Population Shifts and Urban Policies in Housing Estates of Tallinn, Estonia

Abstract

Housing estates in the Tallinn urban region are interesting objects of research in many respects. First, as in other post-socialist European cities, the proportion of the population residing in socialist-era apartments is extraordinarily high here. Second, residential units in housing estates were originally state-built and run but are almost fully privatised today. Third, post-Soviet housing estates tend to be multi-ethnic, much like similar residential districts in many other European cities. This chapter reveals that Tallinn housing estates are experiencing gradual social decline: within the first two decades of post-socialism, a remarkable ageing of the population has taken place, the proportion of people with low socio-economic status has increased dramatically in some estates while others have succeeded in remaining relatively stable in this respect, and patterns of ethnic and socio-economic segregation have increasingly overlapped. Interestingly, this silent social decline is not acknowledged by contemporary urban actors. In the early transition years, institutional rearrangements were made (privatisation, new housing management and urban planning rules), but this was followed by a period of political neglect until the late 2000s. Although recent interventions (e.g. social housing projects, densification of housing estates by private developers, support for the renovation of panel buildings and rising community activism) have been more targeted, these policies remain rather chaotic generally. No vision exists for how the efforts of different actors and sectoral policies should stabilise housing estates in the longer run. There seems to be a race against time-although investments and efforts are being made to improve the residential quality of housing estates, this is not sufficient to counterbalance their ongoing stigmatisation and population changes.

Post-socialist Development and Rehabilitation of Large Housing Estates in Central and Eastern Europe: A Review

“…The housing policies in the CEE countries have certain differences. However, in comparison to those in the Western Europe, which tackled the problem of large housing estates, the majority of the post-socialist policies provided no clear vision for the role of these estates in the housing markets and, apart from exceptions, it seems that their future development has often been ignored [39,40]. Therefore, various attempts to respond to the challenges that many of them encountered (e.g.…”

Socio-economic and Ethnic Trajectories of Housing Estates in Tallinn, Estonia

“…The inclusions of mixed ethnic and middle-class status families into the neighbourhoods can contribute to the overall transformation of the neighbourhood environment, making these areas more attractive and liveable, as well as encouraging a sense of community spirit. Some of the initiatives, such as developing community activism, community gardening, developing public spaces and subsidies to housing renovations, among others, are already on the way (Leetmaa et al 2018) with more still to do.…”

Re-thinking Mobility Poverty

“…Surveys from eastern Germany and the Czech Republic indicate that housing estates are still considered a favourable form of residence (Grossmann, Kabisch, and Kabisch 2015). Large housing estates in eastern Europe today benefit from the fact that the development of public transport on such estates was given priority, with the result that access to mobility options may be even better in such areas of cities (Leetmaa et al 2018).…”