Cities After Socialism E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Studies in Urban and Social Change
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 672

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Cities After Socialism is the first substantial and authoritative analysis of the role of cities in the transition to capitalism that is occurring in the former communist states of Easter Europe and the Soviet Union. It will be of equal value to urban specialists and to those who have a more general interest in the most dramatic socio-political event of the contemporary era - the collapse of state socialism. Written by an international group of leading experts in the field, Cities after socialism asks and answers some crucial questions about the nature of the emergent post-socialist urban system and the conflicts and inequalities which are being generated by the processes of change now occurring.

Leseprobe

Contents

Contributors

Preface

1 Cities in the Transition

THE NATURE OF THE TRANSITION AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CITIES IN IT

SOCIALIST URBANIZATION AND THE TRANSITION IN CONTEXT

STATE SOCIALIST CITIES AND REGIONS

CITIES IN THE TRANSITION: HOUSING AND LAND PRIVATIZATION

THE EMERGENT CAPITALIST CITY: A GERMAN CASE STUDY

THE NEW POLITICS: URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND NATIONALISM

CITIES AFTER SOCIALISM

NOTES

2 Structural Change and Boundary Instability

EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE IN THE CENTURY TO 1945

THE ADOPTION OF THE SOVIET-TYPE ECONOMIC MODEL

FROM REFORM TO REJECTION OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE-COMMAND ECONOMY

REINTEGRATION INTO THE GLOBAL MARKET

POLITICAL CHANGE AND TERRITORIAL FRAGMENTATION

CLASS RESTRUCTURING IN POST-COMMUNIST SOCIETIES

REAL ESTATE AS A SOURCE OF CONFLICT AND ACCUMULATION

URBAN SPACE

CONCLUSION

NOTES

3 The Socialist City

PHYSICAL ORGANIZATION

SOCIO-ECONOMIC DIFFERENTIATION IN THE SOVIET CITY

ETHNIC SEGREGATION

INEQUALITY IN THE SOCIALIST CITY

NOTES

4 Urbanization under Socialism

WAS THERE A SOCIALIST URBANIZATION?

LATE DEVELOPMENT

URBAN DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES IN THE SOCIALIST ERA

SPECIAL FEATURES OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN EAST CENTRAL EUROPE

5 Privatization and its Discontents: Property Rights in Land and Housing in the Transition in Eastern Europe

PRIVATIZATION AND ITS MEANINGS

SOVIET PROPERTY RIGHTS

SOVIET AND WESTERN PROPERTY RIGHTS COMPARED

THE TRANSITION FROM SOVIET PROPERTY RIGHTS

THE LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF PRIVATIZATION: A GENERALIZED MODEL

SUMMARY AND INTERPRETATION

NOTES

6 Housing Privatization in the Former Soviet Bloc to 1995

TENURE DISTRIBUTION UNDER THE SOVIET SYSTEM

POWER TO LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

THE RECORD ON PRIVATIZATION

BROADER IMPACTS

CONCLUSIONS

NOTES

7 From the Socialist to the Capitalist City: Experiences from Germany

DIFFERENCES IN URBAN DEVELOPMENT

THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF THE ‘SOCIALIST CITY’

THE LOCAL POWER STRUCTURE

THE TRANSITION TO A ‘CAPITALIST CITY’

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

SUMMARY

NOTES

8 Environmental and Housing Movements in Cities after Socialism: The Cases of Budapest and Moscow

INTRODUCTION

ENVIRONMENTAL AND HOUSING ORGANIZATIONS UNDER STATE SOCIALISM

ENVIRONMENTAL AND HOUSING ORGANIZATIONS SINCE 1989/90

EXPLAINING THE DEVELOPMENT OF HOUSING AND ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENTS IN THE POST-SOCIALIST CITY

CONCLUSION

NOTES

9 A New Movement in an Ideological Vacuum: Nationalism in Eastern Europe

THE CONTINUITY OF NATIONALISM IN EASTERN EUROPE

THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO NATIONALISM IN EASTERN EUROPE

INDICATORS OF NATIONALISM

APPROACHES TO JUST SOLUTIONS IN ETHNIC POLITICS

10 Cities under Socialism – and After

POSING THE PROBLEM

SOCIALIST CITIES: THE THEORETICAL PUZZLE

URBAN POPULATION GROWTH UNDER SOCIALISM

SOCIALISM AND URBANISM

DID THE URBAN FORMS DIFFER IN SOCIALIST SOCIETIES?

CITIES AFTER SOCIALISM

CONCLUDING REMARKS

NOTES

Bibliography

Index

Studies in Urban and Social Change

Published by Blackwell in association with the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Series editors: Chris Pickvance, Margit Mayer and John Walton

Published

The City Builders

Susan S. Fainstein

Divided Cities

Susan S. Fainstein, Ian Gordon, and Michael Harloe (eds)

Fragmented Societies

Enzo Mingione

Free Markets and Food Riots

John Walton and David Seddon

The Resources of Poverty

Mercedes González de la Rocha

Post-Fordism

Ash Amin (ed.)

The People’s Home?

Social Rented Housing in Europe and America

Michael Harloe

Cities after Socialism

Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post-Socialist Societies

Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe and Ivan Szelenyi (eds)

Forthcoming

Urban Social Movements and the State

Margit Mayer

Urban Poverty and the Underclass: A Reader

Enzo Mingione

Editorial matter and organization copyright © Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe and Ivan Szelenyi 1996

Copyright for all chapters rests with Urban Research Publications Ltd, with the exception of Chapter 3, which is reproduced by kind permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1996

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Blackwell Publishers Ltd

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Oxford OX4 1JF

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Blackwell Publishers Inc

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

British Library Cataloging in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cities after socialism: urban and regional change and conflict in post-socialist societies / edited by Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe, Ivan Szelenyi.

p. cm.

Studies in urban and social change

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-55786-164-L. – ISBN 1-55786-165-X (pbk.)

1. Cities and towns – Communist countries. 2. Post-communism. I. Andrusz, Gregory D. II. Harloe, Michael. III. Szelenyi, Ivan.

HTl19.C564 1996

307.76'0947 – dc20

95–51981

CIP

To our friends and colleagues in former Yugoslavia. May they have cities to live in and peaceful lives to live there.

Contributors

Gregory Andrusz

Faculty of Social Sciences, Middlesex University, Queensway, Enfield, Middlesex EN3 4SF

György Enyedi

Centre for Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, PO Box 527, Budapest H-1538, Hungary

Michael Harloe

Office of Research and European Liaison, University of Essex, Colchester C04 3SQ

Hartmut Häussermann

Humboldt-Universität, Fachbereich Sozialwissenschaften, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin

Peter Marcuse

Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, Avery Hall, Columbia University, NY 10027

Chris Pickvance

Urban and Regional Studies Unit, Darwin College, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NY

David M. Smith

Department of Geography, Queen Mary and Westfield College, Mile End Road, London El 4NS

Raymond J. Struyk

The Urban Institute/USAID Shelter Cooperation Program, 19, Prospect Mira, Moscow 129090

Ivan Szelenyi

Department of Sociology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1551

Klaus von Beyme

Philosophisch-Historische Fakultät, Universität Heidelberg, Hauptstrasse 120, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany

Preface

From its inception in 1977, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research had a particular interest in publishing analyses of urbanization in the state socialist countries. In the late 1980s, given the relative paucity of readily available literature on this topic, I thought that an edited collection of the best of these papers, together with some new material, would be a useful project. Greg Andrusz and Ivan Szelenyi agreed to become my co-editors in what we then thought would be a relatively easy and speedy task.

However, no sooner had we begun our book on ‘socialist cities’ than the objects of our attention began to slip, with ever accelerating speed, into history. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as communism collapsed and as the new social, economic and political orders in the former state socialist countries began to take shape, the plans for this book, and the list of contributors, had to be revised several times. In fact, editing Cities after Socialism has been like trying to run down an up escalator (or vice versa – depending on one’s ideological orientation). Readers should bear in mind that most of this book was written between 1993 and the early months of 1995.

I must thank all those who have kept their patience during the years that it has taken to bring this work to a conclusion, especially my co-editors, the contributors and our publisher. Thanks are also due to our friends and colleagues in the countries of Eastern Europe who have helped us in many different ways, during times that have been difficult and sometimes dangerous for them.

Michael Harloe

Colchester

1

Cities in the Transition

Michael Harloe

Writing about the February Revolution in Russia, precursor to the October Revolution that swept the Bolsheviks to power, Trotsky (1967/1932–3: 141–5) highlighted the leadership role played by the Petrograd workers and the crucial importance of political developments in the capital city. He writes ‘[i]t would be no exaggeration to say that Petrograd achieved the February revolution. The rest of the country adhered to it. There was no struggle anywhere except in Petrograd.’ He adds, ‘[i]f the capital plays as dominating a role in the revolution as though it concentrated in itself the will of the nation, that is simply because the capital expresses most clearly and thoroughly the fundamental tendencies of the new society’ More prosaically, he points out that in Russia as elsewhere’ the ruling class and those who sought to overthrow them naturally concentrated in the capital city, so, not to paraphrase Trotsky, this was where the action (mainly) was.

The Soviet system was born, therefore, as an immediate consequence of an urban-based struggle for dominance. Between 1989 and 1991 it died in similar locations. Much of the drama of these years was played out in the capital (and other major) cities of the Soviet Union and the state socialist countries of East and Central Europe. Inevitably those of us who observed as amazed and stunned onlookers from the West remember the television images of the struggle in the cities – the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the Velvet Revolution in the streets of Prague, the resistance in the streets of Moscow to the 1991 coup that marked the final spasm of the Soviet system.

However, the role of cities and urbanization in the formation of capitalism and socialism, and the two transitions between them that we have witnessed in the East in this century, go far beyond the immediacies of the street politics of revolution. Behind the phenomenon of the Petrograd proletariat lay capitalist industrialization and its consequences, urbanization and the creation of a new class structure, together with a system of political domination that was essentially city based, in terms of its ruling elites and the state apparatus. Likewise, state socialism, with its emphasis on industrialization under the control of a centralized one-party state, created cities and ruled from them. Therefore, the cities of capitalism and socialism both shape and are shaped by their respective forms of economic organization, class formation and political structures. The socio-spatial organization of cities, their politics and administration, their housing and property markets, their patterns of social interaction are directly linked to the major features of the socialist and capitalist orders.

This book is concerned to identify and analyse some of these links and how they are changing in the process of transformation now occurring in Eastern Europe and the territories of the former Soviet Union (FSU). As will immediately become evident to the reader, this is no easy task, as it involves drawing conclusions about phenomena and processes that are still evolving at a rapid rate and, frequently, under chaotic circumstances. However, there are two reasons why periods of such tumultuous social and urban change pose a challenge to social science which ought not to be ignored. The first concerns the contribution that social science can make to policy debate and prescription. In the current case, as several of the following chapters demonstrate, a new urban society is evolving that is deeply but mistakenly influenced by drastically over-simplified and even dangerous attempts to reject and/or ignore the significance of persisting legacies from the socialist period. Similar dangers also lie in the over-eager adoption of presumed characteristics of capitalist economies and urban systems. The doctrines of neo-liberal economics, tried and found wanting in the West during the 1980s, are having a rerun a decade later in the East, One purpose, then, of this book is to substitute analysis for ideology in the task of understanding the urban transition that is now under way, and thus contribute to counteracting the belief that a new social order can be produced according to the neo-liberal (or any other) rule book.

A second aim links to the first but is more ambitious. It is to understand more about the distinctive nature of cities and urbanization in differing social formations, namely in the now abolished state socialist societies, in Western capitalist societies and, crucially in the context of this book, in the emergent forms of capitalist urbanization now occurring in the East. What were socialist cities, and what is succeeding them? What are the dynamics of this transition? Are these remade cities similar in most respects to those in the ‘advanced’ capitalist world? Or might they be more like the peripheral capitalist cities of the Third World, or some hybrid or new form? What, if anything, is the legacy of the old socialist urbanization for the emergent one? Is urbanization best understood as a functional consequence of advanced industrial societies, with technologically derived uniformities that far outweigh in importance the impact of capitalist and socialist modes of domination?