Articles by Adriana Mihaela Soaita
Housing Studies, Feb 10, 2022
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought under the spotlight home’s severe inadequacies, which take a pa... more The Covid-19 pandemic has brought under the spotlight home’s severe inadequacies, which take a particular intensity in the various unregulated, insecure rental housing markets across the globe. It is now timely to deliberate what it takes for a rented property to be made home, and in that debate tenants’ voices should be heard. Taking the UK as a case-study and drawing on data collected through an online qualitative questionnaire, the paper focuses on a group of tenants theorised as ‘everyday activists’ to address the empirical question of what they demand from the government for the sector to improve. Considering participants’ legitimising narratives and assertions for self-representation in policy construction, the paper then proposes a reading of the demands made through the ‘Right to Home’, a concept carefully grounded in Henri Lefebvre’s Right to the City. The Right to Home calls for home-ing and democratising current de-radicalised understandings of the right to housing in order to craft more transformative futures.
Housing Studies, 2021
The movement of housing policy across space/time has attracted considerable policy and scholarly ... more The movement of housing policy across space/time has attracted considerable policy and scholarly interest. But once we accept that policy moves, interesting questions arise. Particularly: what is it that moves? Why do some policies move but others do not? Academic conversations have involved concepts like “policy diffusion”, “policy transfer”, “lesson-drawing”, “fast policy”, “policy mobility” and “policy translation” - but a clear picture of how these concepts have been used to interpret housing policy developments is absent. Through systematic bibliographical searches, we identified 55 ‘housing’ publications to review. Our concern is the theoretical assumptions underlying these studies and their implications for the questions stated above. Through a grounded analysis, we identified ‘dominant knowledge’ as the key element shaping housing policy movement; highlighted five strategic conditions for mobility (summarized as ontological, ideological, institutional, legitimizing devices, and contingency); presented the sporadic engagement with questions of immobility; and synthesized authors’ policy recommendations, particularly their calls for deeper engagement with the people affected by policies.
Habitat International, 2020
Starting from the assumption that the core/periphery relations are fractal assemblages of scale o... more Starting from the assumption that the core/periphery relations are fractal assemblages of scale of varying intensity, this paper explores and maps at a finely-grained scale the alignment between the socioeconomic and relational attributes of place in a context of peripherality squared whereby further peripheralization occurs within a 'periphery'. To illustrate this context we focus on the Danube region of Romania. Building on two relatively disparate dimensions of peripherality and mobilizing a range of micro-scale data, we construct the socioeconomic and relational indexes, separately and combined, in order to identify the fractal spatiality of the region through micro-scale maps. Examining the spatial (mis)match between varying levels of development and connectivity helps identify territorial assets whose development may enable a more even spatiality that reduces spatial exclusion. Our paper invites scholars to question binary core/periphery or dominant/dominated understandings of peripherality. The fact that our indexes were only slightly correlated raises questions on how peripherality should be interpreted and oper-ationalized; further research on the relationship between its socioeconomic and relational dimensions in other regions of the world would be welcomed.
Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 2020
Given increasing economic affluence, improvement in housing conditions and population decline in ... more Given increasing economic affluence, improvement in housing conditions and population decline in the last three decades, Romanians should be more likely to experience better housing than ever before, particularly in terms of the availability and affordability of space. But substantial improvement alongside numerous people still suffering poor conditions begs the important question of who has benefited and who has been excluded. Engaging the theoretical framework of diverse economies and drawing on 2007 and 2018 Eurostat-SILC micro-data, we examine the realignment between housing and income stratification across a proposed housing typology that reflects historically enduring arrangements of housing provisions and economic hierarchies. We find that residents' socioeconomic profiles differ significantly by type of housing (e.g. showing surprising economic prosperity in urban flats and extreme poverty in some rural houses), which positions our typology as an expression of housing stratification. Furthermore, multivariate analyses highlight the increasingly stronger relationship between income and housing consumption over the decade. Of concern, a large share of the population (the bottom 40% of the income distribution) has fallen further into housing disadvantage after controlling for overall improvements in housing conditions. Conversely, the relative distance between middle-and higher-income households has decreased; given the dominance of small dwellings in the housing stock, higher-income groups seem unable to transfer their financial gains into space in their main residence except a minority engaged in the self-provision of 'villas'. These patterns of housing stratification indicate a move towards a 40%/60% 'hour-glass' society if housing continues to remain outside the political agenda.
Housing, Theory and Society, 2020
Drawing on participant-generated photo-elicitation in telephone interviews conducted with private... more Drawing on participant-generated photo-elicitation in telephone interviews conducted with private tenants in Britain, we contribute to a new strand of home literature that engages with the vibrant materiality of things. In particular, the paper reflects on how our innovative methodological approach empowered participants to introduce their own points of view through ‗thick' descriptions, revealed previously undocumented home practices and enabled researchers' reflexivity and the co-production of knowledge with participants located miles away. The method powerfully captures home's tangible and intangible materialities and their importance to wellbeing in ways that words-alone interviews cannot. We conclude by introducing the metaphor of ‗the fold' to reflect on the benefits of photo-elicitation in telephone interviewing by transporting the researcher into the participant's home; and the allegory of ‗the invisible tether' to reflect on differentials in tenants' space of agency in constructing a sense of home in the UK's private renting sector. We argue that housing studies can benefit from engaging photo-elicitation in questions spanning from the abstract to the concrete, and from the inside to the outside of the home.
Europe-Asia Studies, 2020
Drawing on 69 interviews and information from the World Values Surveys, we examine discursive und... more Drawing on 69 interviews and information from the World Values Surveys, we examine discursive understandings of social capital in Romania. We evidence two dominant explanatory metanarratives on the weakness of social capital ('communism' and 'ethnocentric individualism') and dilemmas regarding generational and urban/rural differences, which our mixed-methods approach helps decode. Contemporary processes of institutionalisation and commodification have further weaken practices of social capital but such processes are socially approved for their potential of breaking with lingering practices of corruption, bribery and favoritism, and of achieving institutional fairness. Convergence with mature democracies is unlikely not because of passive legacies or ill-adapted actors but because people have different aspirations, well suited to the context of post-communist transformation.
Housing Studies, 2019
The UK private-rented sector is increasingly accommodating a diverse range of households, many of... more The UK private-rented sector is increasingly accommodating a diverse range of households, many of whom are young people struggling to access other forms of housing. For those at the bottom end of the sector, who typically have limited economic resources, it is a precarious housing tenure due to its expense and insecurity, yet few studies have explored qualitatively the emotional consequences of this for well-being. We address this gap in the ‘generation rent’ literature by focusing attention on those voices that have been less prominent in the literature. Informed by the theoretical lens of ‘residential alienation’, our study illustrates the emotional toll of private renting upon low-income groups in a national context where state regulation is more limited. In doing so, we add nuance to the literature surrounding socio-economic differentiation within the UK private-rented sector. Our arguments are also relevant to an international audience given global concerns about housing precarity and the politics of housing.
Geoforum, 2019
Drawing on assemblage-thinking and specific assemblage concepts, this article explores the ways i... more Drawing on assemblage-thinking and specific assemblage concepts, this article explores the ways in which young, less affluent people create a sense of home in an unregulated, market-based private renting sector (PRS) that confers reduced tenant agency and frequent, undesired residential mobility. For this context, we propose the concept of 'home-assembling' to account for the ontologically, normatively and emotionally different processes involved in constructing a sense of home than those connoted by home-making. Through in-depth telephone interviews and photo elicitation, we explore: the transient, incomplete nature of practices of home personalisation; the destabilising effect of broken things which erodes the sense of home and instils feelings of unworthiness; and processes of de-territorialisation, particularly unwanted real/feared re-location, space sharing and confinement in small rooms. We document that the struggle to continually assemble, de-assemble and reassemble a sense of home drastically reduces private tenants' wellbeing through stress, anxiety, depression and alienation. However, we also indicate potential lines of change towards alternative futures not least by the emergence of a tenants' 'collective body' as well as by casting tenants' housing ill-being as a matter of public concern.
International Journal of Housing Policy, 2019
This article develops an approach to systematic literature mapping that can contribute to advanci... more This article develops an approach to systematic literature mapping that can contribute to advancing housing knowledge and theory in three ways. At a basic level, it informs more systematic, balanced and transparent literature reviews than currently performed in housing studies. As a self-contained project, it unravels research gaps, highlights where rich evidence already exists, and indicates changing conceptual approaches. Lastly, as an opening stage to evidence reviews, it informs the review’s questions, directions and dimensions. Our approach to literature mapping systematically identifies and explores a comprehensive but non-exhaustive literature related to a broad academic or policy theme. We have adapted established methodological approaches from systematic reviews to our much broader aims and shorter timeframe. By reflecting on five projects, we detail the methodological process so that it could be replicated or adapted in future studies. Besides reflecting on the systematic and less biased retrieval of relevant literature – pertinent to any academic project – we present insights into synthesising its temporal, geographical, conceptual and thematic trends. We also reflect on some inevitable methodological challenges faced in this process of translation of aims into the narration of findings, which have a wider currency across the social sciences.
Critical Housing Analysis, 2019
This paper questions the uncritical transfer of neoliberal concepts, such as financialisation and... more This paper questions the uncritical transfer of neoliberal concepts, such as financialisation and overreliance on conceptual dichotomies like formal/informal, as the lenses through which to understand practices of housing provision and consumption in the post-communist space. To this end, it introduces the newly-established 'diverse economies' framework, which has been used elsewhere to reveal existing and possible alternatives to advanced capitalism. Applied to the Romanian case, the lens of diverse economic practices helps shed light on the ways in which the current housing system was historically constituted, with implications for how housing consumption is now stratified across some related housing typologies. The paper invites debate on the theoretical usefulness of the diverse economies framework to study housing phenomena, particularly its implications for understanding patterns of inequality and poverty, its potential to devise useful analytical categories, and its effect of directing attention to acts of resistance to neoliberal capitalism.
Housing, Theory and Society, 2019
Employing a long-term perspective we explore whether ideologically-rooted quality outcomes of hou... more Employing a long-term perspective we explore whether ideologically-rooted quality outcomes of housing provision under communism have persisted during the post-communist construction of housing markets. Drawing on theories of path-dependent change, we hypothesize that patterns of housing quality still reflect past lines of division, namely the Soviet housing model, and the classical and reformist models of the Eastern Bloc. Using a critical-realist approach to housing quality, we relate households’ experiences to key underlying structures; this ontological depth is then operationalized by means of micro- and macro-indicators used as input for Hierarchical Cluster Analyses. Findings support our main hypothesis, yet there is more diversity in households’ experiences than initially assumed. Our study advances a valuable middle-range epistemological frame for understanding the complex social reality of housing and helps shatter the growing view that communist housing systems were all too similar.
Ongoing neoliberal policies have realigned the links between housing and welfare, positioning res... more Ongoing neoliberal policies have realigned the links between housing and welfare, positioning residential property investment––commonly through homeownership and exceptionally also through landlordism––at the core of households’ asset-building strategies. Nonetheless the private rented sector (PRS) has been commonly portrayed as a tenure option for tenants rather than a welfare strategy for landlords. Drawing on qualitative interviews with landlords across Great Britain, we explore landlords’ different motivations in engaging in landlordism; and the ways in which their property-based welfare strategies are shaped by the particular intersection of individual socioeconomic and life-course circumstances, and the broader socioeconomic and financial environment. By employing a constructionist grounded approach to research, our study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the different ways that asset-based welfare strategies operate within the PRS. We draw attention to an understudied nexus between homeownership and landlordism which we argue represents a promising route for future research.
Environment and Planning A, Mar 14, 2016
In Anglo-Saxon societies, homeowners expect to create synergies between the owned house seen as a... more In Anglo-Saxon societies, homeowners expect to create synergies between the owned house seen as a space of shelter, a place of home, a store of wealth and increasingly, an investment vehicle (and an object of debt). Drawing on interviews with owner-occupiers and on historic house value and mortgage data in Great Britain, we examine the way in which homes’ meanings are negotiated through the subjective calculation of the financial costs and gains of homebuying. We explore homebuyers’ miscalculation of gains, their disregard of inflation and more generally, the inconspicuousness of debt in relation to gains within their accounts, which we term ‘debt amnesia’. We show that the phenomenon of debt amnesia is socially constructed by congruent socio-linguistic, cultural, institutional and ideological devices besides being supported by historic growth in house values. Informed by the ideas of ‘tacit knowledge’ and ‘metaphoric understanding’, we reflect on how the occurrence of the unspoken and the partiality of metaphor reinforce the internalisation of homeownership.
‘Generation Rent’ reflects the growing phenomenon in the UK of young people living in the private... more ‘Generation Rent’ reflects the growing phenomenon in the UK of young people living in the private rental sector for longer periods of their lives because they cannot afford homeownership, and are unable to access social housing. At the same time, increasing numbers are remaining in the parental home. This is a significant change given the importance of leaving home in youth transitions to adulthood.
Our research highlights that whilst young people still express long-term preferences for homeownership, they nonetheless deconstructed this normalized ideal as a ‘fallacy of choice’, for it was unachievable in reality. Influenced by the work of Foucault and Bourdieu, we emphasize how young people’s subjective preferences are ultimately shaped by the social, economic, political and cultural context in which they live. State intervention in housing, especially since the 1980s, has played a significant role in valorizing particular housing tenures whilst denigrating others. Yet these powerful discursive narratives are in tension with objective reality, for young people’s ability to become ‘responsible homeowners’ is tempered by their material resources and the housing opportunities available to them. Yet this does not exempt them from the ‘moral distinctions’ being made in which renting is constructed as
‘flawed consumption’.
The term ‘Generation Rent’ denotes young people who are increasingly living in the private rented... more The term ‘Generation Rent’ denotes young people who are increasingly living in the private rented sector for longer periods of their lives because they are unable to access homeownership or social housing. Drawing on qualitative data from two studies with young people and key-actors, this paper considers the phenomenon of ‘Generation Rent’ from the perspective of youth transitions and the concept of ‘home’. These frameworks posit that young people leaving the parental home traverse housing and labour markets until they reach a point of ‘settling down’. However, our data indicate that many young people face difficulties in this ‘settling’ process as they have to contend with insecure housing, unstable employment and welfare cuts which often force them to be flexible and mobile. This leaves many feeling frustrated as they struggle to remain fixed in place in order to ‘settle down’ and benefit from the positive qualities of home. Taking a Scottish focus, this paper further highlights the geographical dimension to these challenges and argues that those living in expensive and/or rural areas may find it particularly difficult to settle down.
In Britain, the shift from the ideology of homeownership into one of homeownership-based welfare ... more In Britain, the shift from the ideology of homeownership into one of homeownership-based welfare has been sustained by homebuyers being regarded as investors. Homeowners are expected to create a synergy between the owned house seen as a space of shelter, place of home and increasingly, an investment vehicle and an object of debt. Drawing on 80 interviews with owner-occupiers and national data on house prices and mortgages, we examine the way in which the meanings of home meanings are negotiated through the subjective calculation of the financial costs and gains of homebuying. We explore homebuyers' debt amnesia, their miscalculation of gains and their disregard of inflation. However homebuyers' financially unsophisticated understanding of the asset-home arises less from book-keeping complexities or difficulties in pricing the emotional domain of the home, but rather by them instinctively considering the alternative cost of a rented space of shelter. From this financial perspective and given affordability, homebuying illustrates a misleading ideological notion of choice.
Environment and Planning A, 2014
This paper examines aspects of space consumption in two very different housing types, the communi... more This paper examines aspects of space consumption in two very different housing types, the communist mid-rise estates and post-communist suburban self-built housing. Examining residents’ perceptions in order to categorize space as overcrowded or under-occupied, the paper engages critically with the issue of the inefficient distribution of Romanian housing, that is a considerable mismatch between dwelling and household size. The analysis documents the continued salience of overcrowding in the communist estates and conversely, self-builders’ satisfaction with the generous size of their new homes. Market forces permit various modes of residential mobility but their likely outcome is growing housing inequality while any redistributive impact will remain insignificant unless policy incentives could facilitate conversion of under-occupied space into (social) renting housing. However, only a sustained delivery of larger and affordable new dwellings could alleviate overcrowding.
The post-communist privatisation of state flats to sitting tenants has transformed Romania into a... more The post-communist privatisation of state flats to sitting tenants has transformed Romania into a nation of homeowners; yet its popularity appears perplexing given the poor quality of the stock and disappointing, given flat-owners’ subsequent lack of action regarding home improvement. Conversely, self-builders’ proactive agency moved them up the housing ladder. While this striking contrast draws attention to various structural conditions, which have constrained the former and enabled the latter, it also raises intriguing questions on residents’ meanings of home. By interrogating 48 homeowners’ narratives, this paper sustains the multilayered and multi-scalar meanings of home, which intertwine the socio-cultural territory of family and nation; the physical frame of one room or several dwellings; the emotional domain of object-memories; and the ontological realm epitomised by something as minimal as ‘my bed’. Findings demonstrate that flat-owners and self-builders do not significantly differ in their meanings of home but detached houses rather than flats facilitate more fully their appropriation.
The new suburban housing developments in post-socialist cities have been ubiquitous icons of soci... more The new suburban housing developments in post-socialist cities have been ubiquitous icons of socioeconomic and physical change. This paper examines suburban owner-built housing as a long-term strategy of home improvement in Romania. It analyses residents’ motivations and financial strategies to move up the housing ladder through owner-building and their responses to key neighbourhood problems, in particular poor public infrastructure and non-existent public facilities. It is argued that owner-builders generally benefitted from the economic informality, the relaxed legal culture and the unregulated housing context of the Romanian post-socialist transition; but the absence of public actors has weakened their achievements, which is most apparent at neighbourhood level. The paper draws attention to a context of politico-economic reforms and a set of socio-cultural values of housing privatism in which resident responses may frequently generate consequential (collective) problems localised at the level of streets, neighbourhoods or even the whole society.
"Socio-economic and physical change have visibly affected post-socialist cities, yet the state of... more "Socio-economic and physical change have visibly affected post-socialist cities, yet the state of decay of their inherited large housing estates has only deepened throughout the 1990s, despite the change in tenure through policies of large-scale privatisation. Housing disrepair has now reached a critical stage that requires rapid private and public intervention. This paper examines the extent to which Romanian block residents have been able to improve in situ their housing conditions since 2000, the strategies they employed and the challenges they faced. It focuses on the often ignored private domain of housing, flats and blocks, where changes are also likely to be less visible. By analysing the process of individual utility metering and the practice of collective block management, I argue that besides economics, the unregulated housing context and a relaxed legal
culture have challenged individual and collective action and have generated a framework of housing privatism."
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Articles by Adriana Mihaela Soaita
Our research highlights that whilst young people still express long-term preferences for homeownership, they nonetheless deconstructed this normalized ideal as a ‘fallacy of choice’, for it was unachievable in reality. Influenced by the work of Foucault and Bourdieu, we emphasize how young people’s subjective preferences are ultimately shaped by the social, economic, political and cultural context in which they live. State intervention in housing, especially since the 1980s, has played a significant role in valorizing particular housing tenures whilst denigrating others. Yet these powerful discursive narratives are in tension with objective reality, for young people’s ability to become ‘responsible homeowners’ is tempered by their material resources and the housing opportunities available to them. Yet this does not exempt them from the ‘moral distinctions’ being made in which renting is constructed as
‘flawed consumption’.
culture have challenged individual and collective action and have generated a framework of housing privatism."
Our research highlights that whilst young people still express long-term preferences for homeownership, they nonetheless deconstructed this normalized ideal as a ‘fallacy of choice’, for it was unachievable in reality. Influenced by the work of Foucault and Bourdieu, we emphasize how young people’s subjective preferences are ultimately shaped by the social, economic, political and cultural context in which they live. State intervention in housing, especially since the 1980s, has played a significant role in valorizing particular housing tenures whilst denigrating others. Yet these powerful discursive narratives are in tension with objective reality, for young people’s ability to become ‘responsible homeowners’ is tempered by their material resources and the housing opportunities available to them. Yet this does not exempt them from the ‘moral distinctions’ being made in which renting is constructed as
‘flawed consumption’.
culture have challenged individual and collective action and have generated a framework of housing privatism."
We show that socioeconomic inequality results in housing forming an individually risky and socially regressive asset-based welfare system. Most homeowners see their homes also as assets and pursue strategies of asset-building by the traditional routes of upsizing and home improvements or increasingly through landlordism or serial buying-to-develop. However, except for the affluent who have diversified wealth portfolios, housing wealth sits uneasy between safety-net needs and long-term goals, particularly for low-income households. Moreover those unable to access or maintain homeownership cannot afford to make alternative welfare provisions. Given preferential wealth options for intergenerational transfers, with intergenerational transfers also favouring the accumulation of housing assets, housing wealth serves to reinforce inequalities and increase individual risks in sustaining the social welfare of current and future generations.
To inform policymaking, it is timely and relevant to understand private tenants’ renting experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, this report examines the renting experiences of 60 private tenants in Great Britain; a related output focuses on their demands to the government. The study focuses on a particular subgroup of private renters, those who were engaged or interested in tenant activism, broadly understood, and who are therefore more vocal and active in enunciating their vision of the future.
This report first briefly examines participants’ histories of renting as they give a wider perspective on the state of the private rented sector while also framing participants’ ‘renting present’. Then it focuses on the COVID-19 period, presenting key findings related to property suitability (neighbourhood and dwelling), sense of home, raising feelings of social isolation and new affordability stressors.
To inform policymaking, it is timely and relevant to understand private tenants’ renting experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, this report examines the renting experiences of 60 private tenants in Great Britain; a related output focuses on their demands to the government. The study focuses on a particular subgroup of private renters, those who were engaged or interested in tenant activism, broadly understood, and who are therefore more vocal and active in enunciating their vision of the future.
This report first briefly examines participants’ histories of renting as they give a wider perspective on the state of the private rented sector while also framing participants’ ‘renting present’. Then it focuses on the COVID-19 period, presenting key findings related to property suitability (neighbourhood and dwelling), sense of home, raising feelings of social isolation and new affordability stressors.
housing tenures. Much less is known about the experiences of older renters. This research seeks to fill this gap and involved 17 qualitative telephone interviews with older, middle-aged private renters aged 35-54 years old, living in Scotland or England and not in full-time education. They also provided photos of their home. This study follows on from our previous research, which focused on younger private renters (under 35).
This is a book essay which compares two very different books:
"Housing and Home Unbound: Intersections in Economics, Environments and Politics in Australia" edited by Nicole Cook, Aidan Davison and Louise Crabtree (Abington and New York: Routledge, 2016. 239 pp). ISBN 978-1-138-94897-6 (hbk), £110.00 and "Thinking on Housing: Words, Memory, Use" by Peter King (London and New York: Routledge Focus, 2017. 56 pp). ISBN 978-1-138-29384-7 (hbk), £48.99
This is a book review of "Reimagining Home in the 21st Century"
Edited by Justine Lloys and Ellie Vasta
Chektenham: Edward Elgar, 2015, ISBN 978-1-78643-292-6 (cased)
Bristol: Policy Press, 2015, ISBN 978-1-44730-634-4
The study develops a model of perception structured on a spatial and a temporal axis in which participants position their ‘urban vision’ of the neighbourhood. The ‘urban vision’ is a mental concept that involves different definition of needs and therefore generates different priorities. A major finding is that inhabitants and decision-makers share a similar spatial perception of the neighbourhood, resulting in a similar set of priorities. The actual content of their ‘urban vision’ as well as the time frame for action significantly overlap. This opens the potential for community participation. In the study neighbourhood, the community is economically mixed, demographically homogeneous and socially secluded but individuals express a high desire to participate to resolve a neighbourhood problem rather than to interact socially to enhance cohesion. However, tools of dialogue are not yet tailored to match citizens’ preferences for direct and informal ways of participation. The study concludes that the community participation in the case-study unit is still tentative. In other words, there is still doubt and uncertainty regarding its successful implementation although there is real necessity and readiness for concessions among actors. However, the study shows that there is need for local authorities to take the lead in finding ways to progress towards a successful experiment."
Our analysis rests on theories of path-dependent change. We hypothesize that past differences between the Soviet housing model of the USSR and the reformist and classical housing models of the Eastern Bloc still influence current housing quality not least for built environments are particularly durable. We conceive housing systems broadly and operationalise them in terms of change in ‘housing fundamentals’ during the post-communist period and housing quality at the level of households in order to perform a Hierarchical Cluster Analysis.
Findings evidenced that countries cluster along the same historic lines of division in the groups of the Baltic States, Central-East Europe and South-East Europe. We described this model of change under the metaphor of ‘running on parallel tracks’, i.e. past legacies of difference were carried through the post-communist transformation. However, we also observe that the Baltic States have been catching up with the Central-East Europe in terms of the housing quality at the level of households (population decreases have compensated the inherited shortages in the Baltic States whereas the physical condition of the inherited housing stock was broadly comparable between the two clusters).
Our study thus invites theoretical reflection regarding the mechanisms through which post-communist housing continuities are being maintained and emerging discontinuities constructed. According to our data, the former includes the predominance of communist-built housing in the current stock and countries’ different levels of economic development in 1990. The latter includes the increasing financialization of housing systems in the Baltic States (and perhaps in Central-East Europe) and major population decreases in the Baltic States and South-East Europe. There is evidence that historically decommodified outright homeownership has tempered the fast growing income inequalities in the case of the Baltic States but not necessarily in South-East Europe where housing inequality is more prevalent than in both other clusters.