Romanian Suburban Housing: Home Improvement through Owner-building

Adriana Mihaela Soaita

Urban Studies, 2013, vol. 50, issue 10, 2084-2101

Abstract: The new suburban housing developments in post-socialist cities have been ubiquitous icons of socioeconomic and physical change. This paper examines suburban owner-built housing as a long-term strategy of home improvement in Romania. It analyses residents’ motivations and financial strategies to move up the housing ladder through owner-building and their responses to key neighbourhood problems, in particular poor public infrastructure and non-existent public facilities. It is argued that owner-builders generally benefitted from the economic informality, the relaxed legal culture and the unregulated housing context of the Romanian post-socialist transition; but the absence of public actors has weakened their achievements, which is most apparent at neighbourhood level. The paper draws attention to a context of politico-economic reforms and a set of socio-cultural values of housing privatism in which resident responses may frequently generate consequential (collective) problems localised at the level of streets, neighbourhoods or even the whole society.

Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:50:y:2013:i:10:p:2084-2101

DOI: 10.1177/0042098012471980

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