A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Racialised postsocialist governance in Romania’s Urban Margins : housing and local policymaking in Ferentari, Bucharest
Postsocialist urban development is partially characterised by housing deterioration and the perpetual overrepresentation of Romanian Roma in substandard dwellings. These phenomena are particularly noticeable in the margins of larger Romanian cities. Many poor Romanians found, in urban peripheries, a last resort during a period of economic crisis and housing shortages. In the meantime, public policy and urban planning have focused on maintaining ‘collective order’ and accommodating the wishes of the ‘decently’ housed residents of the city. This is certainly the case in Bucharest, where squatters and homeless people have been expelled from central districts and where the same privileged districts receive substantially more attention. This collective order is apparently deemed more important than the needs of marginalised groups in Romanian society. This article examines how urban marginality is addressed at the municipal level and how ‘parsimonious’ public intervention in poor residential areas is justified. In doing so, I highlight the roles of postsocialist devolution, inadequate use of EU and national funds, and reviving racialisation in reproducing housing poverty.
Racialised postsocialist governance in Romania’s Urban Margins : housing and local policymaking in Ferentari, Bucharest
Postsocialist urban development is partially characterised by housing deterioration and the perpetual overrepresentation of Romanian Roma in substandard dwellings. These phenomena are particularly noticeable in the margins of larger Romanian cities. Many poor Romanians found, in urban peripheries, a last resort during a period of economic crisis and housing shortages. In the meantime, public policy and urban planning have focused on maintaining ‘collective order’ and accommodating the wishes of the ‘decently’ housed residents of the city. This is certainly the case in Bucharest, where squatters and homeless people have been expelled from central districts and where the same privileged districts receive substantially more attention. This collective order is apparently deemed more important than the needs of marginalised groups in Romanian society. This article examines how urban marginality is addressed at the municipal level and how ‘parsimonious’ public intervention in poor residential areas is justified. In doing so, I highlight the roles of postsocialist devolution, inadequate use of EU and national funds, and reviving racialisation in reproducing housing poverty.
Racialised postsocialist governance in Romania’s Urban Margins : housing and local policymaking in Ferentari, Bucharest
Teodorescu, Dominic (author)
2019-01-01
doi:10.1080/13604813.2020.1717208
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Racialised postsocialist governance in Romania’s urban margins
| Taylor & Francis Verlag | 2019
Confronting suburbanization: Urban decentralization in postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe
| Online Contents | 2016