Abandoned Places and Urban Marginalized Sites in Lugoj Municipality, Three Decades after Romania’s State-Socialist Collapse

Ioan Sebastian Jucu,Sorina Voiculescu

doi:10.3390/su12187627

Abstract

The postsocialist process of urban restructuring came with important spatial, social, and economic consequences. This triggered important transformations that remain palpable in the everyday texture of urban life, spatial patterns, and even the internal structures of the city. Every urban settlement was bound to contribute to the state socialist industry so that postsocialist urban transformations also included multiple aspects of dereliction and ruination of the socialist industrial assets. Threatening postsocialist urban formations and sustainability, the most common feature is collective neglect at national, regional, and local scales. The transition from state-socialist forms of production to the current market-based system poses many difficulties. This article specifically investigates the problems of urban industrial ruins in Lugoj—which are typical for medium-sized postsocialist municipalities in Romania. The research draws on qualitative data gathered by the authors through semi-structured interviews, personal communication, and oral histories and continuous infield observation (2012–2019). The findings unveil the production and the reproduction of abandoned spaces in Romanian urban settlements in the absence of specific regeneration programs and policies on urban redevelopment and marginalized areas. The analysis reveals that urban ruins harm the quality of life in local communities, damaging both the urban landscape and local sustainability. Further actions for local urban regeneration are urgently needed.

Highlights

In the recent context of postsocialist geographies of de-/reindustrialization, ruin creation, and place making, the present study deals with de-/reindustrialization, urban dereliction, and ruins, a family of topics, both fascinating and omnipresent in cities throughout the world [1,2,3]
The article examines the spatial results of local economic changes with urban ruined sites left in the wake of the transition from the state-socialism to a market economy
Considering different impacts of postsocialist changes in Romania [132], the paper discussed the issue of Romanian postsocialist urban dereliction, with a nonmetropolitan area as a case study, explaining how the city’s government mismanagement on postsocialist economic transition led to the cities’ derelict places

Summary

Introduction

In the recent context of postsocialist geographies of de-/reindustrialization, ruin creation, and place making, the present study deals with de-/reindustrialization, urban dereliction, and ruins, a family of topics, both fascinating and omnipresent in cities throughout the world [1,2,3]. Despite a rich body of literature dealing with the postsocialist urban identity formation as well as the social and economic consequences of the cities’ restructuring [17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31], the issues of urban dereliction remain peripheral at the local level Against such a background, “scholarly interest in ruins and derelict spaces has intensified over the last decade”, the recent studies being disparate, with no sustained investigation. Unused urban places are important in the contemporary urbanization models [26] claiming attention in the present scholarly debates under the new capitalist rules and more involvement of local governments in the local urban development in the postsocialist economic contexts [27]

Methods

Results

Conclusion