apartments in socialist housing estates in Skopje under transition: The tension between individual preferences and collective action

Mariotti

Hess

2021

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The post-socialist urban restructuring of Skopje, North Macedonia has been characterized by significant changes in the built fabric of the city, resulting from the political, economic and societal processes following the dissolution of Yugoslavia. In early 1990s and post-privatization, there was a dynamic transformation of the city’s housing stock in post-WWII prefabricated apartment buildings. Flat owners in socialist-era housing estates in Skopje modified their apartments by expanding and enclosing balconies, thus gaining more living space. Garages were converted into shops and ground-floor and first-floor apartments were renovated into offices, resulting in commercialization of previous residential space. To better understand the spatial disorder triggered by transformation of housing estates during the lengthy transition from a centrally-planned system to a market economy, this article evaluates various spontaneous and planned practices of transformation of residential space in housing estates in post-socialist Skopje. We analyze these changing practices of transformation through fieldwork and focus group discussions with residents. We also review archival material and administrative and legal documents, including municipal master plans and national planning laws and decisions related to housing estates in post-1991 Skopje. Findings emphasize the complex interplay between many actors, ideologies and interests that shape the experience of urban life in post-socialist Skopje, evidenced by outcomes related to housing choice and renovation practice, especially the enclosure of balconies for providing more living space. Such interventions are viewed as important steps towards improving living conditions in prefabricated apartment buildings in Skopje. Individual decisions about apartment renovation affect urban planning at the neighborhood level, and the findings from this research thus inform residential mobility and neighborhood-level strategic decision making. The aim is to help neighborhoods—built in an earlier socio-political era under a central planning system—to adapt to future demands.

“…Interesting parallels can be found in contemporaneous socialist cities, where austerity measures were typically applied from the very beginning of mass housing construction. The planned infrastructure and the design of common open areas was never properly finished to the levels shown in the initial plans (Leetmaa and Hess 2019). Furthermore, years-long underfunding in the socialist period was now followed by a complete funding vacuum in the early transition period.…”

Section: Neoliberalism Meets Post-socialist Conditions In Large Housing Estatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As in the West, so in socialist countries the criticism towards uniform and unfinished public space was raised already during the heyday of mass housing construction (Leetmaa and Hess 2019;Wassenberg 2013, 15, 34, 134). Whilst the supply of plentiful free space was Fig.…”

Section: Public Space As a Medium For Governance Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public space as a medium for emerging governance networks in post-privatised large housing estates in Tartu and Vilnius

Pirrus

Leetmaa

2021

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In most post-socialist cities modernist mass housing comprises a remarkable share of urban housing with a substantial population living there. Therefore, socialist large housing estates (LHEs) have been a fruitful source for research to gather systematic knowledge concerning segregation and housing preferences. Less is known, however, of contemporary LHE-related urban policies and planning interventions. This study asks how in the post-privatisation era, when former governance structures had disappeared, did new urban governance arrangements related to LHEs begin to emerge. We take a closer look at two LHE areas in post-Soviet cities: Annelinn (Tartu, Estonia) and Žirmunai Triangle (Vilnius, Lithuania). The research is based on expert interviews and document analysis exploring the formation of governance networks in both cities since the 2000s and the rationale behind recent planning initiatives. A common new spatial expectation for housing estates’ residents and contemporary urban planners seems to be a perceptible differentiation of the public, semi-public and private spaces, instead of the former modernist concept of free planning and large open areas between buildings. As the heightened planning interest came at a time when European cohesion measures supported urban budgets, it also has led to tangible investments, and builds the consensus that the public sector should return to post-privatised LHEs. We argue that public space has been a great medium for modern governance networks and bringing LHEs back to the urban agenda in post-socialist cities and that the lessons learned in the post-socialist context provide an insight for the wider global marketization debate.