Housing inequalities in Bucharest: shallow changes in hesitant transition

Much has been said, yet little remains known, about the impacts of the changes associated with post-socialist transition on housing inequalities in metropolitan Central and Eastern Europe. To some extent, this depends on the scarcity of ‘hard evidence’ about the socialist epoch against which the subsequent developments may be gauged. Based on a case study of Bucharest, the Romanian capital and one of the region’s major cities, this study investigates various lines of housing inequality using data from a 20 % sample of the national censuses of 1992 and 2002. With only minor changes having taken place since the revolutionary events of late 1989, the year 1992 provides an accurate picture of the housing inequalities inherited from the socialist epoch, whereas the new societal order had largely been established by 2002. We use linear regression and binary logistic regression modeling to identify the factors that predict living space and level of facilities. The results suggest that the first decade of transition did not exert any major influences on the housing inequalities inherited from socialism, with the exception of notable improvements at the very top of the social pyramid. This finding is at odds with the literature that highlights the (suggested) effects of socio-economic polarization on the residential structure of cities after socialism. However, the results from 1992 indicate that housing was segmented along socio-economic lines already under socialism, and perhaps more so than one would have expected in the light of the literature on housing inequalities during this period.