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J Hous and the Built Environ (2015) 30:6985
DOI 10.1007/s10901-014-9396-3
ARTICLE
Adriana Mihaela Soaita
Received: 22 May 2013 / Accepted: 30 January 2014 / Published online: 5 February 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract The post-communist privatisation of state ats to sitting tenants has transformed Romania into a nation of homeowners; yet its popularity appears perplexing given the poor quality of the stock and disappointing, given at-owners subsequent lack of action regarding home improvement. Conversely, self-builders proactive agency moved them up the housing ladder. While this striking contrast draws attention to various structural conditions, which have constrained the former and enabled the latter, it also raises intriguing questions on residents meanings of home. By interrogating 48 homeowners narratives, this paper sustains the multilayered and multi-scalar meanings of home, which intertwine the socio-cultural territory of family and nation; the physical frame of one room or several dwellings; the emotional domain of object-memories; and the ontological realm epitomised by something as minimal as my bed. Findings demonstrate that at-owners and self-builders do not signicantly differ in their meanings of home but detached houses rather than ats facilitate more fully their appropriation.
Keywords Communist housing Eastern Europe Homeownership Housing
privatisation Meanings of home Romania
1 Introduction
Eastern European societies have been twice subjected to signicant socioeconomic and political structural changes, which have since been reshaping every domain of life, including housing. These predominantly agricultural and rural societies were rapidly industrialised but urbanised in a controlled and delayed approach (Kornai 1992). The
A. M. Soaita (&)
Centre for Housing Research, Department of Geography & Sustainable Development, Centre for Housing Research The Observatory Buchanan Gardens University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9LZ, UKe-mail: [email protected]
The meaning of home in Romania: views from urban owneroccupiers
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political economy of communism had important implications for housing provision and access. Urban housing consisted predominantly of centrally planned large housing estates of small ats, which were built in insufcient numbers and allocated by municipalities or state enterprises. Benetting from utility provision and urban location unlike other forms of housing, these ats were in high demand and signied social status (Sillince 1990). The post-communist privatisation of state housing was quantitatively signicant in all countries but Bulgaria, where the state had...