The rise of the new European Roma ghettos: a brief account of some empirical studies

Abstract

There is a vivid debate in many European countries on the situation of the Roma minority, both in public circles and among the general public. Housing is not the main topic of the discussion, but the article draws on several cases and argues that the main conflicts we are witnessing today always started from a ghetto or concluded with policies that led to the formation of a new ghetto. As the use of the term ‘ghetto’ itself is not entirely coded within the planning jargon, our attempt is to introduce some epistemic discriminants and also illustrate with several European cases that are part of the extraordinary development of informal settlements and of the transformation of many of them into new ghettos.

Keywords:

• ghetto
• Roma housing
• housing discrimination

Notes

1. For a detailed account of how technical professions took part in this process, see Cole, T., 2003. Holocaust city: the making of a Jewish ghetto. New York: Routledge.

2. I use emic in the sense of the values, goals and meanings used internally in a particular professional millieu that tends to create communities.

3. Research conducted in the project EuRoma, http://www.eu-roma.net. All pictures by Cătălin Berescu unless otherwise indicated.

4. Forester, J., 1989. Planning in the face of power. Berkley: University of California Press, 27.

5. Wacquant, L., 2008. Urban outcasts: a comparative sociology of advanced marginality. Cambridge: Polity.

6. The data on Castel Romano are taken from a report produced by Prof. Karen Bermann of the Iowa State University and her students in 2007 and completed with direct observations and pictures taken during our visit in 2007. A shorter but comprehensive form of the survey was published in the volume Orta, L., 2010. Mapping the invisible: Eu-Roma Gypsy. London: Blackdog Publishers.

7. The use of the terms Roma and Gypsy should be equivalent. Though it is recommendable to use Roma in public discourse and this is actually the name used in Romani language, for the purpose of distinguishing it from the city of Rome I will use it as such in this paragraph. My argument is that the term is not injurious in itself that but the way we use it can be. A recent legislative initiative in Romania is trying to change the name of Roma in Tzigan in order to avoid the possible confusions. The action is actually aiming to tag the Roma and, in a symbolic way, it is quite similar to the yellow star applied to the Jews. However, the everyday use of the terms is less pejorative and, alongside Thomas Acton, a distinguished scholar in Romani studies, I maintain that using both of them will eventually clean the stigma associated with the word.

8. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR39/005/2010/en/b67ca5d6-b8cb-439c-99e3-e7253b7c978f/eur390052010en.html.

9. Cătălin Berescu, Florin Botonogu and Marian Mandache for Romani CRISS, internal report, 2008.

10. Interview by Cătălin Berescu, August 2007, City Hall Mangalia.

11. The Program of Construction of the Lower Standard Municipal Rental Flats for Citizens in Material Need by Dr. Anton Hrabovský, Office of the Government of the SR, State Councilor, Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Slovak Republic for Roma Communities, http://www.romadecade.org/2nd_decade_of_roma_inclusion_housing_workshop.

12. The Housing Aspects of Dealing with Segregated Roma Neighborhoods, Budapest, 25–26 May 2009, organised at the State Secretariat for Regional Development and Construction.

13. (1) Constructive, pragmatic and non-discriminatory policies, (2) Explicit but not exclusive targeting, (3) Inter-cultural approach, (4) Aiming for the mainstream, (5) Awareness of the gender dimension, (6) Transfer of evidence-based policies, (7) Use of European Union instruments, (8) Involvement of regional and local authorities, (9) Involvement of civil society, (10) Active participation of the Roma source EC Platform for Roma inclusion, http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=761&langId=en.