The ‘Housing Question’ and the State‐Socialist Answer: City, Class and State Remaking in 1950s Bucharest

Abstract

Housing nationalization as a solution to urban inequalities has a long history in European social thought. This article describes housing nationalization in a state-socialist context. Using a political economy perspective and relying on recently released archival material about housing in 1950s Romania, I argue that nationalization may be regarded as a special type of urban process. Nationalization raised the occupancy rate and intensified the usage of existing housing, desegregated centrally located neighborhoods, turned some residential space into office space for state institutions, facilitated the degradation of the existing housing stock and gradually produced a socialist gentry. Aside from similarities with other state-socialist nationalizations from the same period, Romanian nationalization resembled the housing policies of other statist regimes. The data also suggest that, even in the context of revolutionary change, the state is a sum of multiple, often diverging projects, rather than a coherent actor.

‘Get out of Traian Square!’: Roma Stigmatization as a Mobilizing Tool for the Far Right in Timişoara, Romania

“…The current trend of emphasizing segregation through the creation of neo‐ghettos has been linked to economic and political interests (Clough Marinaro, ; ) and to attempts to avoid harassment (Filčák and Steger, ; Powell and Lever, ). The pressures on Roma housing in Romanian urban areas has been considered in Lancione's (; ) and Chelcea's (; ) ethnographic works. Chelcea ( ibid .)…”

“…An important development in the post‐communist period was the introduction of national laws regarding houses that had been nationalized under the previous regime (see also Chelcea, ; ). In the communist era, following the emigration of ethnic Jews and Germans from Romania, local authorities offered many Romanian and other ethnic groups (including the Roma) the opportunity to become tenants in the former nationalized houses in the central area, including the Piaţa Traian area.…”

Weird Exoskeletons: Propositional Politics and the Making of Home in Underground Bucharest

“…According to Kligman (), in 1989 there were 156,000 children in state's orphanotrophies. Third, Romania opted to privatize its public housing assets in the 1990s and in the 2000s (Chelcea, ; Marcinczak et al , ) . This, coupled with the closure of many state orphanotrophies and the impact of general economic decline on lower‐class workers, led to a rise in the number of homeless people in the country during the early 1990s (O'Neill, ; Florea and Dumitriu, ).…”

Perception on poverty and inequality concerning social housing

“…Another problem that significantly shrunk the function and scope of social housing has been the problem of housing restitution of the nationalized houses (Chelcea, 2006(Chelcea, , 2012Stan, 2013;Dawidson, 2004). This is a former socialist specific problem.…”