Post-communist Cities Research Articles

Carrots Without Sticks: Cycling Policy of Mediumsized Polish Cities

Abstract Development of cycling infrastructure is becoming a global trend in urban policies. High congestion, mitigating smog and CO2 reduction have led to the re-birth of cycling as a significant mode of urban mobility. The article aims to present the response of medium-sized Polish cities (ranging from 100.000 to 200.000 residents) to these challenges, which are among the most important problems to solve within the next decades. The study analyses the cycling policy of Polish cities, showing the dynamic increase in kilometres of cycle paths constructed (often built alongside street renovation projects), as well as the boom in bike-sharing programmes. Shortcomings such as the lack of consistency in realisation and varied implementation in different cities and culturally ingrained preference for cars, related to historical experiences of post-communist cities, are also outlined. The Polish approach is the cautious policy of carrots without sticks, in which solutions facilitating bicycle travel are not followed up by deterrents against using cars. As a result, there are no political conflicts and opposition regarding this issue, but the numbers of cyclists (although increasing) is still lower than in the world’s leading bicycle cities.

From the Editor

From the Editor Scott Ury With contributions on the United States, India, and central, eastern and southern Europe, this issue of History & Memory raises a series of fascinating questions regarding the many ways that memory intersects with and sheds light upon central aspects of modern society, including colonialism and racism, communism and democracy, capitalism and culture, and tourism and cities. The first article by Robert J. Cook focuses on the efforts to forge and maintain a coherent, unifying memory of the American Civil War. Cook shows how race and the cause of racial equality were progressively eliminated from the memory of the war among Federal veterans (and their descendants) who preferred, over time, to emphasize narratives of solidarity and reconciliation with their former adversaries of the Confederacy. As Cook notes, the "embrace of North-South reconciliation contributed to the eclipse of the Unionist narrative," including the "memory of the Civil War as a wicked proslavery rebellion" (5–6). Helle Jørgensen also considers the intersection between war, memory and society by exploring the web of meaning woven around a French imperial war memorial in the Indian city of Puducherry. Addressing important methodological and theoretical questions relating to the connection between the colonial past and the postcolonial present, Jørgensen argues that the "French war memorial plays a particular role in the construction of post/colonial memory" (40), one that highlights the multidirectional process of negotiating and reconfiguring postcolonial relations. Sabine Stach similarly explores the intersection between empire, memory and tourism, but in the radically different context of guided tours to postcommunist sites of memory in three distinct urban environments, Warsaw, Prague and Bratislava. Stach maintains that by serving as "time capsules that allow immersion in the past," these tours "can both strengthen and unsettle historical images" and thereby evoke a mixture of seemingly contradictory responses, ranging from nostalgia for bygone days to a complete rejection of the communist era (76, 102). [End Page 1] Like Stach, Manuel Ghilarducci analyzes the pivotal role that memory plays in postcommunist cities across eastern Europe, in this case the capital of Belarus, Minsk. Based on the work of the Belarussian artist and writer Artur Klinau, Ghilarducci illustrates "the paradoxes that lie at the core of the political antagonisms and the struggles over collective memory and questions of identity" in Belarus (111). Focusing on questions related to the transition between the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, on the one hand, and the very nature of Belarusian national identity, on the other, he argues that Klinau's work "seeks an escape from binarism but succeeds only partially…" and that "the erased elements return and create the idea of a postcolonial city which should come to terms with its hybridity" (115). David Rodríguez-Solás continues many of the themes raised by Cook, Stach and Ghilarducci regarding the role that memory plays in societies that have undergone dramatic periods of "transition." Through his analysis of independent theater in Spain of the 1970s, he questions the prevailing hegemonic narrative of the Spanish transition to democracy as "a negotiated, normalized and nonconfrontational process" (145). Throughout, he emphasizes the role that cultural productions play "as a countermemory of the process of democratization" and the manner in which independent theater served both as "the testing ground for a profound reshaping of theater practice and a space for socialization and political action" (144). Although separated by geography, political setting and time, the five contributions to this issue address a number of common points regarding memory and its changing role as a broken lens onto a crooked past. Despite the illusion of clarity, memory, as a means of revisiting or constructing individual or collective interpretations of times past and lives present, repeatedly fails to resolve many of the political, intellectual and existential divides in contemporary societies. These shortcomings, however, ultimately allow the authors to provide a deeper understanding of how different aspects of our world intersect with, influence and shape one another over time and space. Far from being monolithic or schematic, the image of memory that emerges is one that is simultaneously divided and coherent, changing and permanent, elusive and pervasive, past and present. [End Page 2] Copyright © 2021 The Trustees...

Public participation in post-communist cities between stagnation and progress: The examples of Zagreb and Ljubljana

IN ENGLISH: Public participation in the urban transformation of capital cities is an important factor to consider when assessing the quality of democracy in post-communist countries. This study examines participatory processes in two capital cities, Zagreb (Croatia) and Ljubljana (Slovenia). The cases studied are summarized, and similarities and differences are pointed out using the comparative method (Tabor Park and the BS 7 neighbourhood in Ljubljana, and the Mestrovic Pavilion and Savica Park in Zagreb). Findings from 2018 and 2019 showed a rather low level of public participation in Zagreb. In Ljubljana, the level of public participation was higher and the legal basis for it stronger, although there was a certain amount of dependence on political and economic factors. In both cities, public participation in its most direct form was present at the level of NGO and civil initiative activities. Residents’ communication with the city administration was poor and did not facilitate the participation process. --------------- IN CROATIAN: Participacija javnosti u urbanoj transformaciji glavnih gradova važan je faktor koji treba uzeti u obzir pri procjenjivanju kvalitete demokracije u postsocijalistickim zemljama. Ovo istraživanje ispituje participativne procese u dva glavna grada, Zagrebu (Hrvatska) i Ljubljani (Slovenija). Proucavani slucajevi su sažeto prikazani, te su istaknute slicnosti i razlike koristenjem komparativne metode (park Tabor i naselje BS 7 u Ljubljani, te Mestrovicev paviljon i park Savica u Zagrebu). Nalazi iz 2018. i 2019. godine ukazali su na prilicno nisku razinu participacije javnosti u Zagrebu. U Ljubljani je razina participacije javnosti bila visa te je njezina pravna osnova bila snažnija, iako je u određenoj mjeri bila prisutna ovisnost o politickim i ekonomskim faktorima. U oba grada participacija javnosti je u svojem najneposrednijem obliku bila prisutna na razini aktivnosti nevladinih udruga i građanskih inicijativa. Komunikacija stanovnistva s gradskom upravom bila je slaba i nije olaksavala proces participacije.

Energy Vulnerability in the Grain of the City: Toward Neighborhood Typologies of Material Deprivation

Geographers are increasingly engaging with the driving forces and implications of energy poverty—a specific but relatively unknown form of material deprivation that emerges at the nexus of sociodemographic inequalities and built formations. In this article, we argue that an improved understanding of the urban embeddedness of energy poverty can provide novel insights into the systemic underpinnings of injustice. We thus develop a conceptual framework focusing on the links between the sociodemographic and housing vulnerabilities to energy poverty on the one hand and wider patterns of urban social inequality on the other. This approach is applied to the study of several postcommunist cities in eastern and central Europe (ECE), where energy poverty has expanded rapidly over the past two decades. Using evidence from extensive custom-built neighborhood surveys, we interrogate the sociodemographic, housing, and infrastructural features of households that experience a lack of adequate domestic energy services. Our results point to the existence of distinct landscapes and typologies of energy vulnerability in the urban fabric. Material deprivation—a phenomenon that has rarely been studied in infrastructural terms—creates new sociospatial inequalities that might supplant patterns and processes of intraurban differentiation.

City with or without God? Features of post-secularism in religious landscape of post-communist Prague

ABSTRACTThe religious climate caused significant changes over the last few decades which led to intense debates about post-secularism in Western Europe. However, there is particularly a distinct lack of analyses of the features of post-secularism in post-communist cities. The paper draws on the case study of Prague where the religious landscape is in many ways unique in a European context because of its highly secularized society. Nevertheless, Prague also experienced a revival of religious life, which has found expression in the religious landscape (not only) through the emergence of new sacral structures, pluralization of religion and post-secular rapprochement in religious institutions. The paper examines the convergent and contradictory processes shaping the religious and non-religious landscape in Prague and therefore opens the discussion about post-secularism in post-communist context. The results point to the importance of historical, social, and urban development for the new geographies of religion. New areas of research should also draw attention on the new religious movements and alternative spirituality which helps to explain the relationship between sacred and secular phenomena in current European society and space and the re-definition of the minority role of religion in the secular society.

Introduction: Post-socialist cities and urban theory

The main stimulus for this theme issue came from the perception shared by several scholars that “post-socialist” (or “post-communist cities”)1 cities are poorly visible in the urban studies literat...

Rich and Poor Cities in Europe. An Urban Scaling Approach to Mapping the European Economic Transition.

Recent advances in the urban science make broad use of the notion of scaling. We focus here on the important scaling relationship between the gross metropolitan product (GMP) of a city and its population (pop). It has been demonstrated that GMP ∝ Y Ypopβ with β always greater than 1 and close to 1.2. This fundamental finding highlights a universal rule that holds across countries and cultures and might explain the very nature of cities. However, in an increasingly connected world, the hypothesis that the economy of a city solely depends on its population might be questionable. Using data for 248 cities in the European Union between 2005 and 2010, we found a double GMP/pop scaling regime. For West EU cities, β = 1 over the whole the period, while for post-communist cities β > 1 and increases from ∼1.2 to ∼1.4. The evolution of the scaling exponent describes the convergence of post-communist European cities to open and liberal economies. We propose a simple model of economic convergence in which, under stable political conditions, a linear GMP/pop scaling is expected for all cities. The results suggest that the GMP/pop super-linear scaling represents a phase of economic growth rather than a steady, universal urban feature. The results also suggest that relationships between cities are embedded in their political and economic context and cannot be neglected in explanations of cities, urbanization and urban economics.

Regeneration projects in Central and Eastern European post-communist cities: Current trends and community needs

During the period of transition after the fall of communism in the late 1980s, cities in the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) encountered a range of processes that have reshaped their structure and functions. Regeneration effort was a major approach considered as a suitable tool to overcome burdens of the communist urbanistic model, which was typical of high population density, extent public spaces, and resulting in a weak interlink between urban design and the needs of local communities. In this paper, we use the best practice approach and analyse 56 urban regeneration projects carried our between 1989 and 2011 in 12 of the CEECs in order to identify the key issues addressed by regeneration effort and to evaluate the success with which the regeneration projects involved local communities. In addition, the case study based on a questionnaire survey (Neštěmice, Northern Czechia) is presented, illustrating the level of public participation within the regeneration project and perception of project results by the local community. Our results suggest that although there exist important territorial differences among the CEECs, the involvement of local communities in planning and designing the regeneration projects is still generally low. It is also shown that the regeneration projects in post-communist cities are not resolved comprehensively, i.e. that the structures, which are subject to regeneration, are addressed individually with weak relation to community needs and to the surrounding areas of a city.

The urban space of post-communist cities, informal settlements and brownfields during climate change

The urban space of post-communist cities, informal settlements and brownfields during climate change

English

Travelling to cities has long traditions, but in recent years tourists more frequently decide to visit places which are not typical tourist attractions. One of the new, alternative methods of spending free time in cities is urban exploration. It is a kind of quasi-tourism consisting in rediscovering forgotten and abandoned places. In the countries of Central and Eastern Europe which were the part of the former Eastern Bloc, this phenomenon can be observed particularly in post-communist cities and districts, such as NowaHuta in Krakow, Poland. The aim of the article was to identify places visited by urban explorers in NowaHuta and to indicate the main problems of managing city tourism in the context of this type of adventure travel development. Urban exploration is considered controversial but is constantly gaining more and more popularity. The main tourism products are not the specific monuments and museums but emotions and experiences of tourists. This requires proper management of tourism according to the rules of sustainable development and the concept of experience economy. The explorers in NowaHuta act on the edge of law, which causes their activity to be seen in a negative way. In the wider perspective, however, they contribute to reviving the local activity for protecting, restoring and rendering the buildings of the communist heritage available. Key words: Urban exploration, communist heritage, tourism management, city tourism, experience economy, Krakow, NowaHuta.

The housing policy nexus and people’s responses to housing challenges in post-communist cities

The housing policy nexus and people’s responses to housing challenges in post-communist cities

Preplet stanovanjskih politik in odzivi ljudi na stanovanjske probleme v postsocialističnih mestih

Preplet stanovanjskih politik in odzivi ljudi na stanovanjske probleme v postsocialističnih mestih

The dialectics of urban cosmopolitanism: between tolerance and intolerance in cities of strangers

Cosmopolitan cities have been envisioned as colourful, aesthetically creative places at the centre of trade routes and empires, imaged in their bazaars and cafes, where spices and exotic objects are traded or avante-garde artistic and literary expatriates congregate. In the twenty-first-century world of accelerated migrations, cosmopolitan cities are made visible in the proliferation of ethnic restaurants and festivals. But despite their cultural heterogeneity, cosmopolitanism in cities remains a fragile achievement. Such cities have the potential, it seems, to erupt into violence or, on the contrary, to display an intercultural creativity that transects and transcends social divisions. Building on Humphries and Skvirskaja’s work on ‘post-cosmopolitan’ cities, the present paper compares Eastern Mediterranean cities historically famous for their cosmopolitanism like Istanbul and Thessalonika, contemporary post-Communist cities like Sarajevo or Odessa and twenty-first-century global cities like Cairo or London to ask: what makes these cities both cosmopolitan and anti-cosmopolitan?

The post-Communist growth machine: The case of Baku, Azerbaijan

For years the scholars of urban studies ignored the issue of existence of growth machines in post-Communist cities. Nevertheless, this phenomenon has existed in post-Communist space, especially in the former Soviet region. Although there are local geographical peculiarities, there are also striking similarities between growth politics in post-Soviet, European and US cities. Baku is interesting case from this perspective as the city has developed in a different way than those elsewhere in the region. While market forces do not play an important role in urban development there, government-led urban elites—the growth machine—define the political economy of the city and future development.

Multiple Transformations

This paper develops a conceptual framework for interpreting the process of urban change in post-communist cities. The departure from the legacies of the communist past has been effected through multiple transformation dynamics of institutional, social and urban change. While institutional reforms have been largely accomplished, the adjustment of urban land use patterns to new societal conditions is still ongoing. Hence, post-communist cities are still cities in transition. Using this interpretative framework and referring to a wide spectrum of academic work, the paper provides an overview of urban restructuring in post-communist countries over the past two decades with a specific focus on the examples of mutual integration of the three fields of transformation.

A Socially Resilient Urban Transition? The Contested Landscapes of Apartment Building Extensions in Two Post-communist Cities

Even though social processes across the globe are increasingly being theorised through a resilience lens, this has rarely been the case within the domain of everyday life in the city. The resilience debate also remains highly geographically selective, as regions that have undergone far-reaching systemic change over the past 20 years—including the post-communist states of the former Soviet Union and eastern and central Europe (ECE)—generally remain omitted from it. In order to address such knowledge gaps, an investigation is made of the relationships between social resilience and micro-level socio-spatial change in the built environment of the post-communist city, by focusing on the institutional, spatial and economic underpinnings of apartment building extensions (ABEs) on multistorey residential buildings in the Macedonian capital of Skopje and the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Both cities contain a wide variety of ABEs, whose reinforced concrete frame constructions often rival the host buildings in terms of size and function. By exploring the architectural and social landscapes created by the extensions, it is hoped to highlight their embeddedness in a set of policy decisions and coping strategies, as well as their controversial implications on the present and future use of urban space.

Venturing into unknown territory: Strategic spatial planning in post-communist cities

Recent planning practice in post-communist cities in-dicates a growing interest in strategic spatial planning. In their search for new planning paradigms and more flexible approaches to city planning, municipalities in post-communist cities have embraced strategic planning as a way to involve residents, the business community and various stakeholders in defining a vision for the future. Drawing on the experience of six capital cities – Prague, St Petersburg, Vilnius, Sofia, Budapest and Riga – this article outlines the essential characteristics of the process (planning) and the product (a strategic plan). It establis-hes clear links between the strategic development process, its institutional framework and the hierarchical structure of goals, objectives and actions. Using a framework for strategic spatial planning in the context of rapid econo-mic, social and governance change, the study evaluates the results of the process, focusing on “what” and “how” in the complex reality of planning. The framework applies the traditional strategic planning model, which establis-

Informal settlements in post-communist cities: Diversity factors and patterns

Article uploaded with permission from the Editor-in-Chief of Urbani izziv, November 23, 2011.

Postkomunistická města v krajině kyberprostoru

Postkomunistická města v krajině kyberprostoru

City profile

Abstract As Eastern Europe completes the first decade of the post-communist transition process significant changes in the built form of post-communist cities are becoming increasingly evident. Yet while there is a growing literature on the specific experiences of a few Central European cities, notably Berlin, Budapest, Warsaw and Prague, much less has been written about the cities of southeastern Europe. This is regrettable as it can be argued that the dynamics of transition-induced urban change might well be more apparent in urban places of lesser primacy on the European stage such as Zagreb, Croatia, Bucharest, Romania and Sofia, Bulgaria. This paper provides a sketch of the three distinct developmental phases through which the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, has passed since the end of the 19th century, each of which is to some degree visible in the built environment of the contemporary city. Particular attention is paid to the changing geography of class differentiation in the contemporary city.