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

Abstract

Housing estates consisting of Soviet-era large-scale multi-family housing hold a dominant position in the housing market of Tallinn; slightly less than two-thirds of residents resided there in 2011. These housing segments were attractive to mixed socioeconomic status groups when initially built due to their high rent subsidies and prevalence of modern conveniences in apartments. The historical developments of housing estates intertwined with ethnicity, specifically the extensive in-migration flows during the Soviet era. In this chapter, we investigate how the socioeconomic and ethnic position of housing estates changed over the course of the period of political and economic reforms (1989-2000) and the subsequent decade (2000-2011). The focus is interlinkages between social and ethnic patterns. Findings suggest a steady, downward trajectory in the social composition of these housing estates, excluding some centrally located neighbourhoods. The historical circumstances related to construction dynamics, flows of foreign immigration and allocation patterns explain residential dynamics. Ethnically minority-rich neighbourhoods are more likely to experience a downward social trajectory than housing estates with fewer ethnic minorities regardless of location.

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

“…After the initial fundamental reforms, the global neoliberal agenda has accompanied the evolvement of housing policies and urban planning in post-socialist European countries. We know from literature that both the reputation (Kovács and Herfert 2012) as well as the social composition (Kährik et al 2019) of various residential environments has changed during the post-socialist decades, or has even reversed when comparing the relative housing market position of the LHEs. This is an expected result of non-interventional urban planning that has been supporting the 'natural' dynamics of urban development.…”

“…As a rule, the post-socialist Eastern and Central European cities have not applied any ambitious public urban regeneration programmes. Although there are quite optimistic assessments of the social stability of post-socialist housing estates (Ouředníček 2016), many recent segregation studies demonstrate that LHEs gradually lose their high social-status residents, attract low-income groups and newcomers, including immigrants from less affluent countries (Kährik et al 2019;Valatka et al 2016;Přidalová and Hasman 2018). In multi-ethnic housing estates of post-Soviet cities, the emerging socio-economic segregation patterns increasingly overlap with ethnic segregation lines (Tammaru et al 2016;Burneika and Ubarevičienė 2016).…”

Regional disparities of Immigration-related conflict risks: the case of Estonia

“…The nation is divided into 79 municipalities. Almost half of the Russophone population in Estonia lives in a linguistically homogenous (Russian-speaking) region in northeast of Estonia [9]. In the capital, Tallinn, approximately 53% of the population is of ethnic Estonian descent [10].…”

Housing Estates in the Baltic Countries: The Legacy of Central Planning in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania

“…The starting point for the formation of large housing estates in the USSR can be attributed to the 1957 Communist Party Congress (Hess et al 2018a). Industrialisation subsequently triggered employment-based migration to cities and new housing units were built at breakneck speed in vast planned residential districts (Burneika et al 2019;Kährik et al 2019;Krišjāne et al 2019). Amid a USSR occupation from the 1940s until 1991 and forced industrialisation that fueled urbanisation-due in part to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union-the demand for post-World War II housing was acute, especially in the capital cities of Tallinn (Estonia), Riga (Latvia) and Vilnius (Lithuania).…”

“…Post-World War II urbanisation in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was strongly linked to in-migration from other parts of the Soviet Union, and these mainly Russian-speaking (now) ethnic minorities became the majority urban population in many cities, especially in Estonia and Latvia (Puur et al 2019;Leetma et al 2015). For example, the population of Tallinn increased by 70% between 1959 and 1989 and the share of Russian speakers increased to almost 50% of the city's population (Kährik et al 2019). The respective share is higher in Riga (Krišjāne et al 2019) and lower in Vilnius, where Poles form the third largest ethnic group (Burneika et al 2019).…”