boren gentile 2007 post communist metropolitan

METROPOLITAN PROCESSES IN POST-COMMUNIST STATES: AN INTRODUCTION

© The authors 2007Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography

95

METROPOLITAN PROCESSES INPOST-COMMUNIST STATES: AN INTRODUCTION

byThomas Borén and Michael Gentile

Borén, T. and Gentile, M

., 2007: Metropolitan Processes in Post-Communist States: an Introduction.

Geogr. Ann

., 89 B (2): 95–110.

ABSTRACT. This study introduces a collection of theme issuepapers on metropolitan processes in post-communist states. Wefirst identify and discuss five key significant socialist-era legacyaspects that continue to mould the course of events in the post-communist urban scene. These are central planning, land alloca-tion, the second economy, defence considerations, and the impli-cations of the ideological leadership of the communist parties. Wethen procede to investigate the literature on the unfolding urbangeography of post-communism and the factors underpinning itsdevelopment, and we place the papers collected in this theme issueinto their context.

Key words

: Post-communist city, socialist legacy, cities, post-so-cialism

Introduction

Arguably, post-socialist

1

transformation, under-stood as the economic, political, institutional andideological changes associated with the discardingof “communism” or “state socialism” and the em-bracing of “capitalism” in Central and Eastern Eu-rope (CEE), has been taking place for at least twen-ty years. Its seeds were sown during the economicstagnation of mature socialism, and its first sproutsappeared among the grass roots in the 1980s (evenearlier in Hungary and Czechoslovakia). By theearly 1990s, it had flowered throughout most of theformer realm of Soviet control, accompanied byoverwhelming changes in the spatial organizationof the respective societies and of the cities hostedby them. After the failed attempt at rescuing the so-cialist system through moderate economic and po-litical reforms in some countries (i.e. through

glas-nost’

and

perestroika

in the USSR), post-socialistCentral and Eastern Europe had embarked on along and challenging return journey to Europe(Linnet, 2003; Bunk

∑

e, 2004; Musil, 2005), withthe promise of future prosperity as a guiding light,but also with many casualties on its way.

For post-communist Europe, this return journeymeans being increasingly subject to cross-former-iron-curtain economic, social and political process-

es. Locally, these processes blend with the legaciesand systemically unique processes attributable tothe region’s past experience of socialism and cen-tral planning and the transition therefrom. Thepost-communist city may be viewed as the out-come of an unfought struggle between legacy andtransition (Tammaru, 2001a), or as the urban

mé-lange

produced by double transition; that is, thetransition from an industrial to a post-industrialeconomy characterizing the developed nations onthe one hand, and the economic, political and ideo-logical transition away from region-specific statesocialism on the other (S

=

kora, 2000).However, it is becoming increasingly clear that

there is no single path of post-communist urbantransition (see Tosics, 2005) – after all, the commu-nist legacies of Albania and Russia are perhaps asfar apart from each other as are the economic re-structuring strategies adopted by Slovenia and Be-larus during transition. Likewise, there is no onepost-communist

urbs

, but a range of urban placeswhich have been subject to a grand political andeconomic experiment whose dramatic impacts willbe evident to the eye for many years to come. Thestrongest socialist legacies are evident where so-cialism was kept alive longest (i.e. in most of theFormer Soviet Union), where it coincided withmass urbanization (e.g. in Poland), where the pres-tige of the system was given top priority (e.g. thecentral Moscow or Berlin showcases), in areaswhich hosted grand industrial projects (e.g. NowaHuta near Cracow in Poland), and in areas endowedwith certain natural resources (e.g. the Soviet coalbasins). The socialist new cities – the ultimate ur-ban expression of the communist project – were of-ten located in the latter two. It is clear from theabove, that sustainable theories of the post-commu-nist city cannot be achieved without an appropriateunderstanding of the centrally planned geographiesunderlying it. Therefore, one of the objectives ofthis introduction is to revisit the significance of thecommunist heritage.

During the past two decades there has been an

THOMAS BORÉN AND MICHAEL GENTILE


96

accumulation of research and knowledge on thepost-communist urban scene. The contributionsroughly deal with three interrelated broad themes:(1) urban management and governance (includingthe political processes embedded in transition); (2)social issues and processes; and (3) urban morphol-ogy, including the changes in land use which havebecome apparent since the demise of state social-ism (see Gentile and Sjöberg, 2006, for a review).

Thus far, much research has been concernedwith geographical differentiation and patterns, so-cial or physical. Although full agreement has yet tobe obtained regarding the nature and character ofthese patterns, and of the socialist-era socio-spatialones in particular (see Smith, 1996), it is clear thatthe post-socialist city – in whatever regional guise– stands as a rather unique creature evolving frompast experiences of specific land use patterns (e.g.Bertaud and Renaud, 1997) and socialistic patternsof residential segregation (e.g. Szelényi, 1996).However, many of the processes which underlie theobserved geographical patterns have yet to be un-derstood, and the social complexity and differenti-ation embedded in them has only recently come tothe fore (as in Tammaru, 2005, concerning subur-banization).

To give an example, the much acclaimed processof residential suburbanization in the major cities ofpost-communist Europe has been described care-fully, and its institutional setting has been dissected(see e.g. Ioffe and Nefedova, 1998; Kok and Ko-vács, 1999; Timár and Váradi, 2001; Nuissl andRink, 2005), but crucial questions such as who sub-urbanizes and how suburbanites live have not beenadequately addressed – yet. Likewise, occasionalexcesses in “transitionmindedness” have often ob-scured the role played by global or at least cross-re-gional trends in the shaping of the post-communistcity. For instance, residential suburbanization’scounter-flow, reurbanization, has only recentlyemerged to the surface of the academic waters(Haase

et al

., 2005; Buzar

et al

., 2007).

2

By approaching the three aforementionedthemes of urban management and governance, so-cial issues and processes, and urban morphologywith fresh methods and new datasets, the contribu-tions gathered in this special issue improve on someof these lacunae. The result is a palpable leap for-ward with insights into hitherto poorly exploredfields: the daily rhythm of the suburban household,its social anatomy and geography of (suburban)destinations, the varieties of suburban develop-ment, the impact of demographic change on urban

spatial structure, and the underlying mechanismsof post-communist inner city regeneration.

This theme issue introduction is structured asfollows. First, we will identify and discuss five keysignificant legacy aspects – by no means an exhaus-tive list – that retain a passive or at times even quiteactive role in moulding the course of events in thepost-communist urban scene. These are the (1) cen-tral planning, (2) land allocation, (3) the secondeconomy, (4) defence considerations, and (5) theimplications of the ideological leadership of thecommunist parties. We then investigate the litera-ture on the unfolding urban geography of post-communism and the factors underpinning its devel-opment, and we place the papers collected in thistheme issue into their context.

One-way ticket to the marketplace?

By the turn of the new millennium, most of thegrowing pains associated with transition had beenmitigated by the ripening of “entrepreneurialisa-tion”, the legal system and democratic values.Largely, the countries of CEE have returned to Eu-rope, for post-socialist transition is not only an eco-nomic process whereby the socialist administrativeallocation of goods is replaced by market mecha-nisms of allocation, but also a choice of disassoci-ation from the ideological, political, social and mil-itary context of the past. A reasonable assumptionat this point would be that Central and Eastern Eu-ropean urban development is or will increasinglyresemble the urban of Western Europe, for as Enye-di (1992) clarifies, state socialism should be seen asan intervening rather than a decisive factor inmoulding the course of urbanization. But is this re-ally the case?

Both yes and no.

There is increasing evidence –including some of the papers in this special issue –that the decades of communism are more than atemporary historical parenthesis, and recent trendsin the transformation of the spatial structure of thesettlement system in Central and Eastern Europesupport this. For example, is the rapid process ofsuburbanization that we are currently witnessing inthe Czech Republic, as indeed in most other Euro-pean post-socialist states, merely an expression ofthe suppressed demand for suburban living understate socialism, or could it be that the socialist sys-tem, coupled with the diseconomies generated bycentral planning, may have exerted an empoweringinfluence on the course of events during the post-socialist era, driving it towards a new, perhaps hy-



97

brid, form of urban development? By the same to-ken, are the extensive brownfields resulting fromthe previous socialist practice of heavy industrial-ization, low technological innovation and absenceof incentives for the recycling of land (Bertaud andRenaud, 1997) not factors which may impact on thefuture spatial structure of the cities of CEE to suchan extent that they may intrude in the overall proc-ess of these cities’ return to Europe?

This could be the case, but does it really matter?The communist legacies may likewise be viewed asyet another aspect of the diverse ideological, polit-ical and economic heritage which characterizes Eu-rope, and communism as such was a European in-vention aimed at solving European (and later glo-bal) problems. Its urban by-products were designedin Europe, but were also made and assembled else-where. In sum, the post-socialist city seems to bedeveloping into a new form of European urbanismwhich may be distinct from that in Western Europe,but no more so than the latter is distinct from theMediterranean or Nordic city.

The differences between the

socialist

and theWestern European city are certainly worth empha-sizing, but the fact that there were some importantsimilarities between the two is often neglected andshould be acknowledged. During the post-warepoch of welfarist Keynesianism, the Western Eu-ropean city was rebuilt and modernized largelythrough the implementation of modernist ideas,such as those contained in Corbusier’s projects.Such ideas were often conceived within a socialistideological context, and they were extensively putinto practice in socialist CEE following the mid-1950s’ dismantling of the Stalinist architecturalparadigm of neoclassical grandeur and façadism.

As a result, the socialist and capitalist Europeanpostwar urban peripheries can be remarkably sim-ilar, perhaps even more similar than they were be-fore the advent of socialism in CEE. In this light,the developments which have been taking placesince the demise of the latter point towards in-creased diversity and the rediscovery of nationalheritage within a context of global influences, rath-er than towards homogeneous Europeanization.For example, as Martin Ou

®

ední

π

ek will tell us inhis article in this issue, the wave of middle-classsuburbanization which has invested the Praguemetropolitan region during the past years is largelythe result of the population’s pursuit of the Czechdream of a single family house with a private gar-den. In Russia, on the other hand, Tsarist and Sta-linesque grandeur are being rediscovered or rein-

vented (Glasser, 2004). Further east, in the CentralAsian Republics, the City Beautiful movement hasregained much of its former glory, eased by theemergence and persistence of autocratic govern-ments which value the grandeur of the architectureand planning solutions that it professes (see Anack-er, 2004, for the case of the new Kazakhstani capitalof Astana). Meanwhile, inner city gentrificationand regeneration are reversing the socialist-eratrend of deterioration, while restoring (and possi-bly accentuating) the specific urban forms whichcharacterized the pre-socialist epoch.

Socialist spaces linger ubiquitously, whether theybe hidden behind large advertisement billboards,preserved within the confines of inner city brown-fields, or between the inner walls of the large mo-notonous housing estates built since the early 1960s.While post-socialist transition as a broad societalprocess involves the creation of a socio-economicorder almost

ex novo

, post-socialist transformationis constrained by the inertias of the built environ-ment and therefore characterized by the addition ofnew urban layers rather than the eradication of ex-isting ones. The socialist period left the countries ofCEE with a rather large layer of urban development(and an even larger one in the Former Soviet Union),not only due to the sheer length of the period, butalso due to the socially (and spatially) revolutioniz-ing ambitions of the system itself (Stites, 1989).This layer was shaped by numerous spatially differ-entiated and space-differentiating systemic factors,including the economic and political priority mech-anisms embedded in central planning (Kornai,1992; Tammaru, 2001b; Gentile and Sjöberg, 2006),the specifics of land allocation and use (Bertaud andRenaud, 1997), defence considerations (French,1995; Samuelson, 1999), the second economy(Arnstberg and Borén, 2003), and the ideologicalleadership of the Communist Party (Åman, 1992).Let us explore these factors in greater detail.

Central planning

Let us start with some basic tenets of the dynamicsof the centrally planned economy. During the so-cialist period, all but a handful of economic sectorssuffered from more or less regular shortages – ofraw materials, intermediary goods, labour and cap-ital.

3

The cumulative effect of the shortages in-curred at different levels in the production processwas such that the ultimate burden was placed on theconsumers, who were often faced with the choiceof buying poor-quality goods (if available) or ob-



98

taining nothing at all. Furthermore, the non-com-petitive nature of the business environment, cou-pled with technological backwardness (obviously,with some exceptions), implied that the few goodsthat made it on to the shelves did not necessarily de-serve the honour. Since quality problems werewidespread, they too tended to acquire a cumula-tive character – in Åslund’s (2003, p. 125) words,‘much of Soviet manufacture was sheer value de-traction’, and ‘Soviet raw materials were excellent,Soviet intermediary goods were shoddy, while con-sumer goods and processed foods were substand-ard’. The same is true for the made-under-centralplanning built environment, including factorybuildings and housing. Thus, the socialist city ex-isted in a context of shortage; under such circum-stances, the players in the urban game operate un-der different rules and conventions than they wouldin a market economy.

Shortages notwithstanding, the essence of a cen-trally planned system is that there is a plan – or rath-er countless plans – and that there are plan targetsto be met. This had far-reaching implications. First,the incentives to invest in technological improve-ments or other measures aimed at increasing pro-ductivity were insufficient: faced with the immedi-acy of the plan targets, managers preferred hoard-ing labour and inputs rather than exploring the fieldof increased productivity (Kornai, 1980, 1992;Sjöberg, 1999).

4

Moreover, since substandardproducts could be sold, obsolete production facili-ties peacefully coexisted with more modern ones,as new technologies merely supplemented, ratherthan supplanted, the previous one. The ensuing‘technological pluralism’ (Teodorescu, 1991, p.75) literally had the effect of ‘petrifying’ (Åslund,2003, p. 38) or ‘stiffening’ (Borén, 2005) the in-dustrial landscape to the extent that many pre-so-cialist industrial facilities not only outlived the so-cialist period itself, but also set the course of post-socialist urban development as the extensive innercity industrial areas have succumbed to marketpressures and deindustrialization, turned intobrownfields, and selectively been rediscovered andregenerated (Kiss, 2002).

Second, some plan targets are more importantthan others, but the resources are few, and in the ab-sence of market pricing, this means rationing underthe guidance of the ideological expertise of theCommunist Party. Put differently, under conditionsof shortage, it is vital that the production targetsdeemed most important be given priority expressedin the form of adequate funding, effectively at the

expense of the non-priority economy. In general,heavy industry and the military-industrial complexenjoyed priority over agriculture, light industry andthe services (see Doma

~

ski, 1997). For the individ-ual production unit, the socialist enterprise, prioritywas inversely proportional to budget discipline,with priority enterprises being subject to soft (flex-ible on request) budget restraints, whereas the restwere subject to hard budget restraints (Kornai,1992, pp. 140–145). Certainly, softness was notonly a matter of the authorities’ rationalistic plan-related considerations but also of the political cloutand negotiating skills of the enterprise managers –softness was thus at least partly prepared in the in-formal economy (Doma

~

ski, 1997).The impacts of the priority-based system were

manifold. First of all, given the shortage context,the enterprises with the greatest budgetary ma-noeuvring ability were also the ones best equippedto tackle the shortages. As an example, faced withchronic labour shortage, priority enterprises weremore likely to be able to afford to offer non-wagebenefits such as access to the enterprise-ownedhousing stock, to short-supply consumer goods, tospecial healthcare facilities and so on, in order to at-tract and retain workers (Shomina, 1992; Do-ma

~

ski, 1997; Szirmai, 1998; Gentile and Sjöberg,2006). Furthermore, although most of the enter-prise social infrastructure was usually for the ex-clusive use of the workers and their families, itsmere existence discouraged parallel investment onbehalf of the municipal administration (Doma

~

ski,1997).

The unintended spatial outcome of such tenden-cies demonstrates inequalities on both the physicaland the social level, for the priority-based differen-tiation of the economic organizations active in anycity is echoed by spatial disequilibria in the qualityand, especially, the location of the urban infrastruc-ture. The latter was not equally accessible to all,even though the extent of this inequality was rathermodest compared to that found in cities in marketeconomies. Nevertheless, as Szelényi (1983) arguedconvincingly in connection with the housing alloca-tion system in Hungary, the socialist urban social in-equalities were created by mechanisms which areinherent to the socialist system itself. A crucial setof these mechanisms stems from the priority sys-tem, whose spatial implications have been recentlyconceptualized in the so-called landscape of prioritymodel at the settlement system (Sjöberg, 1999) andintra-urban level (Gentile and Sjöberg, 2006). Cru-cial to the model, and following Kornai (1992, p.



99

143), is the recognition that priorities are relative.Furthermore, they were subject to fluctuations in thepolitical and economic mood of the time, and couldtherefore vary from year to year, or at least plan toplan (even though some sectors were granted stablehigh or low priority, the military-industrial complexand the shoe industry being cases in point).

The specifics of land allocation and use

Land had no market value under socialism and,therefore, its use was not determined by competi-tive bidding but by administrative decisions (Ber-taud and Renaud, 1997). However, since land is ascarce resource, it too was subject to the aforemen-tioned rationing game, where the interests of the in-dustrial enterprises and of the “non-productive” el-ements of the city had to be weighed against eachother (Ruble, 1995). The outcome of this bargain-ing process was usually to the advantage of the en-terprises, for as French (1995, p. 67) puts it, ‘in aconflict of interest, it was no contest’. As a result,industry had first choice, while the town plannerwas near the bottom of the food chain (with thepopulace immediately beneath). The details oftown planning – like many other spheres of publicadministration – were treated as a state secret, andto a certain extent, therefore, town planning wasakin to town lobbying (Gentile, 2003).

Furthermore, in the absence of market pricing,the recycling of land (i.e. the replacement of obso-lete forms of land use by economically more effi-cient ones) was unintentionally discouraged, whilethe demand for land tended to be satisfied throughthe allocation of peripheral greenfield sites (Ber-taud and Renaud, 1997) – the socialist version ofinner city regeneration did not take off until the1980s, and even then at a rather modest pace. In ad-dition to the allocation of greenfield sites to the in-dustrial enterprises, the latter were often also ableto secure land for future use, freezing it for manyyears to come by prohibiting the activities presenton it from developing (because they were to be ter-minated at some point), and the area’s inhabitantsfrom improving their housing situation (see Do-ma

~

ski, 1997; Axenov

et al

., 2006, p. 11; for hous-ing cf. Borén, 2005, pp. 96–97).

This, together with the spatial corollary of tech-nological pluralism outlined above, contributed tothe formation of land use curves specific to social-ism on the one hand, and to disproportions in the in-dustry’s share of the urban land total on the other.

5

Unlike in market cities where the population den-

sity is inversely proportional to distance from thecity centre, socialist cities were relatively denselypopulated at their outskirts. There are three mainreasons for this. First, like industry, housing wasusually built on greenfield sites (see Szelényi,1983; French, 1995). Second, large-scale housingestates were the norm in the post-Stalin era (And-rusz, 1984; Borén, 2005); and third, because indus-try occupied extensive inner city territories and wasnot under recycling pressure (Bertaud and Renaud,1997; Kiss, 2002; Bertaud, 2006). However, itshould be noted that the inner parts of the socialistcities were often densily populated (and in somecases even more so than in market cities), and thatthe CBD did not exist as it is conventionally under-stood. In the post-socialist era, where market fac-tors toll urban space for the most profitable loca-tions, we may notice a clear “CBD-ization” proc-ess, whereby centrally located residential space issqueezed by the advancement of commercial andoffice functions.

In sum, compared with the market-based modelof land use, land allocation under socialism fos-tered the formation of distinct patterns which arecharacterized by rusty inner city over-industriali-zation along with extensive new industrial zones onthe outskirts, rather than high population densitiesin peripheral areas, and the asymmetrical spatialoutcome of the preferential treatment of industry

vis-à-vis

the non-productive functions. These pat-terns have challenging implications for the presentand future development of the post-socialist city.

The second economy

The prevalence of shortages throughout most of theeconomy encouraged the growth of a comprehen-sive informal second economy which deeply in-volved both individuals and organizations (Samp-son, 1985; Ladányi and Szelényi, 1998; Ledeneva,1998; Arnstberg and Borén, 2003; Pavlovskaya,2004; Smith and Stenning, 2006). For the individ-ual, the second economy was a means of securinggoods and services which were otherwise unavail-able or inaccessible; for the organizations, it was away to ensure the fulfilment of plan targets. How-ever, individual and societal interests were not nec-essarily in harmony, and urban spaces today arestill affected both by the spatial legacy of the sec-ond economy and by the remnants of the economicpractices connected to these kinds of economies.

The following example reveals how the secondeconomy directly influenced the physical spatial



100

structure of the socialist cities and the lives of theirinhabitants. Construction workers often removedbuilding materials from the building site in order tobarter them within the economy of favours (Le-deneva, 1998) or sell them on the black market toother private persons (for whom it would be verydifficult to obtain them through formal channels) orto use them for their own needs, thus delaying orimpeding the progress of the works.

6

In turn, theenterprise responsible for the object under con-struction used the ensuing unfinished objects as in-struments in the budget bargaining process

vis-à-vis

the central authorities in order to obtain addi-tional funding for investment.

As a result, socialist landscapes are scarred bycountless unfinished objects (Åslund, 2003), often– it should be added – in peripheral areas, since newconstruction usually took place on greenfield sitesfor the reasons outlined above. Typically, such un-finished spaces (the so-called

dolgostroi

in theUSSR) include various structures (be it future fac-tories, housing or public buildings), armed con-crete carcasses and foundations, or simply semi-prepared or prepared land. In terms of these unfin-ished sites, three developments may be noticed dur-ing the post-socialist epoch. First, those located onhigh-value land, such as in most large or particu-larly prosperous cities and central locations in othercities, became subject to redevelopment due topressure from the market. This may presupposedemolition and typically results in different ormore intense land use. Second, those located onmedium-value land, including most areas in medi-um-sized cities and the central parts of small cities,are completed or converted if this does not requireexcessive investment. Finally, those located onlow-value land preserve the status quo, with nega-tive aesthetic and other impacts on their surround-ing areas.

The second economy also had socio-spatial ef-fects on the city, which is best clarified by the actualway the administrative allocation of housing wascarried out. Given that housing was in shortage, thesystem strongly encouraged taking advantage ofsocial networks (Bodnár and Böröcz, 1998),

7

and/or purely illegal methods in the transaction be-tween the state and the (housing) supplicant (Mor-ton, 1984). Illegal methods may include the abuseof influence and bribes (e.g. in the form of con-struction materials). Although the extent of thisparallel network economy within housing cannotbe estimated in numbers, it is clear that having ac-cess to it was crucial in order to satisfy one’s hous-

ing needs, while lacking such access seriouslydamaged a household’s prospects for receiving ac-ceptable accommodation. In the post-socialist era,personal networks continue(d) to play an importantrole in urban affairs, not least so for individuals andhouseholds needing to loan cash for pre-mortgage-era real estate transactions.

Defence considerations

A relatively neglected aspect of the development ofthe socialist city is the degree to which it was sub-ject to the requirements of the (high-priority) de-fence sector and its associated industries. The de-fence expenditure in the late years of the Soviet Un-ion has been estimated at up to 25 per cent of thecountry’s GDP (Åslund, 2003), and the military-industrial complex certainly employed a largeshare of the urban population.

In the socialist states, as elsewhere, the militaryand its associated industrial complex operated in anatmosphere of secrecy to which the hosting citieswere required to adapt in a number of ways. At thesame time, it posed concrete and coercive demandsas to the shaping of urban space. These two factorshad a fourfold physical impact on the city. First,military-industrial objects often occupied large ter-ritories and, given that they were part of the samestructural context as any other enterprise (albeit asprivileged entities), they too tended to expand intime. As such, they could occupy entire urbanwedges, creating significant physical barriers be-tween neighbourhoods and extensive no-go zones.Second, military-related concerns restricted the ur-ban development (land use) options available toplanners based on the military’s perception of the“defence value” of the city’s localities. The latterfactor was and is of certain importance to marketcities as well; the difference is in scale. Third, de-fence considerations also actively participated inshaping the urban environment and its components.For example, the production facilities of most in-dustrial enterprises had to be built so that they couldbe converted into military-industrial units within aweek, if necessary (Samuelson, 2000; Inga Gold-berga, former Chief Architect of the city of Dau-gavpils, Latvia,

personal communication

, January2006). Likewise, defence considerations were in-strumental in influencing the width of some strate-gic avenues, the depth of the underground system,the distance between buildings, and so on. (Ruble,1990; Kotkin, 1991; Gaddy, 1996; Borén, 2003b,pp. 122–123). Finally, the fourth area of impact was



101

in the semiotic sphere: the socialist cities were (andusually still are in the ex-USSR) saturated withparks, monuments, sculptures, altars, obelisks, se-lect military paraphernalia and so on, remindingpassers-by of the glorious achievements of the re-spective military forces during the Second WorldWar. Certainly, as Borén (2005, p. 89) reminds us,‘the symbolic power [of the war] was used by thecentral authorities as a uniting historical factor informing a supposedly Soviet identity’.

Defence concerns also had important – andmainly deleterious – social impacts. First, they seg-regated the population employed by the militaryand within the military industrial complex fromeach other and from the rest of the population (so-cially or socio-spatially). Those employed by cer-tain sensitive enterprises (commonly referred to as“postal boxes” in the USSR), and their families, en-joyed significant non-wage benefits at the consid-erable social cost of severe restrictions on privatemovement and social contacts (Samuelson, 1999;Gentile, 2004a).

8

Second, they indirectly (or direct-ly via the agency of the secret services) fostered anatmosphere of fear and suspicion. Third, they laybehind the real socialist fear of accurate informa-tion, which took form in the (mis)representation (ifany) of cities on maps of all scales. Borén (2005,ch. 6) points out that the lack of urban spatial in-formation during the socialist period forced citi-zens to acquire this information in other ways; forexample, through personal experience. Given thatmost urban communal and commercial servicessuch as shops and other objects – not only the fac-tories – tended to stay put under conditions of cen-tral planning, the inhabitants of the socialist

urbs

generally knew their city better than their capitalistcity counterparts.

Finally, defence-related activities often carried anegative ecological impact, which is particularlytrue for defence-related heavy industry. Further-more, because the activities that took place withinthe military-industrial complex were kept secret, sotoo was their ecological footprint. Without delvinginto the ecological failures of the socialist city, itshall here suffice to note that the concrete locationof concrete defence-related factories had concreteeffects on concrete urban areas and their inhabit-ants. This raises the issue of environmental justice,as it has been noted that the neighbourhoods mostexposed to the negative externalities of hazardousindustrial production tend to be inhabited by poorand socially vulnerable groups (Gentile, 2003,2004b). Although a similar phenomenon existed in

market economies as well (Boone, 2002), it wasparticularly unjust under socialism because it waskept entirely secret; if the emissions were such thatthey could not be detected by the five senses, therewas no way for the inhabitants to realize what theywere being affected by. When they could be detect-ed, any sign of discontent was effectively sup-pressed by the “organs”.

Implications of the ideological leadership of the party

The ideological leadership of the party had a varyingimpact on the urbanization process under socialism,although the result was quite consistent under thetwo major planning paradigms which characterizedit. Thus, the ideologically grounded extreme focuson industrialisation which characterized the Stalinera in the USSR (1929–1953) and the satellitestates’ Stalin-inspired regimes of the early post-Sec-ond World War period exacerbated the housingshortage; at the same time, these regimes’ appreci-ation of grandeuristic forms of architectural expres-sion had a highly visible impact on the cityscapes ofthe larger cities (Bater, 1980; French, 1995). Lateron, and for the remainder of the socialist period,cheap homogeneous prefabricated housing ar-ranged in self-contained neighbourhood units,

mikrorayony

, became the rule (French and Hamil-ton, 1979; Bater, 1980; Pallot and Shaw, 1981; An-drusz, 1984; French, 1995; Bernhardt, 2005; Borén,2005), while the housing shortage inherited fromthe previous period was not eradicated due to thecontinued pattern of investment in industry; that is,the productive activities in Soviet talk, and disin-vestment in housing and institutions supplying basicsocial needs – the non-productive functions (Szy-ma

~

ska and Matczak, 2002).The discrepancy between the supplies of indus-

trial jobs and housing created a number of prob-lems which undermined the legitimacy of the so-cialist regimes, as the related inequalities in accessto housing were hardly consonant with the Marxistideological tenets on which the system was based.For this reason, as well as for the aforementioneddefence-related purposes, most socialist politiesadopted various measures aimed at limiting urbangrowth and achieving an optimal city size. Themost important measure was that of the internalpassport combined with restrictions on urban-bound migration, with local variations across thesocialist realm (see Lewis and Rowland, 1979;Sampson, 1979; Ronnås, 1982; Matthews, 1993;



102

Sjöberg, 1994; Buckley, 1995; Gang and Stuart,1999; Höjdestrand, 2001, 2004; Gentile, 2004a, forexamples of literature explicitly dealing with thisissue within the Soviet, Russian, Kazakhstani, Al-banian and Romanian contexts).

Although mostly limited to the largest cities,these policies failed on at least two accounts. First,they did not succeed in effectively curbing urban-bound migration since they did not address its mainreasons, including the persistence of an acute so-cio-economic urban–rural divide; second, they di-vided the urban population into a mainstream legalstratum which was entitled access to the urbanservice structures, and a marginalized illegal stra-tum lacking such privileges. Therefore, at best,these methods had the effect of concealing the mostblatant inequalities of the socialist city from its reg-ular inhabitants, its visitors and, possibly, a share ofthe core of party officialdom.

In short, the administrative restrictions on mi-gration and city growth did not succeed in breach-ing the gap between socialist theory and (not so) so-cialist practice. Rather, they probably contributedto its exacerbation; since the semi-coercive meth-ods did not suffice, additional tools of persuasionhad to be implemented. This is where the statepropaganda apparatus came in, its goal being toconvince an under-housed population that thingsare much better, and much more equal, than they atfirst sight might appear to be. Hence, an entire com-munist semiotic landscape layer was applied to thesocialist city. Although it was also the first to dis-appear, at least in Central Eastern Europe, the Bal-tics, and gradually in the major cities of the CIS, itslegacy is re-emerging in the form of new spaces ofcommunist nostalgia (Young and Light, 2006),themselves a product tailored for the growing com-munist heritage tourism rather than for the needs ofthe local population, and in the form of the neo-Sta-linistic spaces and semiotic landscapes which areemerging in Russia, Belarus’ and, to a certain ex-tent, the Ukraine.

Realities at the destination

Although the social and physical spaces of the so-cialist city were moulded by the legacy factors out-lined above, the local mix of ingredients differed atmost scales, producing heterogeneous urban out-comes both within and across the socialist states(Axenov

et al

., 2006, p. 11). Nevertheless, the maincharacteristics of the structural context of socialisturbanization were such that they produced predict-

able spatial patterns and structures which are char-acteristic of the socialist city or, rather, of the cityunder socialism. These patterns and structures aregradually being eroded by strong westerly winds,revealing previous pre-socialist structures on theone hand, but depositing new layers of urban “sed-iments” on the other. If the restitution of national-ized property to former owners or their descendantscontributes to the re-instauration of pre-socialistsocial structures (see Dawidson, 2004), the “inva-sion” by foreign companies has prompted changesin land use which interfere with the spatialities ofsocialism and pre-socialist capitalism alike. Butwesterly winds tend to wane while crossing the Eu-ropean continent: post-socialist Europe is redis-covering difference.

The literature has thus far identified a number ofstriking phenomena, all somehow interrelated, inthe physical and socio-spatial development of thepost-socialist urban areas. Prominently, these in-clude: (1) residential, commercial and industrialsuburbanization; (2) land use changes, particularlyfrom residential to commercial/offices in centrallocations; (3) the formation of inner city brown-fields as a result of deindustrialization; (4) residen-tial and commercial gentrification, and (5) increas-ing socio-spatial polarization. The latter theme in-cludes a rising interest in literally or “psychologi-cally” gated communities (Bachvarov, 2005;Badyina and Golubchikov, 2005; Stoyanov andFrantz, 2006; Blinnikov

et al

., 2006; Hirt and Ko-vachev, 2006).

Behind these processes lie the return of privateproperty and restitution (re-privatization) of realassets to their pre-socialist owners, the privatiza-tion of former state assets and, above all, the reas-sertion of competitive-bid land markets (Pichler-Milanovi

≤

and Andrews, 2005; Bertaud, 2006).Likewise, their intensity and geographical patternsare affected by the cities’ increasing exposure toglobal influences and to the competitive inter-urbanenvironment of the post-socialist non-autarkic eco-nomic setting (Hamilton, 2005; Pichler-Milanovi

≤

and Andrews, 2005; Axenov

et al

., 2006; S

=

kora,2006). The five articles collected in this special is-sue deal specifically with suburbanization (Novákand S

=

kora, Leetmaa and Tammaru, and Ou

®

ed-ní

π

ek), inner city regeneration (Temelová), and de-mographic change under transition (Steinführerand Haase), but they also relate directly or indirect-ly to all five of the above themes.

Almost the entire former socialist block has al-ready embraced the market economy, for, as Kunz-



103

mann (2006, p. 19) Thatcherianly explains, ‘obvi-ously experience shows that there is no alternative’to it. Nevertheless, the image of the socialist period,or rather of the Soviet Union, has partly resurrectedin much of the Former Soviet Union, and especiallyin Russia.

9

As a consequence, the East Central Eu-ropean post-socialist and the city of the Slavic partsof the FSU city are gradually growing apart. Fur-thermore, as the process of urbanization in socialistEurope occurred at an unequal pace, with somecountries remaining little urbanized throughout thelength of the period (e.g. Albania), while others hadbeen substantially urbanized even before the ad-vent of socialism (e.g. the Czech Republic), thepreconditions for urban growth clearly differ, as dothe outcomes. Suppressed urbanization (rural re-tention; see Sjöberg, 1992) and the poor develop-ment of the infrastructure in the Tirana hinterlandunder socialism are the principal determinants ofthe current seemingly uncontrolled sprawl andpopulation growth of the Albanian capital and itsenvirons (Aliaj

et al

., 2003; King and Vullnetari,2003; see also Deda and Tsenkova, 2006; Tahiraj

etal

., 2005). Conversely, the high degree of urbani-zation in the Czech Republic at the outset, coupledwith the socialist regime’s preference for industrialgrowth over increased (high-rise prefabricatedblock) housing supply, meant that

suburbanization

as the next stage of urban development after con-centrated urbanization was suppressed; most of theperi-urban growth that did take place under social-ism should be seen as a pre-urban – not post-urban– phenomenon (Murray and Szelényi, 1984). As aresult, with the right economic and legal context,the Czech-suppressed demand for suburban livinghas now been released.

Suburbanization is widely viewed as the mostconspicuous phenomenon in the spatial develop-ment of post-socialist urban Europe (Timár andVáradi, 2001; Tammaru, 2005). Although the de-velopment is far from ubiquitous – most small andmedium-sized cities, not to mention those locatedin economically depressed regions, have, for in-stance, yet to make serious acquaintance with theprocess – it is safe to say that the most comprehen-sive changes in land use that have been taking placein the larger urban areas of post-socialist Europemay be identified in their respective hinterlands.Former rural settlements have been subject to par-tial gentrification (Kok and Kóvacs, 1999), satelliteurban-type communities have increased their tieswith their core cities through denser commutingties (for Latvia, cf. Bauls, 1992, and Kri

∑

j

7

ne,

2007), new suburban functions are emerging as aresult of investment in suburban greenfield (formergreen belt areas) and cheap conversion-cost brown-field (former outer industrial ring) developments inthe form of new industries, commercial facilitiesand, therefore, employment opportunities at majortransport nodes and along the main arteries (Lo-rens, 2006, p. 105).

Although the process of residential suburbani-zation is common to all developed post-socialiststates, the universality of its specific forms may bequestioned, especially with regard to the socialcomposition of the population segments that are in-volved in it and to the way it is produced in bricksand mortar. There are three main possibilities. Oneis that residential suburbanization under post-com-munist transition might have an evolutionary char-acter, whereby the final result will be similar acrossnations. Alternatively, it may be developing uniquefeatures which reflect its regional cultural, politi-cal, economic and institutional setting. Finally, theevolutionary character of suburbanization mightblend with the peculiarities of place, producingmoderately similar outcomes.

The evolutionary perspective is appealing be-cause the economic factors that underlie post-so-cialist suburbanization – suppressed demand undersocialism, increased disposable incomes for someand, later on, the availability of affordable long-termmortgage options – are or (presumably) will beshared by all post-communist states. As a matter offact, for most countries, the following sequence maybe observed: (1) pre-urban socialist-era suburbani-zation caused by urban housing shortage (Szelényi,1983; Murray and Szelényi, 1984; Sjöberg, 1992);(2) modest post-urban socialist-era suburbanizationdirected towards profitable collective farms (if any)located near large cities (Tammaru, 2001b); (3) ashort period of no or very little activity; (4) the for-mation of small clusters of luxury single-familydwellings for the new elite; and (5) intense (“mass”)suburbanization led by the emergence of a substan-tial middle class and the availability of low-interestloans. Throughout this evolutionary process, popu-lation movements have been taking place betweenthe existing settlements and the core city for variousreasons (e.g. unaffordable housing in the city core,supplementing household income with home-grown food). As the stages of this model progress,the determinants of suburbanization gradually shiftfrom legacy-related to transition-related.

The problem of the above evolutionary perspec-tive is that many countries have not experienced the



104

fifth stage. In some cases there may simply be a de-lay caused by the slow implementation of the ju-ridical and economic reforms necessary for subur-banization to take off. However, in other cases, theenlargement of the middle class and the populari-zation of housing mortgages have led to differentoutcomes despite similar land use patterns at theoutset. In Moscow and Kiev, for example, verticalhousing developments – even at peripheral loca-tions – take precedence over sprawling low-densitysuburbanization. This is not to say that the latter isnot developing at all, but rather that it continues tobe the domain of the economic elite (and thereforemore modest in terms of its territorial extent), as thecase of the Bulgarian capital city region testifies(Hirt and Kovachev, 2006). Hence, we find supportfor the idea that suburbanization is developingunique features in different developed countries,and that there seems to be a distinction between theurban areas of the Slavic republics of the FormerSoviet Union on the one hand and those in CentralEurope and the Baltics on the other. The case ofsome countries in the Balkans, the Caucasus andthe Central Asian republics is yet another story, asthese regions are still undergoing urbanization,while the established urban population was subjectto the same suppressed suburbanization as else-where in the socialist world, which could lead to yetanother variant of metropolitan development (seeTosics, 2005, for an attempt at classifying the rangeof post-socialist cities).

At this point the third alternative would seemmost plausible, since it embraces both the similar-ities and the differences outlined above – at a firstglance. The problem is that the fifth and most im-portant stage does not seem to take place at all insome countries, whereas it is fairly similar else-where. However, it is still too early to say whetherthe Russian one is a case of unfulfilled delayed sub-urbanization, or whether the stage has been by-passed altogether. In either case, awaiting the finalverdict from further East and Southeast, it appearsthat an evolutionary model may be helpful to un-derstand residential suburbanization in some coun-tries, whereas the unique path perspective may ex-plain the rest. In the meantime, while the broad spa-tial articulations of intense residential suburbaniza-tion have been analysed in previous research, itssocial content has not yet been dissected. Likewise,the spatial behaviour of the suburban newcomersremains relatively unknown. Three of the articles inthis special issue address these lacunae, filling im-portant gaps in our knowledge by delving into the

anatomy of Central European (Prague) and Baltic(Tallinn) mass suburbanization.

Martin Ou

®

ední

π

ek’s study of differential migra-tion in the Prague urban region shows that there aremore forms of suburban development than is usu-ally perceived. His article discusses seven differenturban migration processes from the suburbaniza-tion viewpoint, highlighting their significance forthe formation of the social and physical urban en-vironment. The empirical material is unique andthe analysis emphasizes the structure of the resi-dential preferences of the citizens. Taking into con-sideration the different social status of the migrantsand their various reasons for migration, and in con-trast with much of the literature, Ou

®

ední

π

ek arguesthat suburbanization and the subsequent changesboth in the migrant-sending and the receiving dis-tricts need not have negative consequences for theoverall urban environment.

Kadri Leetmaa and Tiit Tammaru take us to theTallinn metropolitan area of the fourth and earlyfifth stages of suburbanization with a study inwhich the people behind the process of suburbani-zation are allowed to emerge from the depth of therich data used by the authors. Leetmaa and Tam-maru demonstrate that the process leads to in-creased socio-economic polarization in the urbanregion: the majority of those who leave the metro-politan core for the districts in the outskirts havepoor levels of (formal) education and tend to occu-py the existing Soviet-era housing stock with itsmonotonous high-rise buildings – now at a greaterdistance from the city. People with higher attainededucational levels, on the other hand, generally re-main in the central parts of the city. When they domove, they tend to resettle in newly produced sin-gle-family houses in the more prestigious districtscloser to the city or along the coast. The first waveof suburbanization in Tallinn is, in other words, aspatially segmented process with increasing subur-ban residential segregation as a consequence.

With Jakub Novák and Lud

]

k S

=

kora we returnto Prague and its new suburbs. The new urbanforms and patterns of habitation in the former so-cialist cities structure the daily activity and mobil-ity patterns of the suburbanites: Novák and S

=

koraexplore the ensuing new patterns by making use ofa time-geographical approach. Their article showshow the urban environment and the actions of in-dividuals, such as commuting to work, supplyingthe household with everyday goods or taking thechildren to school, structure each other. Weekendand leisure activities are also included in this care-



105

ful analysis of how the post-socialist city is func-tionally integrated – and how it is not – with its sub-urbs.

With respect to the force of its spatial impact, theprocess of suburbanization is well matched by thetransformations which have been taking place inthe post-socialist inner city. Several factors havebeen of especial importance here. First of all, undersocialism, commercial properties were virtuallynon-existent (S

=

kora, 1998). With the advent of themarket economy, and with the aid of foreign and,later on, domestic capital, the situation was recti-fied, with new retail and office facilities appearingat high-value locations to such an extent that, forexample, by the early 2000s Tallinn even experi-enced a temporary decline in the price of modernoffice space as a result of oversupply. Second, pri-vatization and property restitution created the pre-conditions for significant reshufflings in the own-ership structure and socio-economic compositionof the residents of the pre-socialist housing stock.In socialist times, when it was mostly inhabited byan ageing and socially marginalized population,this stock was largely left to decay (Szelényi, 1983;Musil, 2005). However, disinvestment in the innercity meant that many historical and architecturallyappealing buildings were preserved, albeit in a di-lapidated condition, providing fertile ground forpost-socialist gentrification (see S

=

kora, 2005).Third, the transformation of the inner city wasmade possible by its rapid deindustrialization,which left extensive brownfields – essentially va-cant, high-value plots with high conversion costsand, in some cases, occupied by valuable pre-so-cialist industrial heritage objects (Kiss, 2002).

Jana Temelová’s article takes us to the recentlydeindustrialized and reinvented working-classcommunity of Smíchov, an inner part of Prague. Inher case study, foreign capital and architectural ex-cellence merged to create a high-profile (flagship)building at a nodal location within the neighbour-hood. Before long, the new structures acted as a cat-alyst of renewal for Smíchov, and a positive radi-ating regeneration effect is demonstrated. Unlike inWestern cities, where comparable large-scaleprojects are often carried out as public–private part-nerships, Temelová shows, in post-socialist cities,that the public part of the partnership tends to beweak and the private side strong.

An often forgotten aspect of urban change is itsunderlying demographic component (Buzar

et al

.,2005). Almost all European countries are experi-encing natural population decline. While the dis-

mal fertility performance of the Western and South-ern European countries has been taking place forseveral decades now, it was not until recently thatthe countries of Central and Eastern Europe havefollowed suit. However, when they did, the declinein fertility rates was dramatic – in

first

demographictransition terms roughly a jump from late stagethree (high fertility and low mortality) or earlystage four (low fertility and low mortality) to an ad-vanced stage five (somewhat higher mortality butlow fertility; see Jones, 1990). As a result, the sizeof the young adult cohorts in many CEE countriesis still rather large

vis-à-vis

that of the previous andfollowing generations. In the medium term, thiscarries the potential for a significant beneficialmacro-economic age dividend (see Malmberg andSommestad, 2000; Bloom

et al.

, 2003), but it alsomeans that the demand for certain types of housingand public services will fluctuate according to thelife cycle stages of the dominant cohort.

Nevertheless, the changes in age composition aremore predictable than changes in household struc-ture. The latter represent the focal point of the Sec-ond Demographic Transition (SDT) theory, accord-ing to which the nexus between lowest-low fertilityand the “higher-order needs” of educated youngadults is self-perpetuating (Surkyn and Lesthaeghe,2004). This is the issue which Annett Steinführerand Annegret Haase address in their article with re-spect to East Central Europe and in particular the in-ner city districts of its urban areas, where signs of the“SDT lifestyle” are appearing in the form of loca–lized reurbanization in the cities of the former EastGermany. The implications of their discussion are ofparticular importance to the ongoing research ongentrification, where the economic and institutionalsettings appear in the foreground. As post-socialistforerunners, Steinführer and Haase argue that thecities of the new

Länder

most likely offer an indica-tion of the possible future directions of urban changein post-socialist Europe as a whole, possibly echo-ing the post-suburban experiences of many NorthAmerican and West European cities.

More on the menu

The papers presented in this special issue are im-portant steps in the advancement of the field of – ifwe may – post-communist urban studies. By way ofconclusion, we would now like to suggest four ar-eas which we believe require further research.

First of all, the

post-Soviet

case

is largely still

terra incognita

. Studies similar to the ones carried



106

out by the authors of the articles in this special issueshould be repeated in the cities of the Common-wealth of Independent States, where the past expe-rience of socialism has been longer and the main di-rections of urban development seem to be depart-ing from those observed in East Central Europe.What is it that makes the post-Soviet case different?

Second, the analysis of the

macro-context

of ur-ban change should expand by embracing the

eco-nomics of out-migration

from the CEE cities. Sincethe EU accession of all of the post-socialist CentralEuropean countries, of the three Baltic States, andnow of Romania and Bulgaria, the migration bal-ance of these countries has deteriorated, particular-ly with regard to the younger educated groups. Ifthe out-migration of these groups is temporary, thereturn migrants are likely to bring improved skills– and therefore wealth – with them. If it is not, therisk of labour market bottlenecks (some of whichhave already appeared, for example, in the con-struction industry) and brain-drain will materialize,reducing or obliterating the competitiveness of theregion’s urban nodes and depauperating the periph-eral and inter-metropolitan spaces (Kunzmann,2006). More research is needed on the effects of thepost-EU accession migration with the objective ofdevising policy solutions aimed at capitalizing onits advantages and minimizing the damages.

Third, within the micro-context, we may notethat most detailed studies of the changing spatialstructure of the post-socialist city have thus fartended to emphasize the areas where the changeshave been most evident; that is, the suburban fringeand the city centre. The areas which were forgottenduring the socialist era remain forgotten, and this isparticularly true for the declining transitional zonesat the outskirts of the inner city areas – areas whosesocial depletion falls under the shadow of the par-allel processes of reurbanization and gentrification.

Finally, the

small and medium-sized cities

stillremain in the periphery of post-socialist urban sci-ence. Although the majority of the urban popula-tion of the post-socialist world resides in such cit-ies, they remain virtually unstudied.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Bank of Sweden Ter-centenary fund for their support granted to thisproject by co-funding the ‘Urban Geographies ofPost-communist States I–VII’ sessions at the Inaugu-ral Nordic Geographers Meeting in Lund, Sweden,10–15 May 2005 (Project No. F2005–1370:1-E).

Thomas Borén thanks

Lillemor och Hans W:son Ahl-manns fond för geografisk forskning

for a projectgrant (Project: Inaugural Nordic Geographers Meet-ing) that supported the work with this theme issue,and the participation in the conference mentionedabove. Michael Gentile thanks the Wallander-Hedelius Research Foundation of Svenska Han-delsbanken for its generous financial support in theform of a Wallander bursary. We also thank ÖrjanSjöberg and Lud

]

k S

=

kora for their highly usefulcomments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this pa-per.

Thomas BorénStockholm UniversitySweden

Michael GentileStockholm School of EconomicsSweden

Notes

1. In this paper, the terms “socialist”’ and “communist” areused interchangeably.

2. Other inner city transformation processes have been the fo-cus of a large volume of research (see e.g. S

=

kora, 1999;Nagy, 2001).

3. However, such shortages did not exclude the existence ofgoods in long-term excess supply, flooding the warehousesand ultimately generating large amounts of waste (see Ås-lund, 2003, pp. 132–133, for more on this topic).

4. To a certain extent, this was also ideologically endorsed bythe party doctrine of full employment, at least before theyears of stagnation.

5. In fact, Bertaud and Renaud (1997, pp. 144–155) report that31 per cent of the total built-up area in Moscow was occu-pied by industries in 1992, as compared to a mere 5 per centin Paris. Furthermore, at certain intermediate distances fromthe city centre (i.e., those corresponding with the first majorring of industrial development), factories are reported to oc-cupy more than two-thirds of all land.

6. Although all land was owned by the state, privately occu-pied single-family housing (“private housing”) was permis-sible to varying degrees in all socialist polities, althoughconvincingly discouraged at times (through heavy taxation,excessive restrictions on plot size and general propagandameans) and merely tolerated otherwise (for more on privatehousing in different real socialist contexts, see Szelényi,1983; Andrusz, 1984, ch. 9; Bater, 1989, p. 118; Ashwin,1999, pp. 39–41; Gentile, 2004b). Towards the end of theSoviet epoch, private housing was occasionally even en-couraged (see Gentile, 2003).

7. In the USSR, the so-called

blat

was an economic systembased on the non-alienated exchange of favours and goodswithin personal networks. It was normal, more or less ubiq-uitously used and not illegal, although ideologically incor-rect (Ledeneva, 1998; Borén, 2003a). For post-socialist eco-nomical networks, see Lonkila and Salmi (2005), Round(2006) and Ledeneva (2006); also Williams (2005).



107

8. In some cases, entire cities – as well as their inhabitants –were kept secret (for more on secret cities, see Tikhonov,1996; Lappo and Polyan, 1997; Rowland, 1998; Gentile,2004a).

9. At the time of writing, the ensuing ideological rift has bub-bled up to the surface of the Tallinn urban scene and of theMuscovite streets. Plans to move a Soviet-era bronze statuecommemorating the Red Army soldiers killed in the SecondWorld War while liberating or occupying (depending on thepoint of view) Estonia from the city centre to a different lo-cation have resulted in lively “anti-fascist” protests on thestreets of Moscow (

Postimees,

25 January 2007, ‘Na mitingv zashchitu bronzovogo soldata v Moskve vyshli 2000chelovek’).

References

ALIAJ, B., LULO, K. and MYFTIU, G. (2003):

Tirana: TheChallenge of Urban Development

. Seda and CO-PLAN, Ti-rana.

ÅMAN, A. (1992):

Architecture and Ideology in Eastern Europeduring the Stalin Era.

MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.ANACKER, S. (2004): ‘Geographies of power in Nazarbayev’s

Astana’,

Eurasian Geography and Economics

45 (7): 515–533.

ANDRUSZ, G. (1984):

Housing and Urban Development in theUSSR

, SUNY Press, Albany, NY.ARNSTBERG, K.-O. and BORÉN, T. (eds) (2003):

EverydayEconomy in Russia, Poland and Latvia

. Södertörn AcademicStudies 16, Almqvist and Wiksell International, Stockholm.

ASHWIN, S. (1999):

Russian Workers – The Anatomy of Pa-tience

. Manchester University Press, Manchester.ÅSLUND, A. (2003):

Building Capitalism – The Transformationof the Former Soviet Bloc

. Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge.

AXENOV, K., BRADE, I. and BONDARCHUK, E. (2006):

TheTransformation of Urban Space in Post-Soviet Russia

.Routledge, London.

BACHVAROV, M. (2005): ‘From guarded apparatchik residenc-es to gated communities in post-communist countries’, paperpresented at the Inaugural Nordic Geographers’ Meeting,Lund, Sweden, 10–15 May.

BADYINA, A. and GOLUBCHIKOV, O. (2005): ‘Gentrificationin central Moscow – a market process or deliberate policy?Money, power and people in housing regeneration in Os-tozhenka’,

Geografiska Annaler: Series B

,

Human Geogra-phy

87 (2): 113–129.BATER, J.H. (1980):

The Soviet City

. Edward Arnold, London.BATER, J.H. (1989):

The Soviet Scene – A Geographical Per-spective

. Edward Arnold, London.BAULS, A. (1992): ‘Daily commuting to work in small towns in

Latvia’, in STRAUCHMANIS, J. and BAULS, A. (eds):

De-velopment Problems of the Small Cities in the Baltic States –Proceedings of an International Seminar

. University ofLatvia, Riga, pp. 15–18.

BERNHARDT, C. (2005): ‘Planning urbanization and urbangrowth in the socialist period’, Journal of Urban History 32(1): 104–119.

BERTAUD, A. (2006): ‘The spatial structures of Central andEastern European cities’, in TSENKOVA, S. and NEDOVI¯-BUDI¯, Z. (eds): The Urban Mosaic of Post-Socialist Europe– Space, Institutions and Policy. Physica-Verlag, Heidelberg,pp. 91–110.

BERTAUD, A. and RENAUD, B. (1997): ‘Socialist cities with-out land markets’, Journal of Urban Economics 41 (1): 137–151.

BLINNIKOV, M., SHANIN, A., SOBOLEV, N. and VOLKO-VA, L. (2006): ‘Gated communities of the Moscow greenbelt: newly segregated landscapes and the suburban Russianenvironment’, GeoJournal 66 (1–2): 65–81.

BLOOM, D., CANNING, D. and SEVILLA, J. (2003): The De-mographic Dividend: A New Perspective on the EconomicConsequences of Population Change. Population MattersMonograph MR-1274, RAND, Santa Monica, CA.

BODNÁR, J. and BÖRÖCZ, J. (1998): ‘Housing advantages forthe better connected? Institutional segmentation, settlementtype and social network effects in Hungary’s late state-so-cialist housing inequalities’, Social Forces 76 (4): 1274–1304.

BOONE, C.G. (2002): ‘An assessment and explanation of envi-ronmental inequality in Baltimore’, Urban Geography 23 (6):581–595.

BORÉN, T. (2003a): ‘What are friends for? Rationales of infor-mal exchange in Russian everyday life’, in ARNSTBERG,K.-O. and BORÉN, T. (eds): Everyday Economy in Russia,Poland and Latvia. Södertörn Academic Studies 16,Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm, pp. 21–36.

BORÉN, T. (2003b): ‘Den sovjetiska förorten som livsmiljö: fall-et Ligovo i St Petersburg’ [The Soviet housing estate as a liv-ing environment: the case of Ligovo in St. Petersburg], inHENNINGSEN, B., WISCHMANN, A. and GRAF, H. (eds):Städtischer Wandel in der Ostseeregion heute – Städers om-vandling i dagens östersjöregion. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 115–137.

BORÉN, T. (2005): Meeting Places of Transformation: UrbanIdentity, Spatial Representations and Local Politics in St Pe-tersburg, Russia. Meddelande, 133, Department of HumanGeography, Stockholm University, Stockholm.

BUCKLEY, C. (1995): ‘The myth of managed migration: migra-tion control and market in the Soviet period’, Slavic Review54 (4): 896–916.

BUNK„E, E. (ed.) (2004): Special issue on ‘Marking Latvia’s re-turn to Europe’, ˙eogr7fiski Raksti 12.

BUZAR, S., OGDEN, P.E. and HALL, R. (2005): ‘Householdsmatter: the quiet demography of urban transformation’,Progress in Human Geography 29 (4): 413–436.

BUZAR, S., OGDEN, P.E., HALL, R., HAASE, A., KABISCH,S. and STEINFÜHRER, A. (2007): ‘Splintering urban popu-lations: emergent landscapes of reurbanisation in four Euro-pean cities’, Urban Studies 44 (5/6): in press.

DAWIDSON, K.E.K. (2004): Property Fragmentation: Redistri-bution of Land and Housing During the Romanian Democra-tisation Process. Geografiska Regionstudier 60, Uppsala Uni-versity, Uppsala.

DEDA, L. and TSENKOVA, S. (2006): ‘Poverty and inequalityin Greater Tirana: the reality of peri-urban areas’, in TSENK-OVA, S. and NEDOVI¯-BUDI¯, Z. (eds): The Urban Mo-saic of Post-Socialist Europe – Space, Institutions and Policy.Physica-Verlag, Heidelberg, pp. 151–170.

DINGSDALE, A. (1999): ‘Budapest’s built environment in tran-sition’, GeoJournal 49 (1): 63–78.

DOMAˆSKI, B. (1997): Industrial Control over the SocialistTown – Benevolence or Exploitation? Praeger, Westport, CT.

ENYEDI, G. (1992): ‘Urbanisation in East Central Europe: socialprocesses and societal responses in the state socialist sys-tems’, Urban Studies 29 (6): 869–880.

FRENCH, A.R. (1995): Plans, Pragmatism and People. UCLPress, London.

FRENCH, A.R. and HAMILTON, F.E.I. (1979): ‘Is there a so-cialist city?’, in FRENCH, A.R. and HAMILTON, F.E.I.(eds): The Socialist City – Spatial Structure and Urban Poli-cy. Wiley, Chichester, pp. 1–21.


© The authors 2007Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography108

GADDY, C. (1996): The Price of the Past – Russia’s Strugglewith the Legacy of a Militarized Economy. Brookings Institu-tion Press, Washington, DC.

GANG, I. and STUART, R.C. (1999): ‘Mobility where mobilityis illegal: internal migration and city growth in the Soviet Un-ion’, Journal of Population Economics 12 (1): 117–134.

GENTILE, M. (2003): ‘Residential segregation in a medium-sized post-Soviet city: Ust’-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan’, Ti-jdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 94 (5): 589–605.

GENTILE, M. (2004a): ‘Former closed cities and urbanisation inthe FSU: an exploration in Kazakhstan’, Europe-Asia Studies56 (2): 263–278.

GENTILE, M. (2004b): ‘Divided post-Soviet small cities? Resi-dential segregation in Leninogorsk and Zyryanovsk, Kaza-khstan’, Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography86 (2): 117–136.

GENTILE, M. and SJÖBERG, Ö. (2006): ‘Intra-urban land-scapes of priority: the Soviet legacy’, Europe-Asia Studies 58(5): 701–729.

GLASSER, S. (2004): ‘Russia’s capital city undergoing a “neo-Stalinist” face-lift’, San Francisco Chronicle, 1 January[available online at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/01/01/MNG8L41KJ81.DTL, last accessed 16 January2007].

HAASE, A., KABISCH, S. and STEINFÜHRER, A. (2005):‘Reurbanisation of inner cities in Europe – scrutinising aconcept of urban development with reference to demograph-ic and household changes’, in SAGAN, I. and SMITH, D.(eds): Society, Economy, Environment – Towards the Sus-tainable City. Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Gda~sk,pp. 77–92.

HAMILTON, F.E.I. (2005): ‘The external forces: towards glo-balization and European integration’, in HAMILTON, F.E.I.,DIMITROVSKA ANDREWS, K. and PICHLER-MI-LANOVI¯, N. (eds): Transformation of Cities in Central andEastern Europe – Towards Globalization. United NationsUniversity Press, Tokyo, pp. 79–115.

HIRT, S. and KOVACHEV, A. (2006): ‘The changing spatialstructure of post-socialist Sofia’, in TSENKOVA, S. and NE-DOVI¯-BUDI¯, Z. (eds): The Urban Mosaic of Post-Social-ist Europe – Space, Institutions and Policy. Physica-Verlag,Heidelberg, pp. 113–130.

HÖJDESTRAND, T. (2001): ‘BOMZJ utan propiska: om mantals-skrivning, bostadspolitik och hemlöshet i Ryssland [BOMZhwithout a propiska: on registration, housing policy and home-lessness in Russia]’, Nordisk Øst-forum 15 (2): 39–50.

HÖJDESTRAND, T. (2004): The Soviet-Russian Production ofHomelessness: Propiska, Housing, Privatisation [online re-source available at http://www.anthrobase.com/txt/H/Hoejdestrand_T_01.htm, last accessed 16 January 2007].

IOFFE, G. and NEFEDOVA, T. (1998): ‘Environs of Russian cit-ies: a case study of Moscow’, Europe-Asia Studies 50 (8):1325–1356.

JONES, H. (1990): Population Geography. Paul Chapman, Lon-don.

KING, R. and VULLNETARI, J. (2003): Migration and Devel-opment in Albania. Working paper C5, Development Re-search Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, Uni-versity of Sussex, Brighton.

KISS, E. (2002): ‘Restructuring in the industrial areas of Budapestin the period of transition’, Urban Studies 39 (1): 69–84.

KOK, H. and KOVÁCS, Z. (1999): ‘The process of suburbaniza-tion in the agglomeration of Budapest’, Netherlands Journalof Housing and the Built Environment 14 (2): 119–141.

KORNAI, J. (1980): Economics of Shortage, vol. A-B. Elsevier,Amsterdam.

KORNAI, J. (1992): The Socialist System: The Political Economyof Communism. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

KOTKIN, S. (1991): Steeltown USSR: Soviet Soceity in the Gor-bachev Era. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.

KRI„J&NE, Z. (2007): ‘New regional mobility trends in Latvia’,paper presented at the Conference on Regional Developmentin the Baltic States, Riga, 1–3 February.

KUNZMANN, K. (2006): ‘Spatial development and territorialcohesion in Europe’, in ALTROCK, U., GÜNTNER, S.,HUNING, S. and PETERS, D. (eds): Spatial Planning andUrban Development in the New EU Member States – FromAdjustment to Reinvention. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp. 19–30.

LADÁNYI, J. and SZELÉNYI, I. (1998): ‘Class, ethnicity and ur-ban restructuring in post-communist Hungary’, in ENYEDI,G. (ed.): Social Change and Urban Restructuring in CentralEurope. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, pp. 67–86.

LAPPO, G. and POLYAN, P. (1997): ‘Zakrytye goroda Rossii’[The closed cities of Russia], Naselenie i Obshchestvo, 16January.

LEDENEVA, A. (1998): Russia’s Economy of Favours – Blat,Networking and Informal Exchange. Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge.

LEDENEVA, A. (2006): How Russia Really Works: the InformalPractices that Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business. Cor-nell University Press, Ithaca, NY.

LEETMAA, K. and TAMMARU, T. (2007): ‘Suburbanization incountries in transition: destination of suburbanizers in theTallinn Metropolitan Area’, Geografiska Annaler: Series B,Human Geography 89 (2): 127–146.

LEWIS, R. and ROWLAND, R. (1979): Population Redistribu-tion in the USSR: Its Impact on Society. Praeger, New York.

LINNET, J. (2003): ‘An everyday moral economy: NGO activismamong young Latvians’, in ARNSTBERG, K.-O. andBORÉN, T. (eds): Everyday Economy in Russia, Poland andLatvia. Södertörn Academic Studies 16, Almqvist & WiksellInternational, Stockholm, pp. 193–212.

LONKILA, M. and SALMI, A.-M. (2005): ‘The Russian workcollective and migration’, Europe-Asia Studies 57 (5): 681-703.

LORENS, P. (2006): ‘Trends and problems of contemporary ur-banisation processes in Poland’, in ALTROCK, U., GÜNT-NER, S., HUNING, S. and PETERS, D. (eds): Spatial Plan-ning and Urban Development in the New EU Member States– From Adjustment to Reinvention. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp.95–111.

MALMBERG, B. and SOMMESTAD, L. (2000): ‘The hiddenpulse of history: age transition and economic change in Swe-den, 1820–2000’, Scandinavian Journal of History 25 (1–2):131–146.

MATTHEWS, M. (1993): The Passport Society: ControllingMovements in Russia and the USSR. Westview Press, Boul-der, CO.

MORTON, H. (1984): ‘The contemporary Soviet city’, in MOR-TON, H. and STUART, R.C. (eds): The Contemporary SovietCity. Macmillan, London, pp. 3–24.

MURRAY, P. and SZELÉNYI, I. (1984): ‘The city in the transi-tion to socialism’, International Journal of Urban and Re-gional Research 8 (1): 90–103.

MUSIL, J. (2005): ‘Prague returns to Europe’, in HAMILTON,F.E.I., DIMITROVSKA ANDREWS, K. and PICHLER-MI-LANOVI¯, N. (eds): Transformation of Cities in Central andEastern Europe – Towards Globalization. United NationsUniversity Press, Tokyo, pp. 281–317.


© The authors 2007Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography 109

NAGY, E. (2001): ‘Winners and losers in the transformation ofcity centre retailing in East Central Europe’, European Urbanand Regional Studies 8 (4): 340–348.

NOVÁK, J. and S+KORA, L. (2007): ‘A city in motion: the time-space activity and mobility patterns of the suburban inhabit-ants and the structuration of the spatial organization of thePrague Metropolitan Area’, Geografiska Annaler: Series B,Human Geography 89 (2): 147–168.

NUISSL, H. and RINK, D. (2005): ‘The “production” of urbansprawl in Eastern Germany as a phenomenon of post-socialisttransformation’, Cities 22 (2): 123–134.

OU†EDNÍ∏EK, M. (2007): ‘Differential suburban developmentin the Prague urban region’, Geografiska Annaler: Series B,Human Geography 89 (2): 111–126.

PALLOT, J. and SHAW, D. (1981): Planning in the Soviet Union.Croom Helm, London.

PAVLOVSKAYA, M. (2004): ‘Other transitions: multiple econ-omies of Moscow households in the 1990s’, Annals of the As-sociation of American Geographers 94 (2): 329–351.

PICHLER-MILANOVI¯, N. and DIMITROVSKA ANDREWS,K. (2005): ‘Conclusions’, in HAMILTON, F.E.I., DIMITRO-VSKA ANDREWS, K. and PICHLER-MILANOVI¯, N.(eds): Transformation of Cities in Central and Eastern Eu-rope – Towards Globalization. United Nations UniversityPress, Tokyo, pp. 465–487.

RONNÅS, P. (1982): ‘Centrally planned urbanization: the case ofRomania’, Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geogra-phy 64 (2): 143–151.

ROUND, J. (2006): ‘Marginalised for a lifetime: the everyday ex-periences of Gulag survivors in post-Soviet Magadan’, Geo-grafiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 88 (1): 15–34.

ROWLAND, R.H. (1999): ‘Secret cities of Russia and Kaza-khstan in 1998’, Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 40(4): 281–304.

RUBLE, B. (1990): Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City. Universityof California Press, Berkeley, CA.

RUBLE, B. (1995): Money Sings: The Changing Politics of Ur-ban Space in Post-Soviet Yaroslavl’. Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge.

SAMPSON, S. (1979): ‘Urbanization – planned and unplanned:a case study of Bra≠ov, Romania’, in FRENCH, A.R. andHAMILTON, F.E.I. (eds): The Socialist City – Spatial Struc-ture and Urban Policy. Wiley, Chichester, pp. 507–524.

SAMPSON, S. (1985): ‘The informal sector in Eastern Europe’,Telos 66: 44–66.

SAMUELSON, L. (1999): Röd koloss på larvfötter. SNS Förlag,Stockholm.

SAMUELSON, L. (2000): Plans for Stalin’s War Machine: Tu-kachevskii and Military-Economic Planning, 1925–1941.Palgrave Macmillan, London.

SHOMINA, E. (1992): ‘Enterprises and the urban environment inthe USSR’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Re-search 16 (2): 222–233.

SJÖBERG, Ö. (1992): ‘Underurbanisation and the zero urbangrowth hypothesis: diverted migration in Albania’, Geo-grafiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 74 (1): 3–19.

SJÖBERG, Ö. (1994): ‘Rural retention in Albania: administrativerestrictions on urban-bound migration’, East European Quar-terly 28 (2): 205–233.

SJÖBERG, Ö. (1999): ‘Shortage, priority and urban growth: to-wards a theory of urbanisation under central planning’, UrbanStudies 36 (13): 2217–2236.

SMITH, D.M. (1996): ‘The Socialist city’, in ANDRUSZ, G.,HARLOE, M. and SZELENYI, I. (eds): Cities after Social-ism, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 70–99.

SMITH, A. and STENNING, A. (2006): ‘Beyond household econ-omies: articulations and spaces of economic practice in post-socialism’, Progress in Human Geography 30 (2): 190–213.

STEINFÜHRER, A. and HAASE, A. (2007): ‘Demographicchange as future challenge for cities in East Central Europe’,Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 89 (2):183–195.

STITES, R (1989): Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision andExperimental Life in the Russian Revolution. Oxford Univer-sity Press, New York.

STOYANOV, P. and FRANTS, K. (2006): ‘Gated communitiesin Bulgaria: interpreting a new trend in post-communist urbandevelopment’, GeoJournal 66 (1–2): 57–63.

SURKYN, J. and LESTHAEGHE, R. (2004): ‘Value orientationsand the Second Demographic Transition in Northern, Westernand Southern Europe: an update’, Demographic Research,Special collection 3, Article 3 [available online at http://www.demographic-research.org/special/3/3/s3-3.pdf,last ac-cessed 9 February 2007].

S+KORA, L. (1998): ‘Commercial property development in Bu-dapest, Prague and Warsaw’, in ENYEDI, G. (ed.): SocialChange and Urban Restructuring in Central Europe.Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, pp. 109–136.

S+KORA, L. (1999): ‘Changes in the internal structure of post-communist Prague’, GeoJournal 49 (1): 79–89.

S+KORA, L. (2000): ‘Post-communist city’, in JAZDZEWSKA,I. (ed.): XII Konwersatorium Wiedzy o Mie5cie. Miasto post-socjalistyczne-organizacja przestrzeni miejskiej i jej przemi-any. Universytet …ódzky, Komisja Geografii Osadnictwa iLudno5ci PTG, …ódzkie Towarzys. Naukowe, …ód6, pp. 41–45.

S+KORA, L. (2005): ‘Gentrification in post-communist cities’,in ATKINSON, R. and BRIDGE, G. (eds): Gentrification inGlobal Context: The New Urban Colonialism. Routledge,London, pp. 90–105.

S+KORA, L. (2006): ‘Urban development, policy and planning inthe Czech Republic and Prague’, in ALTROCK, U., GÜNT-NER, S., HUNING, S. and PETERS, D. (eds): Spatial Planningand Urban Development in the New EU Member States – FromAdjustment to Reinvention. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp. 113–140.

SZELÉNYI, I. (1983): Urban Inequalities Under State Socialism.Oxford University Press, New York.

SZELÉNYI, I. (1996): ‘Cities under socialism – and after’, in AN-DRUSZ, G., HARLOE, M. and SZELÉNYI, I. (eds): CitiesAfter Socialism – Urban and Regional Change and Conflictin Post-Socialist Societies. Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 286–317.

SZYMANSKA, D. and MATCZAK, A. (2002): ‘Urbanization inPoland: tendencies and transformation’, European Urban andRegional Studies 9 (1): 39–46.

SZIRMAI, V. (1998): ‘“Socialist” cities (new towns) in the post-socialist era’, in ENYEDI, G. (ed.): Social Change and UrbanRestructuring in Central Europe. Akadémiai Kiadó, Buda-pest, pp. 169–187.

TAHIRAJ, E., MEHILLI, E. and DEDA, L. (2005): ‘Tirana urbanchallenges’, in ECKARDT, F. (ed.): Paths of Urban Trans-formation. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 259–280.

TAMMARU, T. (2001a): ‘Urbanization in Estonia in the 1990s:Soviet legacy and the logic of transition’, Post-Soviet Geo-graphy and Economics 42 (7): 504–518.

TAMMARU, T. (2001b): ‘Suburban growth and suburbanisationunder central planning: the case of Soviet Estonia’, UrbanStudies 38 (8): 1341–1357.

TAMMARU, T. (2005): ‘Suburbanisation, employment change,and commuting in the Tallinn Metropolitan Area’, Environ-ment and Planning A 37 (9): 1669–1687.

TEMELOVÁ, J. (2007): ‘Flagship developments and the physical


© The authors 2007Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography110

upgrading of the post-socialist inner city: the Golden Angelproject in Prague’, Geografiska Annaler: Series B, HumanGeography 89 (2): 169–181.

TEODORESCU, A. (1991): ‘The future of a failure: the Roma-nian economy’, in SJÖBERG, Ö. and WYZAN, M.L. (eds):Economic Change in the Balkan States: Albania, Bulgaria,Romania and Yugoslavia. Pinter, London, pp. 69–82.

TIKHONOV, V. (1996): Zakrytye goroda v otkrytom obsh-chestve. Institut Narodnokhoziaistvennogo PrognozirovaniiaRAN, Moscow.

TIMÁR, J. and VÁRADI, M. (2001): ‘The uneven developmentof suburbanization during transition in Hungary’, EuropeanUrban and Regional Studies 8 (4): 349–360.

TOSICS, I. (2005): ‘City development in Central and Eastern Eu-rope since 1990: the impact of internal forces’, in HAMIL-TON, F.E.I., DIMITROVSKA ANDREWS, K. and PICH-LER-MILANOVI∏, N. (eds): Transformation of Cities inCentral and Eastern Europe – Towards Globalization. UnitedNations University Press, Tokyo, pp. 44–78.

WILLIAMS, C.C. (2005): ‘Work organization in post-socialistsocieties’, Futures 37 (10): 1145–1157.

YOUNG, C. and LIGHT, D. (2006): ‘The socio-cultural geogra-phies of “Communist heritage tourism”’, paper session 5156at the 102nd Annual Meeting of the Association of AmericanGeographers, Chicago, 7–11 March.

boren gentile 2007 post communist metropolitan

Documents