Large-Scale Housing Estates in Central and East European Cities: Between Residential Preferences and Local Housing Market Differences

Abstract

Large-scale housing estates are an important but vulnerable part of the housing market in Central and Eastern European Cities. This article aims to shed some light on the complexity of socio-spatial development in different large-scale housing estates, and the reappraisal of the building stock from the socialist period since 1990 in Vilnius, Budapest, Sofia and Leipzig. Socio-spatial development is explained from the perspective of the metropolitan housing market on the supply side and housing preferences and residential mobility on the demand side. The research findings reveal that the evaluation of prefabricated housing by local residents is surprisingly similar in the cities investigated. To some extent this appears to be due to the transnational influences of cultural stereotypes in a globalizing society. On the other hand, social selective residential mobility very much depends on aspects of the local housing market such as housing supply and demand, the diversity of the housing stock or housing tenure patterns within a specific city. The research findings demonstrate that very different basic conditions for processes of socio-spatial differentiation prevail. By increasing choice, perception of the large-scale estates is gaining in importance for future development.

Key Words:

• Large-scale housing estates
• Housing preferences
• Comparative housing research
• Socio-spatial differentiation
• Post-socialist cities

Notes

^aAccording to unofficial data the city’s permanent population is around 2.5 million.

^bIncorporation of communities: 1998.

^cIncorporation of communities: 2001–2005.

1. The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and has been ongoing at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography since 2007, in cooperation with the Department for Geography, Hungarian Academy of Science, the Institute for Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the University of Vilnius and the faculty of Geography, St. Petersburg State University.

2. The household survey was augmented by expert interviews in each city and each neighbourhood, based on a common interview guide. Four to five in-depth interviews were carried out with selected experts in the winter of 2007/08.

3. For example, in Vilnius and Budapest open spaces are owned by the municipality; therefore public investment and measures to enhance open space and parks depend on the priorities of the public authorities. In Sofia open space is usually privately owned.

4. Other locally more important housing types (e.g. lofts, gated and guarded communities) could also be included.

5. Based on expert interviews with real estate agents in all investigated cities, same survey.

6. The respondents were asked to specify to what extent their household income would allow them to buy food, diverse long-term commodities, a car or even a property. [TS: this endnote should be number 6].