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Romanian Suburban Housing: Home Improvement through Owner-building

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  • Adriana Mihaela Soaita

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Adriana Mihaela Soaita, 2013. "Romanian Suburban Housing: Home Improvement through Owner-building," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(10), pages 2084-2101, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:50:y:2013:i:10:p:2084-2101
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098012471980
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Tahire Erman, 2001. "The Politics of Squatter (Gecekondu) Studies in Turkey: The Changing Representations of Rural Migrants in the Academic Discourse," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 38(7), pages 983-1002, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Toşa, Cristian & Sato, Hitomi & Morikawa, Takayuki & Miwa, Tomio, 2018. "Commuting behavior in emerging urban areas: Findings of a revealed-preferences and stated-intentions survey in Cluj-Napoca, Romania," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 78-93.
    2. Mari Nuga & Kadri Leetmaa & Tiit Tammaru, 2016. "Durable Domestic Dreams: Exploring Homes in Estonian Socialist-era Summerhouse Settlements," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 866-883, July.
    3. Benedek, József & Hărănguș, Iulia & Man, Titus, 2017. "Commuting patterns in Romania: Case study on Cluj County," MPRA Paper 76807, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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