Large-Scale Housing Estates in Central and East European Cities: Between Residential Preferences and Local Housing Market Differences

Abstract

Large-scale housing estates are an important but vulnerable part of the housing market in Central and Eastern European Cities. This article aims to shed some light on the complexity of socio-spatial development in different large-scale housing estates, and the reappraisal of the building stock from the socialist period since 1990 in Vilnius, Budapest, Sofia and Leipzig. Socio-spatial development is explained from the perspective of the metropolitan housing market on the supply side and housing preferences and residential mobility on the demand side. The research findings reveal that the evaluation of prefabricated housing by local residents is surprisingly similar in the cities investigated. To some extent this appears to be due to the transnational influences of cultural stereotypes in a globalizing society. On the other hand, social selective residential mobility very much depends on aspects of the local housing market such as housing supply and demand, the diversity of the housing stock or housing tenure patterns within a specific city. The research findings demonstrate that very different basic conditions for processes of socio-spatial differentiation prevail. By increasing choice, perception of the large-scale estates is gaining in importance for future development.