Conceptual forum: the “post-socialist” city

Abstract

This conceptual forum consists of three contributions that critically assess the relevance of the theme issue’s central concept – the post-socialist city. By doing so, we elaborate on a long-standing discussion that has been taking place among urban scholars interested in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), which is whether and to what extent “post-socialist” still makes sense to describe and understand what has been happening in this region’s cities over the past 30 years. In addition, this forum maps potential pitfalls urban scholars encounter when they use this term and searches for ways to overcome these. The first two contributions (Hirt, Ferenčuhová) deal with the role of the socialist city as a theoretical concept to which the post-socialist city is inherently connected. The third text (Tuvikene) proposes a new conceptualization of post-socialism in urban studies that would extend the relevance of the term beyond the imaginary world of post-socialist cities. Together, the three contributions attempt to add to the debate about research on post-socialist cities and its relation to, and position in, international urban theory.

Keywords:

• Urban theory
• urban geography
• post-socialist cities

Notes

1. This work was supported by the Grant Agency of the Masaryk University, Project No MUNI/A/1114/2015‚ “Society and its dynamics: qualitative and quantative perspective” (SPOJKA). I would like to thank Michael Gentile for his helpful comments on the first versions of this text.

2. For example, Fisher (1962, 253) states, “The more closely the socialist center approaches the above outlined concept, the more radically it departs from the traditional capitalist concept of the central business district” (emphasis added).

3. Sjöberg (1999, 2219) explains this tendency as stemming from the aim to create at least some theory of socialist cities.

4. http://www.revolverrevue.cz/o-nas?k = historie.

5. This work was supported by the Estonian Research Council postdoctoral project PUTJD580 and Estonian Research Council project IUT3–2 (Culturescapes in transformation: towards an integrated theory of meaning making).

6. Including references to Hirt’s use of privatism would add some more attention to studies outside the FSU/CEE. However, these tend to merely refer to the experience of the region and do not really conceptually use the term (the conceptual uses of it remain to papers studying the region).

7. Although using “post-socialism” as a de-territorialized term makes it more similar to “informality” in that sense.

8. “Loosening state” is understood as a situation in which political control, and the control of spatial arrangements associated with it, dissipates (see Harrison and Todes 2015).