Bulgarian Policies towards the Roma Housing Problem and Roma Squatter Settlements

Alexander Slaev

European Journal of Housing Policy, 2007, vol. 7, issue 1, 63-84

Abstract: The paper argues that the national and local authorities in Bulgaria do not utilize the vast experience accumulated by many developed and developing countries, the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) and the World Bank in providing housing for the poor and dealing with squatter settlements. Ignoring this experience is a serious omission, which has resulted in a typically inefficient, top-down ‘slum eradication’ policy. New large-scale projects funded under European programmes also follow this flawed approach. The research identifies several important factors which could inform the development of better policies. For example, it stresses the existing extremely high rate of uncontrolled construction of robust housing made with reinforced concrete in the Roma neighbourhoods. The paper concludes that this is a critical factor, which has become the major threat to living conditions and leaves no other alternative but to regularize the settlements and develop streets and other infrastructure. Yet these high rates of construction serve as evidence that Roma households are capable of contributing to the solution of their own housing problems if only their development initiative is encouraged in the proper direction.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14616710601134753 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eurjhp:v:7:y:2007:i:1:p:63-84

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/REUJ20

DOI: 10.1080/14616710601134753

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Housing Policy is currently edited by Mark Stephens

More articles in European Journal of Housing Policy from Taylor and Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().