The Gorbachev era

Abstract

This chapter turns to the Gorbachev era, investigating the more honest appraisal of the housing crisis which appeared in the press, the move towards a private housing market, and the end of a socialist housing policy. It also examines the ways in which both the housing crisis, and the new approaches to the problem were discussed in Ogonek and Rabotnitsa throughout the Gorbachev era, and how the socialist approach to housing which had characterised the previous seventy years was overturned. The housing shortage inevitably encouraged speculation in the distribution of living space. Privatisation would encourage more financial investment in the construction and maintenance of housing, relieve municipalities and enterprises of their responsibilities in relation to the housing they currently owned, and give people more choice and control over their lives. The propiska or registration system remained an impediment to the creation of a genuinely free market in housing.