The perils of post-socialist transformation: Residential development in Sofia

Abstract

In this chapter, we discuss the significant changes in residential development patterns that have occurred in Bulgarian cities and, more specifically, in the capital Sofia since the collapse of the socialist system in 1989. We follow the processes of residential restructuring in four “rings” of Sofia. These are: 1) the city center with a residential building stock built primarily in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; 2) the compact city characterized by traditional urban neighborhoods settled in the early to mid twentieth century; 3) the socialist housing estates created between the early 1960s and the late 1980s as the most visible imprint of socialism on the fabric of the city; and 4) the currently evolving suburban periphery (Figure 11.1). In using this typology, we broadly follow the classic concentric model of socialist urban spatial structure proposed by Hamilton (1979) – a model which has been updated in the post-socialist context by authors such as Dingsdale (1999) regarding Budapest, and Sýkora (1999a, 1999b) regarding Prague. We also follow the local interpretation of the spatial structure of Sofia as a city with four development rings outlined in Sofia’s latest general plan (Stolichna Obshtina, 2003). It is important to note that the concentric model – at least in the case of Sofia – provides only a crude representation of the actual patterns of spatial development. As a map of the residential patterns illustrates, the four “rings” of the city are neither quite concentric, nor contiguously defined (Figure 11.2). Instead, they are rather closely intertwined, with historic and new neighborhoods forming an intricate patchwork intermixed with industrial zones and open spaces.1 Nonetheless, the four zones represent built environments with distinct physical characteristics: 1) humanscale, mixed-use urban form in the city center; 2) medium-height residential buildings along a traditional street structure in the inner city neighborhoods; 3) rather Spartan (but well provided with public amenities) modernist high-rises on “superblocks” in the socialist districts; and 4) lower-density residential areas comprised predominantly of single-family homes in the suburban periphery. In each of these four zones, the built environment changed significantly after socialism, but in different ways.