Chasing Warsaw. Socio-Material Dynamics of Urban Change after 1990.

Monika Grubbauer Joanna Kusiak (eds.) CHASING WARSAW Socio-Material Dynamics of Urban Change since 1990 Interdisciplinary Urban Research Edited by the Center for Research Excellence “Urban Research” at Darmstadt University of Technology Volume 15 Monika Grubbauer (Dr.) is an architect and urban researcher based at the Faculty of Architecture and the LOEWE Research Area “Intrinsic Logic of Cities” at Darmstadt University of Technology. Joanna Kusiak is a sociologist, urban activist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Warsaw and Darmstadt University of Technology. In 2011–2012 she was Advanced Visiting Researcher at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Monika Grubbauer, Joanna Kusiak (eds.) Chasing Warsaw Socio-Material Dynamics of Urban Change since 1990 Campus Verlag Frankfurt/New York Published with financial support by the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie. Detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. ISBN 978-3-593-39778-8 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Copyright © 2012 Campus Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt-on-Main Cover illustration: CC-BY-NC-SA Lion Hirth Cover design: Guido Klütsch, Cologne Printing office and bookbinder: CPI buchbuecher.de, Birkach Printed on acid free paper. Printed in Germany This book is also available as an E-Book. www.campus.de www.press.uchicago.edu Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... 7 Introduction: Chasing Warsaw Monika Grubbauer and Joanna Kusiak.......................................................................... 9 Theses on Post-Socialist Urban Transformation Karl Schlögel ................................................................................................................. 25 I: Post-Socialism and the Dynamics of Urban Change Toward a More Comprehensive Notion of Urban Change: Linking Post-Socialist Urbanism and Urban Theory Monika Grubbauer ...................................................................................................... 35 Comeback or Revolution of the Cities? Regina Bittner .............................................................................................................. 61 II: Urban Form and Representation Continuity of Change vs. Change of Continuity: A Diagnosis and Evaluation of Warsaw’s Urban Transformation Magdalena Staniszkis................................................................................................... 81 Gating Warsaw: Enclosed Housing Estates and the Aesthetics of Luxury Jacek GCdecki............................................................................................................. 109 The Liminal Cityscape: Post-Communist Warsaw as Collective Representation Dominik Bartmawski ................................................................................................. 133 6 CONTENTS III: Social Practices and the City Sanitation and Disorder in Warsaw’s Urban Space: Cultural Determinants of Waste Management W̅odzimierz Karol Pessel ........................................................................................... 163 Visible and Invisible Ethnic Others in Warsaw: Spaces of Encounter and Places of Exclusion Aneta Piekut ............................................................................................................. 189 Kiosks with Vodka and Democracy: Civic Cafés between New Urban Movements and Old Social Divisions Joanna Kusiak and Wojciech Kacperski ...................................................................... 213 IV: Metropolitanism The Laboratory of Polish Postmodernity: An Ethnographic Report from the Stadium-Bazaar Roch Sulima ............................................................................................................... 241 Space, Class and the Geography of Poland’s Champagne (Post-)Socialism Kacper Pob̅ocki.......................................................................................................... 269 The Cunning of Chaos and Its Orders: A Taxonomy of Urban Chaos in Post-Socialist Warsaw and Beyond Joanna Kusiak............................................................................................................ 291 List of Figures ......................................................................................................... 321 Contributors ............................................................................................................ 325 Index ........................................................................................................................ 329 Acknowledgements The contributions to this volume were in large part presented at the workshop “Warsaw since 1990: Post-Socialist Transformation as a Challenge for the Intrinsic Logic of Cities”, which we organized in May 2011 at Darmstadt University of Technology in cooperation with the German Institut of Polish Affairs, Darmstadt. We are grateful to all the participants who offered and shared ideas and comments. LOEWE Research Area “Intrinsic Logic of Cities” at Darmstadt University of Technology provided financial support for this workshop. Additional support was granted by the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation (Fundacja Wspó̅pracy Polsko-Niemieckiej) ensuring the participation of Polish students by generously funding travel grants. The production of the book greatly benefited from discussions and insights gained during a study trip of Darmstadt University of Technology’s Graduate School of Urban Studies, URBANgrad, to Warsaw in 2010. We would like to thank Marek Barawski, Stanis̅aw Furman, Katarzyna Kuzko, Krzysztof Herbst, Micha̅ Murawski, Jaros̅aw Trybuｭ, Joanna Warsza and the late Andrzej Tomaszewski for sharing their knowledge with us on this occasion. Many people helped us in the preparation and realization of the book. We wish to thank the following associations and institutions for inspiration, encouragement and financial support: the Foundation for PolishGerman Cooperation in Warsaw, the Polish-German Academic Society in Cracow, and LOEWE Research Area “Intrinsic Logic of Cities” in Darmstadt. We want to thank Gerhard Vinken/Institute of Interdisciplinary Urban Research, and the board funding the promotion of women at the Department of Architecture at Darmstadt University of Technology. We are greatly indebted to Martina Löw and Helmuth Berking, both editors of the series “Interdisciplinary Urban Research” at Campus Verlag, who readily accepted our proposal for the book. We are particularly grateful to the authors who first presented papers at the workshop and then put a lot of 8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS work in revising their essays to contribute to this volume; and we are certainly not any less grateful for the contributions by authors who were willing to deal with the questions we posed without their being present at the workshop. We would like to give especial thanks to the photographer Lion Hirth, who provided the photo for the cover of this book, and to all other photographers who contributed wonderful images that greatly enhance the content. This compilation would not have been possible without the expert assistance and invaluable advice of Bettina Seifried who did the copy-editing and proofreading of our English papers all written by non-native speakers. Particular thanks are due to Carolyn Kelly for the translation of two manuscripts and additional proofreading. Dagmar Bremer did a marvelous job of meticulously controlling references and helping with the index, and special mention must be made of Matin Nawabi who was responsible for the fine layout. Finally, the editors wish to thank Judith WilkePrimavesi, Friederike Fleschenberg and Julia Flechtner from Campus Verlag for their expertise and professional support throughout the making of this book. Additionally, Monika would like to thank her family in Warsaw for sharing their knowledge about the city over the years, her mother for giving her the chance to get to know and experience Warsaw from childhood days onward, and last but not at all least Christof Parnreiter, Leon and Magdalena for their love and support. Joanna would like to thank Susan Buck-Morss and Neil Smith from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The stay in New York has influenced this book conceptually and set free the energy to bring it to a good end. She also wants to thank her supervisor Pawe̅ ｬpiewak for abiding assistance in all intellectual undertakings, Kacper Pob̅ocki for his support and many valuable comments, Nikolas Kosmatopoulos for his excellent critical remarks and Daniel London for English proofreading of both of her papers. Monika Grubbauer and Joanna Kusiak Darmstadt and Warsaw, May 2012 Introduction: Chasing Warsaw Monika Grubbauer and Joanna Kusiak If a banal truth can sometimes come as a surprise in almost philosophical ways, it is because we have got used to its banality to such an extent that we no longer perceive it as a truth. The inspiration for the book’s title came during small talk at a party in Berlin. As so often at international gettogethers, we were talking about the respective cities we come from. Soon, one interlocutor confessed laughingly that he was actually a scholar researching communicative patterns of small talk. Although his research was not directly related to the topic of cities, he claimed to have discovered a certain regularity when chatting with people from Warsaw at parties in Berlin, New York and Madrid; an observation further confirmed by our ongoing small talk. If, for instance, someone asked a young Varsovian “Where are you from?”, and then responded to the answer (“From Warsaw”) with the standard affirmative “Oh, how nice!”, a true Varsovian would always ask back with a politely hidden mistrust: “But have you ever been to Warsaw?” Any “Yes, I have” will be immediately dwelled upon: “But WHEN was it?” However, most characteristic is the punchline that follows unfailingly, irrespective of the interlocutor’s response, be it in 1987, 2001 or 2008. A punchline repeated resolutely by girls and boys from Warsaw with a sparkle in their eyes: “But you know, it’s a different city now.” Inside the “black box” If Warsaw must be “chased” by its researchers, it is because it keeps turning into “a different city” before we have managed to develop an appropriate language that could describe the previous state of affairs. Warsaw is commonly perceived as being always different from itself, as a city for which difference has become the core of its identity. Philosophically rich and yet 10 MONIKA GRUBBAUER AND JOANNA KUSIAK elusive, the notion of “difference” can be easily translated into urban statistics. Warsaw has been one of the most dynamically developing European cities over the last few years. The 19,000 housing units constructed in Warsaw in 2008 matched the corresponding number in London—a city four times Warsaw’s size—and the figure was almost five times higher than that of the housing units built in Berlin or Prague. There are 405,000 square meters of office space currently under construction, as well as numerous large-scale public construction projects such as a new metro line, a bridge, a river boulevard, and a sewage treatment plant. If it seems easy to quantify the urban transformation of Warsaw, the transformation process nevertheless remains a mystery in actual fact, akin to Lefebvre’s “black box”: “The architect and the urbanist […] know what goes in, are amazed at what comes out, but have no idea what takes place inside” (Lefebvre 2003, 27f.). The processes of intense material and social transformation in Warsaw since 1990 can be interpreted in terms of a secondary urbanization. This does not, of course, mean that Warsaw had to first of all be urbanized to become a true city after 1989. Yet the various stages in the urbanization of Warsaw in the decades from 1918 until 1989 unfolded according to different paradigms compared with contemporary processes. In the aftermath of 1989 the last—socialist—paradigm lost its legitimacy almost overnight, although its material structures and patterns of social practices still continue to affect urban life. The new wave of urbanization, devoid of any bounding paradigm or guiding vision, was expanding rampantly rather than being an orderly set of planned procedures. In Lefebvre’s parlance, this was “a critical phase” of urbanization, “a painful transition” (ibid., 28). What went into urbanization’s “black box” at this stage at the beginning was the so-called socialist city—not so much as an ideal but as a real, functioning urban organism including built structures and social practices, which had developed at times in accordance with the system and at other times not. What came out of the box was indeed an amazing, if not occasionally scary mix of bazaars, cafés and conflicts, pho soup and property claims, shopping malls and artists, gardens, skyscrapers and much more. Most of these phenomena will be analyzed or at least mentioned in this book, but our main aim is to look into the “black box” itself and reveal some of the mechanisms at work inside. INTRODUCTION 11 Conjunction of different urban paradigms If Warsaw is an interesting object of research it is because of its particularly intense dynamics of urban change and the distinct nexus of different modes of urbanism. The various layers of a densely built-up central European city, the wide-stretched and large-scale socialist city and the intrusive neo-liberal city are superimposed in Warsaw. Typical tenement houses of the 19th century that survived World War II and the post-war decades of neglect and disinvestment are rare; the ideal of a European city is not reflected in the actual image of Warsaw. Partly for this reason and partly because of a more general re-evaluation of socialism’s virtues, the modernist and social realist Warsaw (formerly deemed responsible for the ugly face of the city) is experiencing new esteem. While iconic pieces of socialist modernism in Warsaw were destroyed up to the late-2000s in order to make way for profit-oriented real estate developments, now a new awareness of the value of these structures can be observed (e.g. Springer 2011). Different historical layers of the city reveal surprises, such as the former ticket office of Warszawa Powiｭle, a local train station. Previously hidden, neglected and falling apart, visitors now marvel at this new coffee bar as a gem of Warsaw’s modern style. Warsaw is a city full of history, yet in a different sense than most other Eastern European cities, which are presently re-discovering and re-narrating parts of their history. Warsaw is—let us put it this way—an extraordinarily modern city that suffers from phantom pain after the amputation of its historical materiality. There is a painful phantom of non-presence haunting the reality in this “post-catastrophic city” (Crowley 2011), but the reality is firmly and materially grounded in the dynamic present. The nicely reconstructed Old Town is almost irrelevant as far as the daily life of citizens is concerned. Much more important are the voids, empty spaces and even the significant number of rather ugly structures. They allow for, and even encourage practices of appropriation, re-use and conversion. A good example of such creative ways of dealing with urban voids and “dead spaces” typical for the young Warsaw artist/activist scene was a project called “UFO: Unexpected Fountain Occupation”, realized in 2011 by the artist collective EXZYT. An old inoperative fountain from socialist times, detached from pedestrians’ paths by two busy roads, was turned into a hybrid location for the length of one summer. An UFO-shaped, wooden structure contained a bar, a dancing venue, a Japanese-style tube hostel for 12 MONIKA GRUBBAUER AND JOANNA KUSIAK tourists, and a kids’ swimming pool. The dead space was suddenly filled with life, allowing young urban hipsters to hang out together with elderly ladies who were bringing their grandchildren to play in the pool. For three summer months, the dynamics of the whole neighborhood changed. In recent years, these types of projects were covered by the foreign press, inquiring if Warsaw was to become “a new Berlin”. And yet, every August 1st at 5 p.m., the date on which the Warsaw Uprising started, the whole city freezes for one minute. Then the sirens howl and people break their daily routines, stop the car or stand up from their chairs in sidewalk cafés and spend a minute in silence. This phantom pain catches even the coolest girls at UFO, reminding everybody that today’s dynamic existence of Warsaw is, historically seen, a small wonder. Warsaw is a modern city not only in architectural terms, but also in a broader philosophical sense. Marshall Berman’s description of modern man on the street of a big city could be also be read as an accurate description of the condition of Varsovian men and women in the most intense times of urban change. He (and she) is “thrown into this maelstrom, is driven back on his own resources—often on resources he never knew he had—and forced to stretch them desperately in order to survive. In order to cross the moving chaos, he must attune and adapt himself to its moves, must learn to not merely keep up with it but to stay at least a step ahead. He must become adept […] at sudden, abrupt, jagged twists and shifts—and not only with his legs and his body, but with his sensibility as well.” (Berman 1983, 159) The intense processes of urban transformation impact the daily experience of citizens and transform the urban subjects. “They do not learn on a dry run” (Schlögel in this volume, 25), trying to cope with increasing costs of living, less stable and less formalized work relations and increasing social insecurity (and with the “newness” of the situation itself). People are muddling through and improvising; small-scale businesses flourish and fail, the “excluded economy” (Wyka 1992) cultivated both during the war and in socialist times is continued in new informal and semi-legal forms of trade and service. Also, the socialist way of getting things done (za̅atwia6 sprawy) with the help of networks of acquaintances has continued to play an important role in everyday life. According to AbduMaliq Simone (2004), the notion of urban infrastructure must include modes of action as well as social networks. In Warsaw, much like in African cities and all other cities INTRODUCTION 13 coping with the scarcity of resources, the people themselves are the infrastructure. However, it is hard to celebrate the “creative destruction” so typical for the current mode of urbanism when the balance between creativity and destruction is, at the same time, disordered by the unequal power relations of neo-liberal capitalism. At the time when UFO was established, the new stadium erected on the right bank of the Vistula River for the 2012 European Football Championship was fenced off despite the original idea of integrating it as a recreation area into the relatively poor neighborhood. Huge billboards still covered whole facades of inner-city buildings, depriving tenants of the view from their windows, and evictions were being planned as a consequence of the re-privatization process, generating a lot of speculation regarding property claims. Research on urban change in Warsaw is inconceivable without referring to global processes of neo-liberalization. Because of weak administrative control, a lack of efficient regulations at local level and the Polish “shock therapy” program based on the orthodox economic policy reforms of the 1990s, it is possible to study neoliberalism and its discontents in Warsaw in a much purer form than in other Western cities. Over the span of twenty years of urban change, one notices not only the highly uneven effects of urban neo-liberalization but also the citizens’ changing attitude toward it: from the initial mixture of fear and enthusiasm, to the practices of “domestication” (Stenning et al. 2010) to the gradual development of political consciousness and collective action at a community level. In December 2011 activists and citizens from the Central District (ｬródmieｭcie) barricaded themselves in an old socialist milk bar to prevent this extremely popular cheap-food venue from being closed down and redesigned as an expensive restaurant. At the time of writing this introduction in May 2012, the tent town “Occupy Warsaw” in the city center, co-organized by the tenants’ rights movement among others, demands with a huge banner the “Right to the City”. Beyond area studies This book is about intense urban change in the context of post-socialism, and not about post-socialism in its urban aspects. Most accounts of Central and Eastern Europe after 1989 are dominated by the political grand narra- 14 MONIKA GRUBBAUER AND JOANNA KUSIAK tive of the transition from a socialist to a capitalist system, reducing the urban to a mere “reflection” of broader national trends. But urban transformation is not identical with political transition. It was the rigid dichotomy of “socialist” versus “capitalist” urbanism that initially led to the implicit expectation that the end of real socialism would imply an automatic swing to the Western model of urbanization. Nothing could have proved more wrong. As Pob̅ocki (2010) argues, socialist patterns of urbanization were not “backward” in the terms of being “earlier” on the same time axis of development. Instead, they were spatially external to this axis and therefore distinctly different. However, Bodnar (2001) emphasizes that this distinctiveness does not place socialist cities outside of the order of urban modernism. A significant portion of the literature on the so-called “postsocialist city” therefore makes the double mistake of paradoxically combining two seemingly contradictory interpretative schemes. The socialist (and therefore also the post-socialist) city is being overly “orientalized” as radically different and yet at the same time this very difference is interpreted as mere “backwardness” within the Western paradigm of urban modernization. All of this has produced a substantial hiatus in urban theory. The idiom of city life in Central and Eastern Europe has not been sufficiently analyzed beyond the context of area studies, in terms of global urban change. This neglect is also accounted for by the contemporary geographies of academic knowledge production that limit the access of local researchers to international conferences, journals and so on, fostering, as Slavomíra Feren8uhová remarked, “the image of [post-socialist] local urban studies as ‘lagging behind’ international research, being the ‘object’ rather than the subject of studies, as well as lacking the ambition to contribute to urban theoretical debates.” (2012, 65f.) Calling for “new geographies” of imagination and epistemology in the production of urban theory, Ananya Roy (2009) discusses how to go beyond the Euro-American experience in the analysis of contemporary forms of metropolitan modernities. She suggests shifting the geopolitics of knowledge implicit in the tradition of “area studies” and interpreting the “area studies” framework both in terms of a located and highly grounded as well as a dis-located urban theory that exceeds its geographic origins: INTRODUCTION 15 “As the parochial experience of EuroAmerican cities has been found to be a useful theoretical model for all cities, so perhaps the distinctive experiences of the cities of the global South can generate productive and provocative theoretical frameworks for all cities.” (ibid., 820; original emphasis) To strengthen her argument, Roy gives an overview of how the “urban question” is broached in distinctive ways in and across different world areas (i.e. Latin America, South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East). Central and Eastern Europe are missing in this strategic overview, which is concerned “with theoretical work that not only is area-based, but also is focused on the urban and metropolitan experience” (ibid., 822). It is no wonder: the urban and metropolitan experience in the cities of post-socialist Europe is profoundly undertheorized. For us as editors of this book, however, it makes sense “to view all cities from this particular place on the map” (ibid.) and to examine how global urban changes might be understood when viewed from the ever transforming Warsaw. In comparison with the rising and rapidly transforming Asian cities, the Central and Eastern European metropolises are indeed less wealthy, less shiny and less impressive with regard to the scale and effect of their urban makeover. And compared to the informal urbanization processes in the large metropolises of the Global South and their struggles to secure basic services, infrastructure and income opportunities for their citizens, the problems faced by the post-socialist cities could be regarded as relatively modest. Indeed, the scale of urban change in Warsaw and other cities of the region might not match that of cities in Asia or Latin America (even though Moscow and Warsaw have, in fact, seen enormous material transformations). However, there are at least three highly significant specifics of urban change in the metropolises that characterize the region: its speed, its unevenness and its qualitative scope. The speed of change was catalyzed by the frenzy with which the countries in the region plunged into capitalism, and the process was accelerated by the willingness of multinational companies and investors to conquer the “new markets” in the search for opportunities. Yet the “shock” of the reform programs introduced in Poland by Jeffrey Sachs and Leszek Balcerowicz had different implications for different social groups. Commenting on investing in Poland in the early 1990s, US financial managers like William Browder easily fell into reverie: “There’s a certain chemical that gets released in your stomach when you make ten times your money. And it’s addictive” (in Klein 2001, 203). However, huge parts of the local popula- 16 MONIKA GRUBBAUER AND JOANNA KUSIAK tion became better acquainted with other chemicals and emotions that were released, for instance, when realizing that their salary was suddenly worth ten times less than it used to be while prices still kept rising. Of course, especially in Warsaw a significant part of the population has made itself independent, sometimes struggling to make both ends meet, sometimes enjoying their Western-style career on the terraces of new apartment blocks. But even if Warsaw as a city became wealthier during the transformation, this wealth is much more unevenly distributed than it used to be in socialist times. The quality of change covered the whole range of what people usually do in cities (live, work, move, care, recreate) and profoundly altered the geographies of daily life for all urban classes. A most trivial factor of change—which nevertheless had a profound impact on urban life—has been the rapid increase in car ownership within less than a decade from the mid-1990s onward. The traffic jams in Warsaw are legendary, as are the efforts of daily commuters to evade the jams by exploring new, clandestine routes. But literally almost everything has changed: the places and ways in which people live, shop, work, socialize and relax in the city. Some researchers argue that the cities of post-socialist Europe do not lag behind the West, but rather are in various respects quite ahead of it. Whether the post-socialist urban condition does indeed constitute a prototypical post-modern urbanity (Hirt 2012), whether it is evolving toward a hyper-capitalist city or rather contains the germ of a new socialist city that, as David Harvey (2012) would have it, is about to grow on the ruins of the collapsing capitalist one, is questionable. It is clear, however, that some processes of change can be currently observed with more clarity and more severity in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe than in Western Europe or North America: the intertwined nature of social and material change; the shifting border between private and public in the city; the inequality and unevenness that urban neo-liberalization brings as well as the highly context-specific, variegated nature of neo-liberalization processes, which make use of various forms of non-marketized, informal and illegal economic practices. In the post-socialist context, Warsaw is in many ways a particularly extreme and therefore particularly good example of all these types of changes. INTRODUCTION 17 The end of post-socialism? Karl Schlögel described the bazaar as the paradigmatic form of post-socialist urbanism. And yet the “Jarmark Europa” at the 10th-Anniversary Stadium in Warsaw, which Roch Sulima analyzes in this volume, is gone. For more than a decade it had constituted the largest market of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe. It has now made way for the new National Stadium, built on the site of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium for the 2012 European Football Championship. Schlögel asserts that the transformation of the formerly socialist countries is completed at the very moment when the bazaars disappear, and wherever they still exist, it is still in progress (see the Theses on Post-Socialist Urban Transformation by Schlögel in this volume). What does this mean in the case of Warsaw? Is the transformation process completed? Is this the end of post-socialism as we know it? We think that the answer is no. Of course, there exists the desire on the part of political actors and authorities, as well as part of the public, to close the chapter of transformation and return to some kind of “normalcy”. The very word “transition” itself, commonly used to describe the changes, implies the idea of its end: While transformations might keep going on forever (which they usually do in every city, albeit at a much slower speed), the term “transition” implies that some entity “A” (i.e. socialist Warsaw) will eventually become “B”. “B” might mean different things to different people, i.e. a capitalist Warsaw, a Western city or a “European” city—but arriving at point “B” means on any account that Warsaw will not be socialist any more, maybe not even post-socialist. Statements like these—which are never politically neutral— were heard on the occasion of the accession of Poland, together with nine other countries of the former Soviet bloc, to the European Union in 2004, which apparently signaled the successful implementation of a wide range of political and economic reforms. The fact that the apparent “return to normalcy” is often narrated as the “return to Europe” is a textbook example of what Alexander Kiossev disclosed as a self-colonizing attitude (Kiossev 1999). Indeed, a range of cities in the Eastern and Central European region (Wroc̅aw, Szczecin, L’viv, Vilnius, Tallinn or Kaliningrad) is currently trying to re-narrate the past and pick up on the “Golden Ages” of these cities, which are most often related to the times when these cities belonged to the great European empires or had the most intense exchange relations with the West for example through the Hanseatic League (Czaplicka et al. 2009). 18 MONIKA GRUBBAUER AND JOANNA KUSIAK The historical positioning of the region as “catching up” in material and institutional terms ultimately recurs in “the idea that the region is on a journey somewhere” (Stenning and Hörschelmann 2008, 321). Alison Stenning and Katrin Hörschelmann point out the modernizing function of this narrative, which fails to acknowledge the region’s particularity: “The transition recalls the earlier historical positioning of the region as ‘in between’ East and West, a notion which not only redeploys the teleological construction of progress from East to West but also embeds the teleology (spatial and temporal) itself, focusing attention once again on the future and the West (then and there) rather than on the here and now of post-socialist Europe. In all of these ways, the diversity, depth and scale of the region’s particular histories and geographies are erased as they become (just like) the West.” (ibid., 321) Along these lines, authors over the past 15 years have criticized the “transition-narrative”, arguing for the persistence of post-socialist difference and particularity (Verdery 1996; Hann 2002; Herrschel 2007). At the same time they have warned against reducing the region’s difference to merely cultural factors. Chris Hann, Caroline Humphrey and Katherine Verdery pinpoint two reasons why the concept of culture raises problems in the post-socialist context (Hann et al. 2002, 8). First, post-socialist elites have often drawn on cultural explanations to establish new boundaries of exclusion and in the worst case even tried to legitimize violence. Second, culture (finding its expression in terms like “mentality”, “nature” or “soul”) acquires an almost mystical quality (inaccessible to scientific research) when it is invoked to explain why certain policies succeed in one context but failed when applied to the Eastern European context (ibid.). The conjunction of different modes of urbanism which we see at work in contemporary Warsaw is grounded in persisting socialist as well as presocialist patterns and layers, in material continuities, social practices, beliefs and cultural forms (viz. not in culture as a “mysterious residual variable”, ibid.). The contemporary process of neo-liberalization takes place on the basis of and within these social, cultural, material, and economic forms and practices. They are thus not reducible to the prevailing logic of neo-liberalism and “privatism” as a cultural condition (Hirt 2012), and continue to form “more-than-neo-liberal subjectivities” (Stenning et al. 2010, 228), which manifest themselves in the continuous commitment to solidarity, in economies of generosity, and in relations of care and community, as Alison Stenning et al. have shown. INTRODUCTION 19 A number of authors have stressed the usefulness of the post-colonial framework in providing heuristic tools for exploring post-socialism (Stenning and Hörschelmann 2008; Lisiak 2010; Darieva and Kaschuba 2011). This implies, first, an understanding of “post-socialism not just as a chronological periodization but as epistemological [periodization] too” (Stenning and Hörschelmann 2008, 317) and also involves problematizing the analysis of history. From this perspective, the post-socialist condition can be analyzed in analogy to the post-colonial condition as an aftermath “which evokes and articulates earlier histories” (ibid., 326). This allows exploring the intertwining of pre-socialism, socialism and post-socialism in such a way that takes into account the simultaneity of radical changes and persistent continuities in post-socialist (urban) societies. Second, the post-colonial perspective makes sufficiently clear that post-socialism requires a new language to overcome the Cold War dichotomies and ultimately a reconceptualization of the categories East and West—an argument put forward (without, however, referring to post-colonialism) most forcefully by Katherine Verdery (1996) and also by Karl Schlögel. Third, drawing on post-colonial concepts allows answering the question of post-socialism’s persistence. Post-colonialism is seen as a condition which persists long after the end of empires, for instance in colonial forms, practices and legacies. In the same way, Stenning and Hörschelmann note that “a post-socialism which is ending, or must end, is a post-socialism of closures, fixated on the end of difference” (2008, 329), ultimately losing its intellectual strength. In sum, they maintain that: “[t]hinking post-colonially allows us to interpret post-socialisms and the legacies of socialism in ways that avoid determinism and that incorporate not only that which is posted but also earlier, uneven histories and geographies. It moves us away from any notion of a linear transition, a notion which demands that post-socialism must be singular to be theoretically convincing, and it challenges the historicism and essentialism of the more culturalist accounts of post-socialist difference.” (Stenning and Hörschelmann 2008, 330) The intensity of urban change in Warsaw requires us to think along these lines. If we researchers are now “chasing” Warsaw, we seek to avoid driving it into the cul-de-sac of the old model of urbanism, setting another example of self-colonization. Although Warsaw incessantly keeps turning into “a different city”, in chasing it we may force it out of the blind alley to pave the way for seeking new paths. The extraordinary dynamics of urban change, as long as they persist, also mean that nothing is yet fixed or de- 20 MONIKA GRUBBAUER AND JOANNA KUSIAK termined. Hence—as we explained to our small-talk partner—the sparkle always lights up the eyes of girls and boys from Warsaw when they tell you that “it’s a different city”. This volume opens with Karl Schlögel’s theses on post-socialist urban transformation, extracted from his large collection of writings on various cities in Central and Eastern Europe. Schlögel was one of the first Western European authors who, while the grand narrative of political transition was evolving, spent several months traveling to the most vernacular places of the region, talking to the real makers of urban change: market sellers, passengers of Eurolines buses, budding entepreneurs. In his literary essays he spells out the material, mostly vernacular conditions of change, arguing that these experiences are essential for the creation of a new language. Even though some of Schlögels’s statements later became debatable, the literary descriptions undoubtedly capture the frenzied atmosphere of the early days of transformation. The first section of this volume scrutinizes the relation between postsocialism and urban change on a conceptual level. Monika Grubbauer’s contribution provides an overview of the current debates about the postsocialist city. Grubbauer argues that the two main theoretical issues at stake, namely the simultaneity of convergences and particularities across the region, and the question of continuities and discontinuities, are still insufficiently conceptionalized. She accounts for this theoretical gap with a narrow understanding of urban change and the deficient integration of recent cross-disciplinary debates on socialism and post-socialism into postsocialist urban studies. The paper suggests theoretical and methodological expansions to make the research findings on the post-socialist urban condition more accessible for urban research in general. The subsequent chapter by Regine Bittner takes the reflections about the post-socialist city further and discusses their implications in the case of Warsaw. Bittner recapitulates the distinct features of socialist urbanization in Central and Eastern Europe, discussing Ivan Szelenyi’s concept of “underurbanization” in particular and contrasting it with recent contributions from urban anthropology. Turning then to the case of Warsaw, continuities and fractures between the Warsaw of the CIAM avant-garde’s project “Warszawa Funkcjonalna”, late socialist Warsaw and the present day metropolis are reflected. INTRODUCTION 21 The second section of this volume deals with urban form and representation. The opening chapter by Magdalena Staniszkis gives an overview of Warsaw’s recent transformation in terms of architecture and urban development. Based on a brief historical review, the most significant phenomena of post-social transformation are analyzed, including urban sprawl, the shrinking of open spaces, the appearance of large-scale retailers, the underdevelopment of public spaces and the remaking of the city center. In conclusion, the question of continuity of change as well as changes of continuity in planning ideas and in physical development is assessed. The section’s second chapter by Jacek GCdecki is dedicated to the phenomenon of enclosed and gated housing estates. Warsaw is one of those post-socialist cities with the highest numbers of gated and guarded estates, which have significantly altered the urban and particularly suburban landscapes in the region. Drawing on a discourse analysis framework, GCdecki examines Warsaw’s gated communities as the crucial and most visible sign of postsocialist urban transformation. The author highlights differences in the discourses on gated communities in the city of Warsaw, in Poland, and in a global context. In Warsaw in particular the aesthetic dimension plays a distinctive role: it adds to legitimating gated estates and provides “islands of beauty” within an apparently chaotic post-socialist city. Dominik Bartmawski takes a closer look at Warsaw as “collective representation” in the last paper of this section, showing how the city is imagined, perceived and narrated by various interpretative communities. Informed by a socio-semiotic approach to urban studies, the author traces the connections and feedbacks between materiality and social imaginaries, drawing on discursive tropes, architectural objects and circulating images. A comparison with Berlin reveals that both cities share a similar “transitional specificity and atmosphere”. However, the narratives of transitional, liminal urbanity have not been embraced by the Warsaw public so far; an awareness of the city’s chances to constitute a “full-blown urban laboratory” has yet to be developed. The third section discusses social practices in the city, putting emphasis on how they are rooted in the city’s history and materialized in urban space. The opening chapter by W̅odzimierz Pessel analyzes what is usually brushed aside in typical urban narratives and merely considered as disorder in the public space: garbage, refuse, and waste management. In a detailed analysis Pessel shows how, for instance, various practices of dropping litter, or the historical symbolism of the sewage system, have a considerable 22 MONIKA GRUBBAUER AND JOANNA KUSIAK impact on urban life in Warsaw. Using historical as well as contemporary examples, he also hints at the organizational deficiencies of the local public services. In the subsequent chapter, Aneta Piekut analyzes the hidden worlds of Warsaw’s immigrant community, pinpointing the strong social and spatial division between highly skilled professionals of Western origin and much poorer communities from Eastern Europe and Asia. Whereas the first group is more likely to remain invisible in their luxurious enclaves, economic migrants from the former Soviet Union and South Asia have much more effectively and visibly integrated their everyday activities into urban life at large. Moreover, the small infrastructure they created (i.e. Vietnamese eateries) became an important part of the city life, both symbolically and functionally. The topic of social divisions is viewed from a different angle in the final paper by Joanna Kusiak and Wojciech Kacperski. The authors show how during the last decade the emergence of so-called “citizen cafés” has catalyzed the traditional social engagement of urban elites and turned it into a sort of urban fashion. If being “cool” is always an important issue for specific groups in big cities, one cannot be really “cool” in Warsaw without being, at the same time, involved in some urban project aiming at the enhancement of Warsaw’s city life. Nevertheless, the urban elites remain for the most part unable to really cross the boundaries of class and cultural background. The fourth and final section of the volume, called “Metropolitanism”, opens up the local perspectives following Ananya Roy’s plea “to view all cities from this particular place on the map” and to address some problems of contemporary global urbanism as seen from the vantage point of Warsaw. The section starts with Roch Sulima’s chapter on Warsaw’s famous “Stadium-Bazaar” as a laboratory of what he defines as “Polish Postmodernity”. He discusses the functional role and semantic aspects of Warsaw’s voids and “borderline spaces” as well as the neo-tribal aspects of Poland’s “excluded economy”. He traces back the disappearance of the disorderly city space of the Bazaar to processes of urban clean-up which have simultaneously “absorbed” urban history. In the subsequent chapter Kacper Pob̅ocki analyzes the cultural phenomena of so-called Warszawka, a local equivalent of what is more widely known as “champagne (post-) socialism” or “gauche caviar”. In examining how Warsaw as a city relates to the rest of the world, the analysis seeks to explain why and in what way Warsaw not only functions as a particular place, but rather as a space. Analyzing the changing geography of centrality and marginality in contempo- INTRODUCTION 23 rary Poland, the author argues that, with the urban–rural division largely obsolete today, the city–town divide is a crucial element in the “bundle of relationships” that underpins class divisions in post-socialist Poland. In the final chapter Joanna Kusiak analyzes the history and the uses of the concept of urban “chaos”, both in global urban studies and in the daily lives of Warsaw’s urbanites. This vernacular concept has been used both to condemn the unstructured urban development of non-Western cities and to romanticize the idea of “self-emergent urbanism”. Kusiak breaks down this concept and singles out its multiple uses to show the competing pockets of order hidden behind the blurry concept of “chaos”. Chaos—both in post-socialist contexts and in the Global South—more often than not turns into a “chaotic mode of domination” (Nazpary 2002), ultimately justifying the structural violence of neo-liberalism. References Berman, Marshall (1983). All That Is Solid Melts Into Air. The Experience of Modernity. New York: Verso. Bodnar, Judit (2001). Fin de Millénaire Budapest: Metamorphoses of Urban Life. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Czaplicka, John, Nida Gelazis and Blair A. Ruble (eds.) (2009). Cities After the Fall of Communism. Reshaping Cultural Landscapes and European Identity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Crowley, David (2011). Memory in pieces: the symbolism of the ruin in Warsaw after 1944. Journal of Modern European History 9 (3), 351–72. Darieva, Tsypylma, and Wolfgang Kaschuba (2011). Sights and signs of post-socialist urbanism in Eurasia: an introduction. In Tsypylma Darieva, Wolfgang Kaschuba and Melanie Krebs (eds.). Urban Spaces After Socialism. Ethnographies of Public Places in Eurasian Cities. Frankfurt/Main and New York: Campus. Feren8uhová, Slavomíra (2012). Urban theory beyond the “East/West divide”? Cities and urban research in post-socialist Europe. In Tim Edensor and Mark Jayne (eds.). Urban Theory Beyond the West. A World of Cities, 65–74. London and New York: Routledge. Hann, Chris (ed.) (2002). Postsocialism. Ideals, Ideologies and Practices in Eurasia. London and New York: Routledge. Hann, Chris, Caroline Humphrey and Katherine Verdery (2002). Introduction: postsocialism as topic of anthropological investigation. In Chris Hann (ed.). Postsocialism. Ideals, Ideologies and Practices in Eurasia, 1–28. London and New York: Routledge. 24 MONIKA GRUBBAUER AND JOANNA KUSIAK Harvey, David (2012). Rebel Cities. From the Right to the City to Urban Revolution. New York: Verso. Herrschel, Thomas (2007). Between difference and adjustment—The re-/presentation and implementation of post-socialist (communist) transformation. Geoforum 38, 439–44. Hirt, Sonia (2012). Iron Curtains. Gates, Suburbs and Privatization of Space in the Post-Socialist City. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Kiossev, Alexander (1999). Notes on self-colonizing cultures. In Bojana Pejic and David Elliott (eds.). After the Wall. Art and Culture in Post-Communist Europe, 114–18. Stockholm: Moderna Museet. Klein, Naomi (2001). The Shock Doctrine. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan Books. Lefebvre, Henri (2003 [1970]). The Urban Revolution. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lisiak, Agata Anna (2010). The making of (post-)colonial cities in Central Europe. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 12 (1), http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol12/iss1/3 (accessed 07.07. 2012). Pob̅ocki, Kacper (2010). The Cunning of Class: Urbanization of Inequality in Post-War Poland. Unpublished PhD thesis. Budapest: Central European University. Roy, Ananya (2009). The 21st-century metropolis: new geographies of theory. Regional Studies 43 (6), 819–30. Simone, AbduMaliq (2004). People as infrastructure: intersecting fragments in Johannesburg. Public Culture 16 (3), 407–29. Springer, Filip (2011). ﾆle urodzone. Reportaﾉe o architekturze PRL-u. Kraków: Karakter. Stenning, Alison and Kathrin Hörschelmann (2008). History, geography and difference in the post-socialist world: Or, do we still need post-socialism? Antipode 40 (2), 312–35. Stenning, Alison, Adrian Smith, Alena Rochovská and Dariusz ｬwiCtek (2010). Domesticating Neo-Liberalism. Spaces of Economic Practice and Social Reproduction in Post-Socialist Cities. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Verdery, Katherine (1996). What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wyka, Kazimierz (1992). The excluded economy. In Janine R. Wedel (ed.). The Unplanned Society: Poland During and After Communism, 23–62. New York: Columbia University Press. Theses on Post-Socialist Urban Transformation1 Karl Schlögel 1. The feverishness of post-socialist change is translated into new urban forms To the outsider, Eastern European cities give the impression of feverishness, by which it is unclear whether this represents desperation or vitality. Although everything progresses so slowly, they appear to be unfettered. They are wide awake, like one who must exploit the smallest opportunity. Because there is no way out and because the state, which could indicate or organize it, is too weak, one is on the lookout for many small ways out. The collective reason of the many proves to be more resourceful than the great advice, which cannot be expected from anybody anyway. […] One learns from the West—learns also that one does not need everything that comes from there. At least now all the improvising and juggling to which one was condemned in the old days counts for something. Contacts and connections come to pass, made only by people who have not grown up in the perfect world in which everything is available for free. […] They do not learn on a dry run, but rather in the midst of the opportunity, in which one can go bankrupt if one does not use it. […] The genius of the masters of transition lies in complying with the unavoidable and precisely by these means avoiding crashing into destructiveness (Go East, 63–66). That which the observer sees today is only the endpoint of a development with a long gestation period. Revolutions do not build, but instead phase out a political class and a condition that has become unsustainable. The change in power is followed by the troubles of the plains. Behind us lies —————— 1 Edition and subtitles by Monika Grubbauer and Joanna Kusiak 26 KARL SCHLÖGEL the transition from the symbolic act of appropriation to a de facto new formation, […] from the improvised provisional arrangement to the built form. There is a certain consistency in all of it. First stage: Symbolic appropriation. The city centers were the main venues of the great change, of the test of strength between the ancien régime and the new, the stage for the appearance of civil society and for the abdication of the powers that be […]. In one swift motion, dead squares once again assumed the roles they had always had: to be a space for the res publica. For the first time the large squares were big enough to contain the people. For the first time they were not parade grounds for rallies. The squares of power had lost their quasi-sacred aura. Everywhere, the unthinkable happened, which was the most natural thing in the world: the recivilization of the urban space […]. Second stage: Bazaar. […] Even before the reforming projects had been worked out, the cities had become bazaars. […] The black market revealed itself to be the real market. From the monumental city of administration and general department emerged the city of tents, kiosks and booths. The needs were out in the open, the line of those who queued eternally died. Everything began on a small scale: with a stall, a booth, a snack bar, a food stand. At first only the ground floor was renovated, later the rest of the house. A people that allegedly knew nothing of economics learned in no time how to trade. […] The city had become a bazaar. It was followed in rapid succession by all the things that belong to a functioning market: banks, stock exchanges, brokers, businesses, lawyers, hotels, international connections, open currency rates, the emblems and the aesthetics of the international consumer world, the freedom of movement of people, goods and ideas. Third stage: The search for a new form. The city that was taken over does not fulfill the needs of the new urban society for socialization. It needs another space than that of the bureaucratically composed city, than that of the “state event”. Their ensembles should revolve around the citizens, and not around power; they should be amenable and not hierarchical; they should be comfortable, not representative; they should serve not the powers that be, but rather human communication; they should not impede encounters between people. People everywhere have started to think about the city after communism (Die Mitte liegt Ostwärts, 226–228). THESES ON POST-SOCIALIST URBAN TRANSFORMATION 27 2. The phenomenon of post-socialist transformation requires a new language Central and Eastern Europe is in the process of rediscovering its language. One could also describe the upheavals in Eastern and Central Europe as the reclaiming of their own language, a language that is in harmony with the experience of the generations that could not, or were not permitted to speak out about what happened to them. […] The moment in which words fail us is the moment of the anomy of the concept, a space in which the places that had been described by long-standing terms are vacated, without any new ones coming in their stead. It is the moment in which term- and language-oriented people very quickly develop withdrawal symptoms if no replacement is created immediately, a moment of emptiness, black and dark, in which one is quite alone with an experience that has never been had before. It is a kind of primal experience of suddenness, the irruption of a long-awaited release of tension, which yet somehow then overwhelms everyone, a tension that had denatured Europe; the moment of a fortuitous catastrophe. One can discard this opportunity and comply with the established, enforced interpretation. But this would mean forsaking something really big: the experience of emptiness that occurs when a language has exhausted itself and a term grows old. The experience of a present that is closest to us, yet is most difficult to grasp. The collapse of the ancien régime in Eastern Europe also carries away with it the ancien régime of ideas on which it was based and to which it was oriented. The “Eastern Bloc” is at an end, if indeed it has not already become a fiction, but as a result, so is the West. The tension that dominated the whole intellectual economy of the West-Eastern culture is gone, we are no longer a system, but merely a place; we are no longer a counterweight, but only one point among many others. We are no longer the best of all imaginable worlds, but only one among many. […] The people in the East do not need our terms, but rather our listening ear. They do not require enlightenment from the outside, but instead finally provide their own. […] We must acquire an experience that has been had in other European regions, without causing an expropriation of that experience. We must find a language that it precise enough to articulate each special experience but flexible enough to accommodate a double experience (Go East, 7–16). 28 KARL SCHLÖGEL 3. Material conditions and economic practices form the new society more than normative ideals The new Europe does not grow by means of the tours de force of politicians, but rather in the molecular processes in which the life of millions changes (Promenade in Jalta, 199). The thesis of the failure of civil society—like all other talk of the “success of the transformation”, the “implementation of democratic reforms”—is based on the assumption of a standard and a reference point that is obviously missing. […] Civil society, imagined as a set or system of institutions and procedures, inhibits the perception of what is happening. The reality is always deficient compared to the norm. It continues to free itself, to surrender the apparent orientation security that seems to lie in this fixed point of “civil society”, and to enter the open field of the study of living forces. […] It will then emerge that an ensemble of system and structural features is not what is important, but instead an ensemble of qualities: not merely functioning institutions, but rather practiced routines; not merely legal security, but also security in its dealings; not merely functioning statehood, but rather the ability to live without the state; not merely social security, but rather the ability to muddle through and competence in the face of chaos. This produces quite a different horizon of perceptions and interests. What happens when we engage more in a phenomenology of “living forces”? Ultimately, its strength determines whether life will become normal and produce or bear those institutions that are appropriate. But how can this sociological nobody be described? It does not come from a certain stratum or class, but rather from everywhere. […] The dissolution of the old status produces possibilities for action that have little to do with the traditional place in society, but are instead dependent on primary qualities: alertness or drowsiness, originality or business as usual, recklessness or restraint, risky bravado or biding time. Among the homines novi in the constituting of a new, active core, all occupations and origins are represented. […] Everyone must rearrange themselves with a second or third job; everyone must recalculate their incomes and expenses, as well as their life plans; everyone reassure themselves in their relationships with their previous circles; nothing is a matter of course any longer. Previous arrangements must be reconsidered and perhaps new ones embarked upon. This THESES ON POST-SOCIALIST URBAN TRANSFORMATION 29 type has begun to be able to live with the restlessness and the uncertainty. […] His fundamental feeling is not one of “basic trust” in a functioning civil society, but rather a kind of primal fear that the precarious state could switch suddenly to a battle between everyone and everyone else (Die Mitte liegt Ostwärts, 203–208). 4. The new urban society is built on previous experiences of crisis What is happening now is happening with a great degree of purposefulness, almost of its own accord. The movement does not follow any ingenious master plan, but an experience that has been stored across generations. The post-war peacetime, which lasted half a century, was the time in which the decimated and worn down urban society once again caught its breath, in which the remnants of an extinct culture joined an urban culture that has grown from the soil of the large socialist settlements. The Eastern European cities, fatally exhausted by the catastrophes of the century, recovered. It was a long process of civic accumulation, a kind of second urbanization. All of which means: an increase in complexity and complicatedness, a growth in difference and structure, the agglomeration of experience and memory, safety in one’s dealings, in brief, maturity. The coming out of civil society is above all the coming out of the urban society, which has become adult and mature in the bosom of the post-war order. It has gone beyond simplification and has the potential to solve the problems it has caused itself. It no longer needs organization from above, but instead organizes itself. It needs no emperor, no god and no tribune. It seems as if all that is happening everywhere was overdue: civil society, which has regained its strength, sets itself up. That includes the revitalization of centers that had died out as well as the restructuring that had become essential by the end of the 20th century. Nowhere do I see the presence of nostalgic or futuristic mania—this is already inhibited by tight budgets. The work carried out on the city and the love for the city are a good support against panic and hysterics of doom (Die Mitte liegt Ostwärts, 232f.). 30 KARL SCHLÖGEL The inhabitants of the cities are once again beginning to feel like the inhabitants of their cities. They are enthralled by the beauty of their cities, they are worried about their future, they identify themselves with them (or they hate them). The time of indifference towards one’s own city, towards the small world, seems to have passed. That which is unavoidable is beginning: pride in the city, pride as a citizen, expressed in celebrations, specific festivals and jubilees, in relation to one’s own history. It is a wallowing in the newly discovered wealth of the urban. It is an act of the self-recognition of the city as a civilizing entity. Once more, the cities have a subject. […] A phenomenology or a physiognomy of the changes in Eastern cities on the last decade leads almost compulsorily to an analysis of the powers of thrust and formation that had stood behind this process of urbanization, and which still carry it today (Marjampole, 186). 5. The bazaar as the paradigmatic phenomenon of post-socialist urbanity The bazaar was not “introduced” by anybody, but was simply there, overnight and almost like an act of nature. It also existed in a hidden and stunted form in the Soviet years, at the periphery of large cities, but especially in border towns and harbor towns. It was tolerated because there, at least, some of the pressure caused by the general shortages could be relieved somewhat. The black market was the reverse of the planned economy, and how could it be otherwise. A life that did not involve having to constantly procure and organize things was unthinkable under Soviet conditions. The underground economy, the black market, the capital accumulated in secret were only waiting for the day on which they would be able to appear openly and actively. After the fall of Communism, that which had been preparing itself for a long time behind the scenes came to the surface. The borders that could have prevented the flow of goods no longer existed; the controlling authorities that could have forbidden it had abdicated. The allocation apparatus that previously determined the circulation of goods had dissolved. The population had to help itself. It did what anyone would do in a hopeless situation. It helped itself and thus became, for a historical moment at least, a people of traveling merchants and traders. There was hardly anyone who did not conduct some kind of business, THESES ON POST-SOCIALIST URBAN TRANSFORMATION 31 and there was hardly anything that did not excite the interest of somebody. It is no surprise that in the turbulence of the late 1980s and early 1990s the centers of some cities suddenly resembled enormous anthills. Overnight, Warsaw’s Plac Defilad, around the Stalinist Palace of Culture, became the most magnificent marketplace in Central Europe, just as the stadium in Praga would later become one of the most profitable companies in the new Poland. One has to have seen the bazaar cities in order to understand that they are not some exotic, marginal entities, but rather central expressions of life, that a society’s strength and will to live are condensed here, and not a bizarre adventure that one can also ignore. In short, they are a “socially significant phenomenon”, utterly mysterious and worthy of analysis. These markets have nothing to do with Vanity Fair. The situation is too serious. It is not easy to recognize the economic ratio involved. Usually, an overview of the grounds can only be obtained from an elevated position. The tents, stalls and containers are arranged in dozens of parallel streets of shops, often a kilometer long. The containers are often placed one above the other, forming two storeys. Each space, each pitch is priceless, which is why the streets are narrow, but wide enough to allow the stream of customers to pass. The bazaar has its own rhythm. It starts early in the morning in the bustle of the rush hour and is already deserted by early afternoon, when the sellers have departed. […] That which at first appears confusing is structured and organized to the highest degree. While the trading areas are situated on the outskirts, they can be reached easily at any time by means of a shuttle system. There are large car parks everywhere in the vicinity. According to the board at the entrance, the grounds are divided into sections and one learns that there are food, car, electronics, textile, leather and other bazaars. Just as in medieval cities there are streets in the sections that are devoted to certain trades and groups of goods: electrical, leather, crockery, furniture, clothing. There is a central service office, a central telephone, a “medical point” and even a department of the militia that keeps order. Entertainment and catering is also provided, with snack bars, kebab stalls, halls with gaming machines. […] The largest bazaars even have their own bus system. Such places always emerge where a context that has been torn apart must be remade. […] There is probably no more exact yardstick for the status of 32 KARL SCHLÖGEL the “transformation” of the formerly socialist countries than the emergence and the disappearance of the bazaar: where it has disappeared, the process is complete, while wherever it still exists, it is still needed (Promenade in Jalta, 200–203). (Translated by Carolyn Kelly) References Schlögel, Karl (1995). Go East oder Die zweite Entdeckung des Ostens. Berlin: Siedler. — (2002). Die Mitte liegt Ostwärts: Europa im Übergang. München: Hanser. — (2003). Promenade in Jalta und andere Städtebilder. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer. — (2009). Marjampole. Oder Europas Wiederkehr aus dem Geist der Städte. Frankfurt/ Main: Fischer. I: Post-Socialism and the Dynamics of Urban Change Toward a More Comprehensive Notion of Urban Change: Linking Post-Socialist Urbanism and Urban Theory Monika Grubbauer The conceptual gap in the post-socialist city literature The early years after the fall of communism were marked by a focus on political and institutional change. By and large, all of the post-communist countries followed a neo-liberal agenda in their efforts to introduce capitalism and democracy. Policy measures were geared towards the deregulation of the economy, the introduction of private property rights and an overall agenda of privatization. In addition, fiscal austerity, reduced public spending and the downsizing of state intervention in all fields of society were meant to further affirm the primacy of market relations. By the mid1990s, post-socialist neo-liberalization unfolded as a highly uneven process. Its most visible effects were discernible in the large cities, and especially in the capital cities of the region, which proved to be the central sites of postsocialist transformation. This centrality was manifested in high rates of economic growth and the fast pace of economic diversification. At the same time, the large cities of the region experienced growing disparities in income and work opportunities. Tendencies of gentrification emerged and poverty in cities became increasingly visible. As a consequence, from the mid-1990s onward the major cities of the region underwent profound processes of spatial reorganization, economic and labor market restructuring and a reconstitution of their social and cultural life. The size and speed of urban spatial, economic and social transformations have made urban and regional change in post-socialist societies a major subject of research (Kovácz 1994, 1999; Sýkora 1994; Andrusz et al. 1996; Enyedi 1998). By the early 2000s the post-socialist city as a research topic was well established and received much scientific attention throughout the decade (Bodnar 2001; Hamilton et al. 2005; Tsenkova and Nedovi6-Budi6 2006; Borén and Gentile 2007; Stanilov 2007a). The focus of this literature was on the spatial, social and economic reorganization of cities in Central and Eastern Europe and covered issues 36 MONIKA GRUBBAUER such as processes of suburbanization (Leetmaa and Tammaru 2007; Ouｫední8ek 2007; Stanilov and Sýkora forthcoming), de-industrialization and the physical upgrading of brownfield sites (Temelová 2007), sociospatial differentiation (Brade et al. 2009; Temelová et al. 2011) and gentrification (Badyina and Golubchikov 2005; Sýkora 2009), and the emergence of new urban forms, in particular gated and guarded housing estates (Bodnar and Molnar 2009; Cook 2010; Hirt 2012). In the second half of the 2000s another body of literature emerged, shedding light on the changing cultural and architectural landscapes (Czepczywski 2008; Dorrian 2010) and urban imaginaries of post-socialist cities (Young and Kaczmarek 2008; Czaplicka et al. 2009; Kliems and Dmitrieva 2010). Most recently, urban research in post-socialist cities has notably turned toward more grounded, qualitative and ethnographic approaches to examine how ordinary citizens make sense of, appropriate and transform urban spaces in their daily social, cultural and economic practices (Alexander et al. 2007; Darieva et al. 2011; Stenning et al. 2010; Hirt 2012). In the post-socialist city debate two theoretical issues have concerned researchers repeatedly without, however, always addressing or theorizing them explicitly, as I will argue. First there is the challenge of coming to terms with the convergences and particularities that have simultaneously affected the post-socialist transformation processes from a synchronic perspective. While researchers have shown similar geographical patterns of urban transformation and converging/comparable processes of commercialization, suburbanization and socio-spatial differentiation in all post-socialist cities, the need to take into account local differentiation was stated, including the acknowledgement of “the diversity of urban experiences, policy and planning in the post-socialist world of cities” (Nedovi6-Budi6 et al. 2006, 4) and the fact that “there is no one post-communist urbs, but a range of urban places which have been subject to a grand political and economic experiment” (Borén and Gentile 2007, 95; original emphasis). The explanations of these differences vary and include historical legacies and path-dependencies, varying levels of economic and social development, as well as variations in transformation policies at a national, regional and local level (Kovács 1999, 5; Stanilov 2007b, 6; Nedovi6-Budi6 et al. 2006, 13f.). The second trouble spot in post-socialist urban research is the issue of continuity versus discontinuity, as viewed from a diachronic perspective. The dispute centers around the questions regarding whether and in what TOWARD A MORE COMPREHENSIVE NOTION OF URBAN CHANGE 37 way the legacies of socialism continue to shape the processes of urban transformation, and whether and for how long the concept of post-socialism will still hold explanatory value. While the spatial, economic, social and cultural transformations in the cities under post-socialism have taken distinct forms, continuities in social practices, cultural forms and attitudes, and the built environment are nevertheless conspicuous. Built environment is, of course, particularly slow to change compared with political and economic structures; “socialist spaces linger ubiquitously” as Borén and Gentile (2007, 97) put it. Surely these disputes over convergences and particularities as well as continuities and discontinuities, which shape the debate on the post-socialist city, echo the wider, rich and insightful debates on post-socialism, fueled mainly by contributions from anthropologists, sociologists and geographers (Verdery 1996; Hann 2002; Flynn and Oldfield 2006; Hörschelmann and Stenning 2008; Stenning and Hörschelmann 2008). Seeking to explain the shaping of the present by a socialist past, these authors understand post-socialism as an epistemological category, thus hoping to avoid falling back into essentialism, historicism and determinism. However, the implications for urban research have not yet been established. In fact, there has been surprisingly little exchange between research on the post-socialist city and post-socialism in general. As a result, the two main theoretical issues sketched above remain insufficiently conceptionalized in the major part of the literature on post-socialist cities. In this paper I argue that because of this lack of theoretical analysis, the contributions of this body of work to current, wider debates in urban research remain underutilized. One of the aims of the in-depth study of Warsaw in this book is to open up avenues as to how research into the postsocialist urban condition can be made more relevant and valuable for broader debates in urban research and in the study of cities in other regions of the world. This article seeks to outline some common ground for that purpose. There are several reasons for the neglect of conceptual issues in postsocialist city research. Clearly, most studies in urban transformations under post-socialism are not geared towards a contribution to debates in urban research in general. They tend to focus on descriptive accounts of transformation processes and advocate, as stated explicitly, for instance, by Stanilov (2007b, 5) in his comprehensive volume The Post-Socialist City, an “inductive approach to urban analysis, based on empirical investigations of 38 MONIKA GRUBBAUER observed spatial phenomena” (for a critique see Sýkora and Bouzarovski 2012). At the same time, the post-socialist-city literature tends to present the cities of Central and Eastern Europe as special cases because of the distinct history and culture of the region, universal socialist legacies and the recent dynamics of post-socialist transformation. This fosters a strange reluctance to examine the cities of the region in terms of possible insights which could also be relevant for urban research in other parts of the world. As a consequence, research on post-socialist cities has yielded a rather closed body of literature, perceived as area studies from an outside perspective. This is why it has rarely been considered when pushing theoretical issues in urban research (see Feren8uhová 2012 for the same argument).1 The theoretical gap in post-socialist urban research is even more striking considering that the issues of both convergences and particularities as well as continuities and discontinuities have, in fact, been central to recent urban research from different theoretical perspectives. The first issue—the simultaneous persistence of converging and diverging phenomena—is of major concern to research on urban neo-liberalism. In debates centering on urban political economy and “actually existing neo-liberalism” (Brenner and Theodore 2002) that explore geographies, modalities and pathways of urban neo-liberalization, the problem of local “variegations” is a central issue (Peck and Theodore 2007; Brenner et al. 2010). Also, more recent studies in the international and interurban transfer of urban policies investigate how globally circulating ideas are embedded in and translated to different local contexts (McCann and Ward 2011). As I will show in the subsequent section, post-socialist urban transformations in Central and Eastern Europe could be highly relevant issues for both areas of research. The second issue, which deals with urban change over time and the question of continuities and discontinuities at various levels, is linked to current cross-disciplinary debates about the material and social dimension of everyday life (Schatzki 1996, 2010; Löw 2001; Low and Lawrence 2003; Thrift 2008; Jacobs and Merriman 2011). The rapid economic, social and —————— 1 Slavomíra Feren8uhová (2012) particularly emphasizes that the marginalization of postsocialist urban studies and its (self)-perception as underdeveloped and lagging behind western urban theory reflects the uneven geographies of contemporary academic knowledge production and the different conditions in which western and non-western academics work. TOWARD A MORE COMPREHENSIVE NOTION OF URBAN CHANGE 39 material changes in the cities of post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe were sweeping and had an enormous impact on day-to-day life in the city. The transformation processes have profoundly altered the way urbanites live, work, shop and interact socially today; these changes in the daily life of city residents received a lot of attention from geographers, sociologists and anthropologists (e.g. Burawoy and Verdery 1999; Bridger and Pine 1998; Dunn 2004; Flynn et al. 2008). However, they were only rarely conceived as areas of research in urban studies. In my view, though, these transformations are characterized by an inextricable link between social and material changes. The interplay between the transformation of the built environment and the changes in actions, movements and practices of citizens should be of major concern for post-socialist urban studies. This new focus, as I hope to show in the third section, could equally enrich and advance the cross-disciplinary debates concerning the materiality of social life. Below I will scrutinize the findings and theoretical positions of the literature on the post-socialist city with regard to the synchronic and diachronic analyses mentioned above. I will specify the purported theoretical gap in post-socialist urban studies and I shall put forward proposals with regard to the direction in which further research could be developed. Post-socialist urbanism between neo-liberalization and context-dependency The question of how to weigh the differences and similarities in urban transformations in Central and Eastern European cities is essential to postsocialist urban research. Usually differences are acknowledged and emphasized, while a strong tendency to generalize trends and patterns prevails. Similarities in urban transformation dynamics are frequently explained by referring to the common institutional reforms and comparable policy measures implemented in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989. It is argued that the institutional reconfigurations caused by the basic reforms of the political and economic system immediately after the collapse of communism assumed similar forms in all the countries in the region. They were directed toward the rapid implementation of democratic political systems and market economies. Private property and competitive-bid land markets 40 MONIKA GRUBBAUER were re-established, former state assets were privatized and nationalized property was restituted to previous owners or their descendants. Owing to these common institutional transformations, it is argued that “the nature of urban restructuring in post-communist countries has a common logic” (Sýkora and Bouzarowski 2012, 44). Phenomena such as the influx of foreign capital, the emergence of commercial property markets, the rising importance of consumption activities and the growth of the retail sector are regarded as the consequences of these institutional reconfigurations. Evident changes in the socio-spatial patterns of the cities are in turn explained by these consequences: the commercialization and expansion of urban cores, the partial revitalization of inner-urban areas and the extensive suburbanization (e.g. ibid., 51). Alternatively, similarities in post-socialist urban transformations are seen as the result of material legacies of the socialist city (Borén and Gentile 2007). Although it is a matter of controversy whether the socialist city ever existed as a distinct, autonomous urban model,2 there is broad agreement that cities under socialism developed a set of specific socio-spatial features that set them apart from cities in capitalist Western Europe and North America. The ideal-typical planned socialist city followed the idea of social equality: it was mono-centric, highly functional, strictly zoned, meant to provide equal access to public services, transport and recreation, and favored residential mixing (Smith 1996; Szelenyi 1996).3 Warsaw’s post-war reconstruction followed these ideals closely. In their introduction to the topical issue on “Metropolitan processes in post-communist states”, Borén and Gentile argue convincingly that a number of “spatially differentiated and space-differentiating systemic factors” (2007, 96) characteristic of the socialist city need to be taken into account in the search for sustainable theories on the post-communist city. Economic and political priority mechanisms of central planning, the specifics of land allocation and use, the rationale of defense considerations, the second economy with its informal economic practices and not least the ideological leadership of the Communist Party, which resulted in an entire communist semiotic landscape layer being applied to the socialist city, all molded the social and —————— 2 See the discussions in Andrusz et al. 1996, in particular Enyedi 1996 and Szelenyi 1996. 3 However, the similarity between socialist and Fordist modes of post-war urban modernization has also been frequently pointed out (e.g. Enyedi 1996; Hirt 2012, Chapter 4). TOWARD A MORE COMPREHENSIVE NOTION OF URBAN CHANGE 41 physical spaces of the socialist city. The most significant results were the high percentage of urban land dedicated to industrial uses (in Warsaw, for instance, more than one-third of industrial areas were located in central districts), and the large, prefabricated public housing estates. The authors also point out that, for instance, the countless unfinished objects scattering socialist urban landscapes (a consequence of informal construction practices) are a legacy of communism. Over the past two decades these objects have met with different fates: some of them were completed, some were pulled down and others still continue to linger around unfinished. The same is true for the military-industrial complex and its footprint on urban space in the socialist city. Today, all of the cities are struggling with the legacies of hazardous industrial production, the spatial barriers that these previous no-go zones continue to pose, and their negative ecological impact. Turning now to the differences in post-socialist urban transformation dynamics, I contend that they are also primarily explained by “differences in the nature of institutional transformations among countries” (Sýkora and Bouzarowski 2012, 48; also Kovács 1999) and corresponding policy measures. The restitution implemented in very different forms in the CEE countries, with different consequences for land use changes and urban property markets, is a frequently cited case in point. However, despite the acknowledgment of different institutional contexts and path-dependencies, the larger part of the literature on the post-socialist city is not interested in explaining differences in urban transformation dynamics. This is reflected in the lack of systematic comparative studies between cities, and even more so between urban quarters or smaller units such as housing estates or urban blocks. All of the book-length treatments of the post-socialist city either focus on one city (Bodnar 2001) or they present compilations of case studies of different CEE cities, but do not provide a systematic comparative case study design (e.g. Hamilton et al. 2005; Tsenkova and Nedovi6Budi6 2006; Stanilov 2007a; Czaplicka et al. 2009). This lack of comparative work might be accounted for partly with practical reasons. Such comparative studies are much more time-consuming and complicated to organize than single case studies and, accordingly, need more forerun. Only in the last few years have a handful of studies been completed which develop systematic ways to compare urban development trends in the region (Brade et al. 2009; Bodnar and Molnar 2009; Stenning et al. 2010). However, the lack of interest in not only describing or acknowledging but also explaining differences in the ways urban spaces, the economic system, so- 42 MONIKA GRUBBAUER cial networks and cultural life in the city change, has another, more profound reason: the narrow focus of most of these studies that interpret urban change primarily as the reconfiguration of the urban landscape in terms of architecture and urban form, land use and socio-spatial patterns (e.g. Tsenkova and Nedovi6-Budi6 2006; Stanilov 2007a; Sýkora and Bouzarowski 2012). In this approach, urban change is derived rather mechanically from a set of political and economic factors: spatial transformation is ultimately the result of adjustments in the spatial arrangement of urban activities that are required by market efficiency (Stanilov 2007b, 7). Here, differences in the urban development trends are ultimately a matter of diverging paces, they are “related to the rate with which the urban patterns are transformed, rather than the principal direction of these transformations” (ibid., 6). From this perspective, converging tendencies and representative patterns are much more easily identified and explained (i.e. by the common neo-liberal framework of reforms and the legacies of socialism) than are differences. Accounting for differences would mean examining interdependencies between urban development issues and a range of other, more elusive factors such as diverging political cultures, economic and social practices, and not least the evolving narratives of the past and the future through which the political and cultural elites in the cities of the region try to position and represent their cities (Czaplicka et al. 2009). The feeling that this kind of descriptive, ideal-type and often schematic post-socialist city analysis is inadequate to explain how the particularities of place, the wider urban dynamics of post-socialism and the processes of globalization and neo-liberalization interplay, has led to the claim for methodological innovation. Various authors have recently highlighted the need for more grounded, case-oriented and ethnographic research (Boren and Gentile 2007; Bodnar and Molnar 2009; Stenning et al. 2010) and have emphasized the necessity to account for the role of culture and meaning in post-socialist urban transformation processes (Brade et al. 2009; Bartmawski 2011; Hirt 2012). For instance, Brade et al. note that “local cultures, traditions and mentalities, as well as specific historical circumstances have moved to center stage” (2009, 243) in the explanation of different patterns of socio-spatial differentiation in CEE, because “comparative segregation research […] has so far failed to provide insights into the social construction of images of urban spaces” (ibid.). In a similar vein, Borén and Gentile note with regard to suburbanization that TOWARD A MORE COMPREHENSIVE NOTION OF URBAN CHANGE 43 “the much acclaimed process of residential suburbanization in the major cities of post-communist Europe has been described carefully, and its institutional setting has been dissected […] but crucial questions such as who suburbanizes and how suburbanites live have not been adequately addressed—yet.” (2007, 96) In her insightful study Iron Curtains Sonia Hirt (2012) shows how a cultural approach can expand the political-economic analysis of phenomena such as suburbanization and gated housing in the context of post-socialism. Drawing on an in-depth case study of Sofia she shows how post-socialist suburbanization in this city has been fueled by the ideal of suburban living and the fascination with private, single-family living in increasingly exclusive settings. Privatism as the prevailing cultural condition in post-socialist Sofia manifests itself in the widespread disbelief in a benevolent public realm and the degradation of the urban public sphere. Following authors such as Matei (2004) and Ganev (2007), Hirt sees the roots of post-socialist privatism both in the disillusionment with post-1989s politics, which was marked by corruption, political instability and personal gains of a small elite, and in skepticism towards all public endeavors, the result of decadeslong totalitarian attempts to subdue the private realm (2012, 27). Drawing on ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews, Hirt suggests that the new urban spaces of post-socialist Sofia both reflect and reinforce that privatism as cultural condition through various forms of “spatial secessions”. These include the appropriation of public space for private uses (for instance, about a third of all green spaces in the city have been lost in the first 15 years of transition) and practices of spatial seclusion, exclusion and enclosure, manifested most clearly in the new housing estates built at a distance from the city, with restricted public accessibility, physical barriers and electronic access control. The eclectic, often postmodern and historicizing architecture of these new buildings and estates is meant to emphasize difference, discontinuity and separation. This “architecture of disunity” (ibid., 170) is surely not limited to the case of Sofia but constitutes the most common image of post-socialist suburban sprawl (see the argument by GCdecki in this volume on the preoccupation with prestige and aesthetics, which structures the Polish discourse on gated housing). Again, Hirt stresses the powerful cultural motif behind this kind of “stylistic secession”: “The new eclecticism is as much an expression of underlying political economy forces as it is consciously sought after—or at least not resisted—by the current city-builders, users and residents, even if they often complain about it and call it 44 MONIKA GRUBBAUER ‘chaotic’ or ‘zoo-like’ in the interviews. People seek difference, even a silly, tasteless difference like a marble eagle on the porch, and they do not care to look around and ask permission. To look around and ask permission would be to conform, and conformity is out. Difference is the new conformity. Every building for itself!” (ibid., 171) The sprawling new suburbs of Sofia, with its gated homes, provide the best evidence of these spatial secessions.4 The quest for suburban living manifested itself in a first wave of single-family homes, built mostly by individuals and mostly in illegal forms of “ad-hoc development” in the 1990s (ibid., 117). These buildings were fortified and surrounded with tall enclosures and solid gates reminiscent of the historic, Ottoman-era gated family compounds called by the same name of Duvari. Only the second wave of suburbanization from the early 2000s onward assumed the form of those gated complexes discussed currently, also in the case of most other postsocialist cities. The reasons for the appearance of these large-scale developments must be found in the higher penetration of the local real estate markets by foreign capital, the professionalization of the real estate business and the further infiltration of foreign cultural ideals (ibid., 157f.). In conclusion, Hirt disagrees with claims that represent gated communities as an export of an American ideal and an American development form to other parts of the world. In her analysis, gating in Sofia, especially during the 1990s, emerges as “a locally grounded phenomenon which not only reflects the vigor of the post-socialist culture of privatism but may even represent a return to pre-twentieth century local buildings traditions.” (ibid., 11) I do not wish to advocate replacing the political-economic perspective with a strictly culture-centered approach (neither does Hirt in her study). Neither do I think that the claims for a turn to context, particularity and meaning in post-socialist urban research should be framed only as questions of methodology. Rather, in my view, the unfulfilled promises of postsocialist urban studies can only be tackled by joining and taking seriously —————— 4 This decision for a suburban lifestyle is, as Hirt points out, often coupled with the restoration of patriarchal modes of social reproduction and household labor division. Due to the lack of childcare facilities in the suburbs and poor public transport, women more often than men give up their jobs when moving to the suburbs. Thus, suburbanization as a cultural phenomenon also involves the reconfiguration of private and public responsibilities. TOWARD A MORE COMPREHENSIVE NOTION OF URBAN CHANGE 45 both political-economy and culturalist/poststructuralist perspectives. Recent contributions to the study of urban neo-liberalism have explicitly argued for a crossing of theoretical boundaries to this effect (Künkel and Mayer 2011). They build on work that has sought to examine neo-liberalism not as a globalizing, disciplinary regime but rather as a geographically differentiated, locally articulated (and contested) process (Brenner and Theodore 2002; Castree 2006; Leitner et al. 2007). Of particular importance is the proposition by Brenner et al. to view these processes of neo-liberalization as “simultaneously patterned, interconnected, locally specific, contested and unstable” (2010, 184; original emphasis). According to the authors, this might allow the overcoming of the opposition between structurally oriented political-economy and heavily contextualized governmentality accounts of neo-liberalism and the resulting binary frame of inevitable convergence versus unpatterned heterogeneity. The implementation of neo-liberal policies in Central and Eastern Europe surely presents an excellent opportunity to go beyond that opposition of convergence versus heterogeneity; to put precisely that “systemic production of geoinstitutional differentiation” (ibid.) at the heart of the analysis and to study the incomplete and polymorphic character of urban neo-liberalization processes as well as their path-dependent character.5 On the one hand, post-socialist urban research could serve to further deconstruct normative concepts such as privatization, free markets and narratives of entrepreneurialism at the level of urban policies. The fact that concepts such as private property, markets, citizenship and civil society assumed only a partial and rather different realization in post-socialist countries has been discussed extensively in the broader literature on post-socialism (Verdery 1996; Stark 1996; Humphrey 1999; Hann et al. 2002). Stark, for instance, has famously pointed out how the introduction of private property rights in Hungary was embedded in already existing constel- —————— 5 See also the forthcoming topical issue of Europe-Asia Studies on “Actually Existing Neo-Liberalisms: Variations on a Post-Socialist Theme” guest edited by Sonia Hirt, Christian Sellar and Craig Young, which sets out to examine the meanings, implementations and modifications of neo-liberal doctrine in the context of the former socialist Eastern Europe and Soviet Union. The editors argue that the post-socialist world of Eurasia represents a particularly intriguing locus for investigating the “travels” of neoliberalism because of the deep modifications which neo-liberalism undergoes as it meets post-socialist conditions including resistance, appropriation and purification (Hirt et al. forthcoming). 46 MONIKA GRUBBAUER lations of power and control in the economy. He challenged the representation of post-socialist economies as being divided in two sectors (public and private) and pointed to the “recombinant” logic (1996, 997) of Hungarian property in the 1990s, characterized by a dissolution of the public/private divide, the blurring of enterprise boundaries, and a multiplicity of operative legitimating principles. Similarly, Verdery (1999) has pointed toward the advantages of “fuzzy”—indistinct, ambiguous and partial— property rights for the former party elites in Romania seeking to keep their sphere of influence and their privileged status. While this body of literature has rarely been interested in urban matters or the scale of the urban, it was at the same time rarely considered in the literature on urban transformations in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe (for a case in point see a recent comprehensive review of the literature by Sýkora and Bouzarovski, 2012). In my view, the findings of this body of work should be taken much more closely into account across the disciplinary boundaries when asking for the “recombinant” nature of urban policy regimes in postsocialist cities, in order to enhance the understanding of the contingent, impure and constructed nature of (urban) neo-liberalization (Peck 2008). Research on post-socialist cities could also deepen the understanding of how neo-liberalism is undermined and at the same time confirmed by economic and social practices as well as cultural preferences and values already in place. These practices and strategies “domesticate” (Stenning et al. 2010) neo-liberalism but at the same time work to sustain it by externalizing its negative effects. Such practices can be seen in the urban sphere, for instance in the enduring relevance of domestic food production for urban households in Central and Eastern Europe, or in the persistence of informal practices of trade and barter inherited from the second economy under socialism, which made the bazaar the paradigmatic urban form of post-socialism. Equally, the cultural condition of privatism, which Hirt describes as the driving force behind the suburban sprawl in Sofia (and which can certainly be observed in similar ways in the other post-socialist countries of CEE), is of course intrinsically connected to neo-liberalization processes. Despite growing inequalities and evident destructive consequences of the laissez-faire approach in urban planning, citizens of CEE metropolises have only very rarely questioned the prevailing mode of extensive urbanization; in fact, it is only now, two decades after the end of communism, that the “gating machine” (Hirt) is under full operation; the economic crisis of the years 2008/2009 had no immediate effects to the contrary and the steps TOWARD A MORE COMPREHENSIVE NOTION OF URBAN CHANGE 47 taken by the local governments in the capital cities of Warsaw, Budapest or Prague in the direction of more sustainable, equity-oriented development paths are still in their infancy. Thus, by drawing on both political-economic and culturalist/practice-centered approaches, another virtue of post-socialist urban research might lie in the chance to expand the knowledge of and pay more attention to how neo-liberalism is enacted, supported and ultimately rendered meaningful in everyday life. We shall return to this point in the next section. Post-socialism: a terminable concept? The second issue that recurs in the post-socialist-city debate deals with the question of continuities versus discontinuities in urban change. Following the diagnosis that “the post-communist city may be viewed as the outcome of an unfought struggle between legacy and transition” (Borén and Gentile 2007, 95), I see this kind of struggle also evident in the literature. Torn between emphasizing one or the other, authors often try to acknowledge both aspects, “legacy” and “transition”, at the same time. Some of the authors examining the recent processes of urban transformation in the cities of Central and Eastern Europe emphasize the radicalism of the break with the socialist past that is evident in the economic, social and especially the material transformations of the cities in the region. They see “a new urban order” (Kovác 1999, 4) in the impact of political and economic changes on the contemporary urban spaces of Central and Eastern Europe and emphasize the contrast between the socialist and the post-socialist city: “On the urban scene, this post-socialist/postmodern condition has been reflected in a chaotic pattern of development, generated by the retreat of central authorities, the appearance of a multitude of new players and the frivolous application of patterns of development ‘borrowed’ from the West. The once monolithic structure of the socialist city has been shattered into multiple fragments, pulled in different directions by various economic, social and political interests, yet somehow it is holding together, brimming with energy suddenly released after half a century of comatose existence.” (Stanilov 2007b, 8) As also evident in this quote, the break with the socialist past is often emphasized by pointing to the fact that the new urban forms and processes of 48 MONIKA GRUBBAUER socio-spatial differentiation are of typically “Western” and/or “capitalist” nature and differ from their counterparts in Western Europe only in the speed and intensity of their occurrence: “While some transformations of the built fabric are peculiar to post-socialist cities, most are common to post-socialist and capitalist cities, but proceed with different intensity in the two contexts—the post-socialist and the capitalist one.” (Hirt 2006, 464)6 Some authors expected—especially in studies of the 1990s—this process to end in the Central and Eastern European cities (once again) becoming standard Western cities (Sykora 1994; Häußermann 1996). Accordingly, a number of authors have approached the post-socialist cities of Central and Eastern Europe from a perspective that emphasizes their setting within a globalizing capitalist society (Tasan-Kok 2004; Hamilton et al. 2005) or the influence of transnational urban policy regimes and world-city narratives (see for instance Golubchikov 2010 on “world-city entrepreneurialism” in St. Petersburg). However, even though such approaches have their value in shedding light on the influence of international actors and globally circulating capital and the trajectories of transnational knowledge transfer, the expectation of the post-socialist cities becoming completely “westernized” has not become reality; neither in the physical transformation of the built environment nor in the social practices and daily activities that shape urban life. After more than two decades of post-socialism it is obvious that the transformation of the built environment occurs at a different pace than national and urban policy reforms. Urban forms accumulated over time in the past are not instantly deleted and replaced: “While post-socialist transition as a broad societal process involves the creation of a socio-economic order almost ex novo, post-socialist transformation is constrained by the inertias of the built environment and therefore characterized by the addition —————— 6 It is worth noting that there is also the view that the urban condition in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe might be ahead, in some aspects, of developments in Western Europe or North America. The massive and rapid emergence of gated and guarded enclaves is the most frequently cited example here. Hirt, in fact, suggests this reading when noting that post-socialist societies and cities, with their rigorous disposition for commercialization, fragmentation and securitization, as well as architectural pluralism and historicism, might exemplify the essential characteristics of post-modern urbanism in greater clarity and intensity than in Western settings (2012, 78). TOWARD A MORE COMPREHENSIVE NOTION OF URBAN CHANGE 49 of new urban layers rather than the eradication of existing ones” (Borén and Gentile 2007, 97). While the urban cores and suburban peripheries of post-socialist cities have indeed changed their face completely, other urban areas including socialist housing estates, derelict industrial sites and other “in-between” spaces have in fact experienced very little physical changes. The socialist legacy in the built environment is comprehensively explained with the long time spans of urban development cycles and the dynamics of the real estate markets which channel investment in selected areas. The continued importance of the socialist legacy in the mundane actions and routines of everyday life is not so evident at first sight. The last two decades have brought about fundamental changes with respect to work, home and housing, community and social networks, consumption and leisure (Burawoy and Verdery 1999; Bridger and Pine 1998; Stenning 2005; Hörschelmann and Stenning 2008). However, a range of authors have argued for the continued importance of the socialist legacy for social life, for instance in the institutional reconfigurations of the state and the private sector (Stark and Bruszt 1998), in the spheres of consumption and cultural production (Mandel and Humphrey 2002; Vonderau 2010), or in the field of economic and social practices (Verdery 1996; Stenning et al. 2010). In contrast to approaches that have taken the accession of ten former Soviet bloc countries to the European Union as a marker for the end of the post-socialist “transition”, these authors argue for the persistence of the post-socialist condition. They seek “to keep hold of [post-socialist difference], to attempt to theorise the post-socialist as, if not unique, then certainly distinctive” (Stenning and Hörschelmann 2008, 322). Inspired by post-colonial theory the authors argue that: “A post-socialism which is ending, or must end, is a post-socialism of closures, fixated on the end of difference. This kind of interpretation stands in stark contrast to the theorization of post-colonialism as a condition which persists long beyond the end of empire, and indeed is seen to have so much intellectual strength precisely because of the persistence of colonial forms, practices and legacies. Constructing the post-colonial—and the post-socialist—as articulated with other times and spaces creates a ‘post’ which moves beyond an either/or presence/absence.” (ibid., 329) Thus, post-socialism is also understood as a lens through which to revisit and reconsider theorizations of “socialism” (Verdery 1996; Outhwaite and Ray 2005). In particular, a range of studies have examined the ways in 50 MONIKA GRUBBAUER which “actually existing socialism” (Stenning and Hörschelmann 2008, 314) shaped and at the same time was grounded in everyday life (Creed 1998; Crowley and Reid 2002). The centrality of diverse economic practices in the second economy under state socialism has then been drawn on to explain the contemporary diversity of post-socialist economic practices (Smith and Stenning 2006; Stenning et al. 2010). For instance, the previously mentioned domestic production of food on family-owned plots or in urban allotments has been a distinct feature of socialist urbanity (ibid., 144f.; see also Bodnar 2001, 25ff.). Food and land have been rapidly commodified since 1990. Stenning et al. (2010) show in Domesticating Neo-liberalism that the neo-liberalization of retail landscapes in Poland and Slovakia has been accompanied by a persistence of self-provisioning. The low-income households in two districts in Bratislava and Cracow that served as case studies tried to reduce food expenditure by using different sources and shops, depending on purpose and situation. They employed various forms of food production, as well as food preparation and exchange, which countered the complete commodification of food culture by the multinational retailers and testified to the persistence of practices developed in the shortage economy under socialism. While this particular study is informed by practice-based approaches in social sciences, its occupation with everyday life practices also reflects the particularity of post-socialism, which is equally grounded in and enacted through massive changes in everyday life. However, the various practice-centered examinations of socialism and post-socialism which have emerged in the last 15 years have only rarely been reflected on in its consequences for urban research in such as fruitful way as in this study. This should not mean that post-socialist urban research has not addressed the theoretical challenge which lies in the analysis of transformation processes of different spheres (political, institutional, social, cultural, material) which are related but occur at different speeds. Various authors have discussed the layered and sequenced nature of the transformation processes and provided models with which to grasp the multifaceted causal relations at work (e.g. Nedovi6-Budi6 et al. 2006, 5; Tsenkova 2006, 24). However, as already noted above, the dominant interpretation is in conceiving of the processes of spatial reorganization and socio-spatial differentiation as consequences of or in their relation to institutional reconfigurations and economic reforms. In their recent intervention, Sýkora and Bouzarovski offer “a more explicit grounding of the theorisation of urban TOWARD A MORE COMPREHENSIVE NOTION OF URBAN CHANGE 51 change in post-communist cities” (2012, 43) by explicitly addressing this problem of multiple transformations on different levels. They propose new insights for urban studies by differentiating between three aspects of postcommunist transition: “the institutional transformations that created a general societal framework for transition; transformations of the social, economic, cultural and political practices exhibited in the everyday life of people, firms and institutions and resulting in social restructuring; and, the transformation dynamics of urban change.” (ibid., 45) These transformation dynamics are understood as following a temporal sequence; urban change in this framework is again understood primarily as the change of the material fabric, which takes place in “the long-term period, in which more stable patterns of urban morphology, land use and residential segregation are reshaped.” (ibid.) In my view, this temporal sequencing of short-term institutional, medium-term social and long-term spatial transformation processes—which the authors present as the main lesson to be learned for urban studies from the inquiry into the post-socialist urban condition—is too schematic and reductionist to understand the most intriguing and most challenging aspect of urban change under post-socialism: the interdependent nature of social and material change. The social and the material dimension of urban change under post-socialism are deeply intertwined precisely because of everyday life being a central site of change (as well as continuity)—and especially everyday life in the city. Sýkora and Bouzarovski do not consider the interplay between the social and material dimension of transformations, for example in the effects of changing lifestyles, cultural norms, and housing preferences on urban development or in the adaptation of routines and actions to the new geographies of consumption and retail in the city. This kind of analysis fails to address culture, meaning and agency: how meaning of the city and its urban spaces is constructed, how urban changes take place through the symbolic and the physical appropriation of urban spaces long before any visible changes of the built objects have been effected, how material transformations affect some social practices while others are left unchanged, etc. In sum, it fails to acknowledge that social and material changes are not sequenced in the post-socialist city; they have been taking place simultaneously from the first days of the post-socialist era onward with a radicalism, speed and complexity which have hardly been observed in any other region of the world in the last two decades. Take for example the multitude of bazaars that emerged in virtually all of 52 MONIKA GRUBBAUER the cities of Central and Eastern Europe after 1990, as described so vividly by Karl Schlögel in the pages of Marjampole and Go East. All of a sudden the great bazaars at the Luschniki and Dynamo stadiums in Moscow, the 10th-Anniversary Stadium in Warsaw (Sulima in this volume) and the Józsefváros railway station in Budapest or the Tolchok market in Odessa, have provided new focal points in (or, in the case of the latter, at the brink of) the city, enforced new tracks and paths through the city, and radically changed the perceptions of what constitutes centrality and periphery. But there are also less invasive (but nevertheless highly visible) material changes than those manifest in the new urban forms of sprawling suburbs and giant bazaars. A good example is given by Hirt (2012, 170f.), who notes how individual owners of apartments in socialist-era housing blocks in Sofia, faced with the lack of public initiatives for the restoration of these buildings, are hiring firms to install insulation plates on the exterior walls of their apartments alone. This results in the facades becoming colorful collages of isolated patches of insulation, each bearing the advertisement of the firm that installed it. Similarly to the infamous covering of complete facades with large, mostly English-language advertisements in the center of Warsaw (Chmielewska 2005), this kind of change in the urban “surface” has an influence on the perceptions and the uses of urban space, most importantly by contributing to the reconfiguration of the public and private sphere in the post-socialist city. At this point we should return to the initial question of continuities and discontinuities, which has troubled research on post-socialist cities. I think in order to take the post-socialism debate and its insistence on the importance of everyday life seriously and to make it fruitful for urban research, the ways in which architecture and the spatial organization of the city, on the one hand, and the activities and practices of social reproduction, on the other, are mutually dependent need to be scrutinized. This has of course methodological consequences. Qualitative approaches need to be employed to complement and expand the quantitative analysis. However, this does not mean simply switching from macro- to micro-scale analysis. Rather, the analysis on different scales needs to be consolidated and systematically correlated. In the aforementioned study on domesticating neo-liberalism, Stenning et al. (2010) have demonstrated how post-socialist urban research can be developed along these lines and how the reciprocity between material and social changes can be addressed convincingly by grounding research in in- TOWARD A MORE COMPREHENSIVE NOTION OF URBAN CHANGE 53 depth and micro-scale case studies. By employing a mixed-method approach they have examined processes of neo-liberalization in Poland and Slovakia, drawing on case studies of large-scale socialist housing estates in Bratislava and Cracow. Examining how households have “domesticated” neo-liberalism through economic and social practices in the spheres of work, housing, food, and care, they show how political-economic projects are not “‘out there’ and all-powerful, but […] always already particular, domestic, and local phenomena too” (Stenning et al. 2010, 3).7 The study offers a range of crucial insights for the analysis of interdependent social and material change under post-socialism. First, as already noted, it ties in with the literature on post-socialism cited above by showing how diverse economic practices, which emerged under socialism (informal work, domestic food production, barter), persist and develop in the context of post-socialism.8 Second, it shows how the diverse social and economic practices that contest, negotiate and adopt neo-liberal policies in everyday life are attached to a range of places in the city and linked to the spatial reorganization of urban functions. Only through this linkage of dayto-day maneuvers, actions and trajectories of citizens with new functional and organizational patterns can a more comprehensive, multi-dimensional account of urban change be gained. Of particular relevance for post-socialist urban research is the treatment of the housing question by the authors. In contrast to much of the literature on the consequences of privatization, increasing socio-spatial differentiation and emergent gentrification, Stenning et al. pay attention to “how individuals and households reconfigure their housing and negotiate housing markets, at a time when ownership structures are being radically reformed, housing markets are developing and diversifying, costs are escalating dramatically, and access is increasingly constrained by issues of affordability.” (2010, 113) The practices and strategies employed by low-income households in the two socialist housing estates include exchanging or selling and “downsiz- —————— 7 The concept of domestication employed by Stenning et al. is inspired by the work of Creed (1998), who examined how Bulgarian villagers made life under socialism bearable through various everyday economic practices. 8 It is disputed whether these practices should be seen mainly as “survival-strategies” and reactions to austerity and the lack of income (especially domestic food production and self-provisioning), or whether they should be seen within a wider context of a cultural economy of life in the region (Stenning et al. 2010, 71). 54 MONIKA GRUBBAUER ing” to realize housing assets, sharing homes between households, the adoption of existing properties to better suit housing needs and the pooling of all financial resources to enable household members to acquire first housing opportunities (ibid., 141). Furthermore, the authors show how shifts in housing have been connected to transformations in social relationships and family life, to questions of poverty and inequality, and access to consumption. Housing emerges in this analysis as the central element of the “the infrastructure of daily life” (Jarvis 2005 cited in ibid., 77): the place where work is situated in relation to home or to other sites of social reproduction (school, childcare, bus stops, shops) does have a real impact on the scope as well as the quality of everyday life. It is precisely these geographies of everyday life in post-socialist cities, i.e. the spatialized connections between diverse places in the city made up by daily, mundane practices, which have undergone the greatest changes in the past two decades. By examining this “re-assembling” of day-to-day life as part and parcel of urban change, post-socialist urban studies could, in my view, contribute much more significantly to contemporary urban research as well as to the research on processes of neo-liberalization. Conclusions: lessons to be learned I have argued that the findings from post-socialist urban studies have been underutilized in broader urban research. This is due to the narrow understanding of urban change in most of the work and the deficient integration of recent cross-disciplinary debates on socialism and post-socialism into the research on the post-socialist city. As a result, the two central issues of convergences versus particularities, and changes versus continuities, which have pervaded the debate on the post-socialist city, have remained undertheorized. Putting these two issues at the heart of the debate and theorizing them more systematically would, in my view, make the findings of the research on the post-socialist urban condition more accessible and more valuable for urban research in general. This would require paying closer attention to the cross-disciplinary literature in the fields of anthropology, sociology and geography on the explanatory value of post-socialism. Thus, the crucial challenge is not to further adapt Western concepts to describe and analyze TOWARD A MORE COMPREHENSIVE NOTION OF URBAN CHANGE 55 the phenomena observed in the urban transformation processes of Central and Eastern Europe in the last two decades. Rather, post-socialist urbanism should be scrutinized for its potential to push issues of general concern in urban research. I have argued that the two issues of convergences versus particularities, and continuity versus discontinuity, which have troubled research on post-socialist cities, can be related to important broader debates in urban research. First, the simultaneous persistence of converging and diverging forms of market-oriented regulatory and institutional restructuring is of central concern to the literature on urban neo-liberalization. Second, the intertwined nature of material and social change in the cities of Central and Eastern Europe should be of great interest for the growing body of practice-centered approaches to urban studies in its widest sense. Insights can be expected because what is addressed here are phenomena which can be observed in particular clarity and radicalism in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe: both the impact of processes of neo-liberalization as well as the speed and extent of socio-material changes in the cities of the region have been conspicuous and extremely articulated in comparison with other regions of the world. Such a realignment of post-socialist urban studies would mean integrating political-economic and culturalist, meaning- and practice-oriented approaches more consciously and expanding the methodologies of research to include more grounded, qualitative and ethnographic accounts. However, it would not mean giving up on the specificity of the post-socialist urban condition or arguing for a return to normalcy (for which the announcement of the Central and Eastern European cities’ “return to Europe” has been criticized; see Hörschelmann and Stenning 2008). 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European Urban and Regional Studies 15 (1), 53–70. Comeback or Revolution of the Cities? Regina Bittner At the 4th CIAM Congress,1 which was held in Athens on the cruise ship Patris II in 1933, the case of Warsaw was discussed in depth in the context of the analyses of 34 cities that had been prepared for the conference. After the conferences “The Minimum Dwelling” (Frankfurt am Main 1929) and “Rational Land Development” (Brussels 1930), the conference “The Functional City” addressed the matter of extending modern methods of analysis and planning to the scale of the city. The original intention to hold the conference in Moscow had been motivated by the idea that here was a certain potential for large-scale urban planning. Due to the altered political climate in the Soviet Union, another venue had to be found for the conference. The alternatives discussed included Warsaw and Barcelona. Each group of members from individual countries prepared city analyses for the event and discussed them according to the categories of metropolises, administrative cities, recreational cities, harbor cities and industrial cities. Contemporary techniques of mapping and presentation were used, which would allow a comparative analysis of the 34 cities from an international perspective. In the metropolises category, Warsaw was dealt with in depth and debated the following year at the CIPRAC2 meeting in London in 1934, based on an actual ongoing study. Under the title “Warszawa Funkcjonalna” the architect Szymon Syrkus and the urban planner Jan Olaf Chmielewski presented their vision of a Central Eastern European metropolis that designed the city itself programmatically as an intersection —————— 1 The “Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne” (International Congresses of Modern Architecture) was an organization founded in 1928 with the objective to formulate a contemporary program of architecture and to advocate the idea of modern architecture and town planning on an international scale. 2 Directing Committee of the International Congresses for Modern Architecture (CIPRAC), established in 1928. 62 REGINA BITTNER of transcontinental transport axes. In the process, Warsaw was placed rigorously in the European context. In David Crowley’s view, “Warszawa Funkcjonalna” thus projected the city not only as a “European city: it was simply becoming Europe itself” (Crowley 2003, 12). What was astonishing about the study was not its visionary character but the fact that it also exceeded the scale that had been discussed up to that point in the international Neues Bauen movement. In that respect, the urban planners presented a model of a perspective that expanded to the urban and regional space. At the centre of the study—or rather scenario—was the urban space movement, which suggested a suspension of the differences between city and countryside in so-called “Maksymalna” zones. Intersections were suggested as infrastructure clusters at the enormous traffic junctions, along which settlement developments, which had thus far been unplanned, were to be ordered and structured outside the city’s core, thus merging them into a new type of urban entity. “Warszawa Funkcjonalna” was embedded in the wide-scale international involvement of Polish architects and the planning avant-garde in the first decades of the 20th century. Thus the Polish group belonged to the core of CIAM activists from a very early stage and achieved notice for many things, including their suggestions at the Frankfurt conference, “The Minimum Dwelling”. In particular, contributions regarding cooperative housing construction in Warsaw attracted international attention. The young Polish architects’ and planners’ interest in the rationalization and standardization was due primarily to the fact that Warsaw itself had experienced a radical growth in urbanization in the first decades of the 20th century. By its very position as the most important outpost of the Russian Empire, Warsaw was the central transshipment point for trade with Western Europe. During the course of the new foundation of Poland in 1918, Warsaw became the capital city of a nation state that was influenced by the previous eras of Russian supremacy, war-time destruction and deep disparities between the regions. Compared to the large western metropolises, the urbanization process was quite late in starting in Warsaw. Studies show that the city had the highest population density in Europe in the interwar years, with over 2,000 inhabitants per hectare in some central urban areas (Wynot 1983, 176). There was neither sufficient living space nor the necessary infrastructure for this population. The huge growth of the city caused some foreign observers, such as the builder of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps, to claim that Warsaw would become Europe’s largest city: COMEBACK OR REVOLUTION OF THE CITIES? 63 “due to the fact that this is the place where East meets West and where the most colossal exchange to be imagined, the exchange between the continents, would take place” (Kohlrausch 2008, 6). In 1912, Polish statistics predicted a growth in population from 850,000 to 4.6 million in the next 50 years. The pressure on Warsaw was therefore great; without a doubt, this situation posed a challenge for the young discipline of urban planning. And it is only against this background that the special public attention that greeted the visionary plans of Syrkus and Chmielewski can be understood. At the same time, and this is a point made above all by the historian Martin Kohlrausch, the Eastern European metropolises were considered by many western CIAM members to be laboratories in which the radical ideas of international modernism could best be realized. In light of the large gap between the urban and the rural in interwar Poland, a holistic regional approach appeared to be essential. Here Kohlrausch highlights the special interplay between the international architectural and urban discourse and local fields of negotiation in Warsaw: the next issue addressed by the CIAM conference, inspired by “Warszawa Funkcjonalna”, took up the Polish demand for the expansion of urban planning by means of regional planning. Warsaw, in turn, seemed to be the ideal breeding ground for the realization of ideas that had only a theoretical space in the West. Leading members of the CIAM such as Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius approached the Warsaw mayor with a resolution in support of the ideas outlined in the large-scale “Warszawa Funkcjonalna” plan, which went far beyond all previous CIAM agendas and which integrated regional planning in urban planning. The radical nature of the problem also meant that matters relating to the already existing, traditional city and its development were barely addressed within the Polish CIAM group. Theo van Doesburg, in claiming in 1931 that “the new is adopted more willingly in Poland than in other countries” (1990, 304), pointed to a specific constellation that allowed Warsaw to become, in the first decades of the 20th century, a test field or, as Martin Kohlrausch puts it, a “space of opportunity for modern urban planning” (2007, 5): “To exaggerate somewhat, here the urban problems of the 19th century were to be solved with the expert knowledge of the 20th century. For the Polish group, on the other hand, the CIAM functioned not only as a knowledge exchange, but also as an agency of acknowledgement, in which domestic problems could become internationally noted case studies, and through which the international recognition could, in turn, be transformed into implementation opportunities at home.” (ibid.) 64 REGINA BITTNER To this day “Warszawa Funkcjonalna” is a controversial project in Warsaw, also because it reacted to a situation of upheaval in the city that was comparable to that of the present. The plan projected the metropolis as an intersection of transnational mobilities; as the capital city of a newly-founded nation state, in which different logics, international/transnational relations, national repositioning, post-colonial influences and urban dynamics were concentrated in a particular place. On the one hand the project is treated as proof of the modernity and internationality of the Polish avant-garde, while on the other hand the master plan is considered to be a precursor of the “entropy” of the city, which in the communist urban planning of the post-war period led to an almost complete fragmentation of the urban space in Warsaw (Bendyk 2006, 356). At the same time, however, continuities between the capitalist and socialist city are also displayed here: the functional urban designs in the first decades of the 20th century were formulated against the backdrop of criticism, of reform or of the revolution of the old bourgeois, capitalist city. The renewed discussion about that modernist project is being conducted at a time when a “comeback of the city” is, with 1989, introduced as an emancipatory space for the inhabitants of the city, but also at a time when the city appears once again to be endangered, threatened this time by the dynamics of global capitalism. In view of the quick renaissance of Eastern European metropolises after 1990 the Eastern Europe researcher Karl Schlögel announced a “comeback of the cities” (1991): “The greatest place of interest that can be admired in Eastern cities at present is the end of the city as a state event and the rebirth of the citizens’ city: banks that had become museums once again became banks, fur shops that had been converted into fish shops were once again fur shops. The stock exchange was once more the stock exchange.” (Kil 2001, 235) Schlögel’s observation expressed the hope nurtured by Eastern European intellectuals after 1989. As early as 1989 Jeremi T. Królikowski, a Varsovian architect and journalist, spoke of a comeback of the cities with the establishment of independent communal administration, local autonomy, the privatization of property and the development of a new entrepreneurship (Królikowski 1991, 21). But as well as the comeback of the “citizens’ city” Karl Schlögel, with his “comeback of the cities”, also addresses a second level of spatial re- COMEBACK OR REVOLUTION OF THE CITIES? 65 structuring in Eastern Europe: namely its return to the European map and its reintegration in the European network of cities. A new Europe was composed from diverse cross-border networks, migrational movements, and flows of transport, goods and people: the intersections of this extremely heterogeneous and dynamic urban geography form the metropolises of the East such as Budapest, Warsaw, Prague, Tallinn, Riga or Odessa (Schlögel 2001, 13). What is at issue in these spatial restructurings—processes of re-urbanization? Which dynamics were necessary for (re-)urbanization in socialism? And did these not already culminate in the peaceful protests on the streets of Prague, Warsaw, Berlin and Budapest in the autumn of 1989, which were ultimately “urban revolutions”? Taking as its starting point Henri Lefebvre’s theory of an “urban revolution”, which he suggested in the context of the international protests in the metropolises of Europe and North America, this paper first tries to examine the processes of urbanization in Eastern Europe from two sides. Firstly: what were the special features of socialist urbanization and to what extent did the pre-socialist legacy have a structural influence? Secondly, where did the city take place in socialism? Finally, starting from the assumption of two current positions on post-socialist Warsaw, reflections will be made on the continuities and fractures between the Warsaw of the CIAM avant-garde’s project, late socialist Warsaw and the present day metropolis. The extent to which the matter at hand concerns a “comeback” or an “urban revolution” is the subject of the concluding considerations. The socialist city: a paradox? The question of the specifics of socialist urbanization already occupied the disciplines of urban sociology and human geography in the 1970s. Urban research, inspired by neo-Marxism, was interested in the extent to which the changed conditions of production and of social organization also had spatial implications. In “La révolution urbaine” in 1970, Henri Lefebvre set out the—at the time surprising—theory that, in contrast to the dynamics of industrialization, which had influenced capitalist society for almost two centuries, the dynamics of the urban would now dominate the processes of socialization. Against this background he also concluded: “When it came to 66 REGINA BITTNER processes of urbanization it made little sense to separate the experiences of capitalism and socialism as found on the ground” (Smith 2003, XI). His book is one of the precursors of the spatial turn: here, for the first time, someone focuses on the dimensions of space within the debate on the characteristics of the formation and production of capitalist societies. In the “urban revolution” Lefebvre identifies the internal constitution of the city in a long historical process of transformation: “from the originary political city through the mercantile, the industrial city to the present critical phase, the harbinger of a certain globalization of the urban” (ibid.). Lefebvre’s position led to intense dispute within the Marxist-inspired discipline of geography. David Harvey still believes that the process of urbanization is determined by the conditions of industrial capitalism: “and the surplus value produced by capitalist accumulation […] is the raw material out of which the urban crystallizes” (in Smith 2003, XVII). Manuel Castells, on the other hand, accused Lefebvre of ignoring the role of history, politics and economics in the process of shaping the urban, when he writes of “urban revolution” (ibid.). Here we find that different theoretical positions relating to the role of history, politics and economics in the urbanization process are addressed, which also outline the controversy about the special features of socialist urbanization. In the process, no further reference was made to Lefebvre’s initiative—which, incidentally, he himself barely pursued—to think radically from the perspective of the urban and to consider the difference between the two social systems to be negligible. Neo-Marxist theoreticians like David Harvey and Manuel Castells assume that the mode of production plays an important role in the urbanization process. Their research approaches the city as a social space produced by class conflict, the dynamics of capital accumulation, state interventions and institutionalization. What is decisive is that these cities are interpreted as “capitalist cities” and that their inherent contradictions are exposed as contradictions of capitalist society (cf. Szelenyi 1996, 289). In this context, David Harvey states “that the urban has a specific meaning under capitalist mode of production, which cannot be carried out without the radical transformation of meaning (and of reality) into another social context.” (Harvey 2010, 32) While in these theoretical traditions, the economic conditions and political constellations of power in each case are described above all as determining factors of the urbanization process, urban researchers in the tradition of COMEBACK OR REVOLUTION OF THE CITIES? 67 Max Weber, Georg Simmel and the Chicago School take another view. Here, urbanization is associated closely with population growth, densification and spatial concentration (cf. Szelenyi 1996, 290). In this perspective, questions of the specific historic development in each case, the spatial compositions, the formation of a special, distinct urban lifestyles, and processes of institutionalization are of particular relevance. In his arguments relating to the special features of socialist urbanization, Ivan Szelenyi favors the latter approach. His thoughts not only embrace the “neo-Weberian” approach, but also supplement it with the following definitions of the urbanization process: on the one hand, the process of population growth and its spatial implications is observed here, while on the other hand the definition of urbanism in socialism is discussed. Underurbanization Ivan Szelenyi attempts to situate urban development in Eastern Europe as a special mode between the poles of “overurbanization” in the countries of the Global South and “balanced urbanization” in Western Europe: “Underurbanization simply means that under this pattern of industrialization-urbanization, the growth of the population falls behind the growth of urban industrial and tertiary sector jobs.” (Szelenyi 1996, 295) The process of underurbanization is closely connected to the peculiarities of socialist industrialization. According to Szelenyi, the process of extensive industrialization in general and the rapid expansion of heavy industry in particular were coupled with a lower level of population density in cities, compared to Western society. Underurbanization thus refers to the shifts in the urban structure that are connected with this pattern of modernization; while in the Western market economies rapid growth in employment was coupled with the expansion of infrastructure, services and the consumer sphere, the resources that emerged from the industrialization successes of the East were invested in new industries and channeled into non-productive areas like accommodation, schools, and social institutions. Such a radical control of resources was only possible in an economic regime which observed the guiding principles elimination of private ownership and central state planning. 68 REGINA BITTNER “It is indeed quite safe to say that socialist redistributive economies achieved the task of urbanization with significantly less spatial concentration of urban population than market economies” (ibid., 296). In the phase of “post-industrial” development from the 1970s, the focus of economic development did indeed change with the emergence of more knowledge and service-based sectors, during the course of which the number of industrial workers decreased, but no real city growth can be determined in this phase, according to Szelenyi. Instead, the author observes here new types of regional arrangements between urban and rural economies, which developed in the first instance as a result of the permanent economy of scarcity and which differed qualitatively from Western patterns of urban regionalization/suburbanization. While Szelenyi defines underurbanization as a special feature of socialist urbanization, he does not refer explicitly to the historical dimension of this process. Historical and geographical studies of this region have established that the dominance of the rural, the smaller role of the cities in the process of capitalist accumulation, and not least the ever-shifting geo-political constellations at the beginning of the 20th century all led to a different geography of settlement and to a unique urban–rural relationship in Eastern Europe (Hoffmann 1994; Wynot 1983; Turnock 2006). The situation of Warsaw in 1910, as described above, embodies this alternative pattern of urbanization: it was shaped by massive influx from the rural population, the lack of accommodation and a simultaneous growth of informal settlements, as well as a dovetailing of the rural and urban economy. Against the backdrop of the historical path dependency of the processes of urbanization in this region, Judit Bodnar has legitimately posed the question as to the degree to which correlations existed between the influence of the socialist system and the pre-socialist heritage of the region (Bodnar 2001, 23). Hence, a condition of underurbanization cannot be determined solely by looking at the special mode of extensive socialist industrialization. The question should rather be whether, on the contrary, a specific path development of regional development existed that also structured the socialist modernization process. Szelenyi then takes a second step in determining the special features of the socialist city and discusses questions of urbanism in socialism: three criteria are listed—diversity, commercialization and marginalization— against which the socialist city is measured. The reason why socialist cities COMEBACK OR REVOLUTION OF THE CITIES? 69 appear so monotonous is, according to the author, the lack of diversity with regard to goods, services and cultures. Secondly, the state ownership of property, in other words the lack of commercialization, led to the development of a changed physical structure of the city. Generously sized public squares and parks were created in the city centers, spatial arrangements that would not have been possible under the conditions of private ownership of property. Finally, he questions the extent of urban marginalization, which was already considered to be a deeply ambivalent feature of urbanism at the outset of urban research. Marginality was seen as a prerequisite for cities to be dynamic, tolerant and innovative places. In contrast, one of the central agendas of socialist ideology was to guarantee the same living conditions for all members of society—resulting in a leveled city that tolerated few differences and nuances (Szelenyi 1996, 301). Szelenyi’s approach, as illustrated here, explains the urbanization process not only with regard to economic conditions but rather discusses it as a historical, spatial and institutionalizing process. But to what extent can this approach contribute to determining the distinct features of the socialist city? Underurbanization—understood not as a normative approach, but instead as an analytical concept that examines the special arrangement of each relationship between urban and rural space in their historicity and spatial manifestation—can be suitable as a framework in which to trace the special features of socialist urbanization. Urban ethnographic research in particular has produced interesting, more detailed insights in the last few years, which shall be reflected in the conclusion. More difficult, however, is the second line of argument. Although the politico-institutional conditions such as the abolition of private property, state planning and the suspension of class differences structured the “socialist city”, urban life still developed in the everyday existence of socialist cities. The criteria outlined above seem to refer to a blueprint of an “ideal city” by which the level of socialist urbanism can be identified and measured. Szelenyi’s considerations can be assigned to a theoretical tradition within urban research that, as Eike Henning writes, is “strangely fixed, not very open-ended” (2006, 34). “The guiding and influential starting point is a normative, backward looking image of an ideal city” (ibid.). The template of this ideal city is therefore the basis for the assessments of the socialist city. Whatever differs from this ideal imagination is devalued as being not urban, i.e. rural or simply backward, but in each case it is blind with regard to the distinct creation of urban space. 70 REGINA BITTNER Urban spaces in socialism What particular urban arrangements were shaped in the course of the urbanization process in Eastern Europe, a process of urbanization that followed path dependencies in which pre-socialist regional heritage and socialist modernization merged in a complex manner? In the last twenty years, the discipline of urban ethnography has made a series of interesting contributions, which describe the production of urban spaces in the cities of the East in their historicity as socially produced and changeable. “Space”, writes Doris Bachmann-Medick (2006, 289), “means the social production of space as a multilayered and often contradictory social process, a specific locating of cultural practices, a dynamic of social relationships, which indicate the changeability of space.” Such an approach also provides insights into the complex spaces of contradictions, of transgression and resistance in the everyday life of socialist cities (Verdery 1996; Burawoy and Verdery 1999). It is not possible here to address in detail the comprehensive studies that were conducted in the last few years, particularly in the fields of anthropology and ethnography, describing socialist/post-socialist everyday life as a contradictory and complex field of social relationships, economic trade and cultural practices, but for our context—the question of the specific mode of socialist urbanization—the merging of urban and rural social spaces is of particular relevance (Hann 2002; Humphrey 2002). Different economies of management shaped socialist everyday life, which also built upon pre-socialist practices: using the example of Bulgarian retail the ethnologist Deema Kaneff proved that the ideological concept of transforming peasants into workers meaning “petty commodity producers who traded at the local markets into collectivized producers engaged in state production” took its own path under conditions of the economy of scarcity (Kaneff 2002, 35). State production and household production often existed side by side and individuals were often involved in both forms simultaneously. This especially applied to those who moved from the countryside to the new mikroraions: dachas often replaced the loss of one’s own farm. Deema Kaneff’s study also discovered that this domestic economy was one of the determining elements of family ritual: people helped each other reciprocally during the seasonal harvest, even if family members lived in different cities. Caroline Humphrey takes this observation as an opportunity to criticize the approaches of post-socialist theory formation, which, using the “transitions COMEBACK OR REVOLUTION OF THE CITIES? 71 paradigm”, support a complete restructuring of relationships in Eastern Europe toward the market economy. “What is often forgotten”, write Caroline Humphrey and Ruth Mandel, “is that this version of ‘the market’ did not land on unoccupied ground. […] We are not dealing simply with the clash of two mutually alien economic systems, ‘the market’ and ‘the socialist planned economy’, but with a more complex encounter of a number of specific culturally-embedded, and practical organizational forms.” (Humphrey and Mandel 2002, 2) This specific hybrid form of economizing also resulted in changed models of living. Thus Judit Bodnar, using the example of Hungary, introduced the term “double dweller”: a figure that already appeared in the industrialization processes of the 19th and 20th centuries, when the economic boom in the cities attracted large numbers of migrants from the rural regions, despite the lack of sufficient living space or income. Bodnar sees here a special feature of Eastern European development: industrialization recruiting its labor force primarily from rural areas. This mode was continued in the course of extensive industrialization under socialism. In the process, “double dwelling” took different forms: workers who were employed in state industries but who still lived on the land or, due to a lack of housing, in temporary accommodation in the city, returning to the countryside at weekends, or city dwellers who could not abandon their familial connections to the countryside, if only for economic reasons. “Double dwelling emerged as a reaction to a structural feature of extensive industrialization, labor shortage, the specific form of which was made possible by low transportation costs (a state socialist attribute), the lack of available housing in cities (a widespread urban phenomenon mixed with state socialist ideological reasons), and a specifically state socialist administrative push. Double dwelling can be seen largely as the result of the twin processes of state socialist industrialization and underurbanization, and thus as a specific feature of state socialism” (Bodnar 2001, 28). This resulted in economic strategies that combined different kinds of income that went beyond mere “survival” and which by these means put the agents in a position to improve their economic situation. However, whereas researchers such as Katherine Verdery and Deema Kaneff also see forms of resistance against the state regime in such practices, Judit Bodnar adopts a critical distance. The re-urbanization processes of the consumer socialism of the 1970s and 1980s were based also on these particular forms of secondary economy. But these diverse entrepreneurial practices, which 72 REGINA BITTNER she calls “Frigidaire Socialism”, were accompanied by extremely ambivalent effects. “Frigidaire socialism in a sense prepared the soil for large-scale privatization. Essentially, it meant individual strategies of tempered consumption on a massive scale that centered on the home, the holiday house, and the car. […] This small scale privatization of collective goods was indeed a socio cultural overture, an introduction to the large-scale privatization of collective goods broadly understood that has taken place since the regime change.” (ibid., 10) However, the boost in re-urbanization under late socialism not only had these ambivalent entrepreneurial practices and spatial arrangements as a backdrop, but also developed an increasing diversification and cultural heterogeneity. Research on the cultural creativity and alternative art scenes in cities such as Leipzig or Wroc̅aw provide an insight into extremely lively and transnational urban networks (Bielawska 2008; Steets 2008). Within these re-urbanization processes, therefore, political agents, cultural networks and milieus also developed, without which the urban revolutions of 1989 would never have been possible. Citizens against the city, or revolution of the cities In his essay “Warsaw—citizens against the city”, the journalist Edwin Bendyk (2006) argues that, with the transition to global capitalism, communism was characterized by comparable mechanisms of urban development. Almost programmatically, he begins with two scenes from Roman Polanski’s film “The Pianist”. First we see Warsaw shortly after its destruction, and are confronted by a completely empty space. The second scene then takes place after the liberation; “People move through the devastated streets, […] as early as one year later […] by 1946, almost half a million people will live in Warsaw”. The subject of the text is the dynamics of the urban development of Warsaw after the fall of the Iron Curtain and it draws parallels with the many radical upheavals that influenced the city in the 20th century. Whereas socialist planning—in which, according to the author, the visions of the “Warszawa Funkcjonalna” played no small part—produced a completely dysfunctional city space, as a result of which both the physical space of the city and also the urban life of the city dwell- COMEBACK OR REVOLUTION OF THE CITIES? 73 ers fragmented, Warsaw after 1990 also seemed unable to emancipate itself from the power, or “demiurges”, as he calls it: “As a legacy of communism, now unattended by the totalitarian power of the demiurges, the urban space shows itself to be an agent of entropy, instead of counteracting its power. The building boom, the skyscrapers shooting up at each corner and the shopping centers only reinforce the dysfunctional structure of the urban space that was left behind by communism.” (Bendyk 2006, 356) The other face of the new capitalism is expressed in the multitude of small, entrepreneurial, free market activities—in kiosk businesses, shopping malls and temporary sales stands, which also try to fill the gaps of the post-socialist city. Bendyk’s essay describes post-socialist Warsaw as an urban space, in which mechanisms operate that are, in turn, comparable to those of socialist Warsaw, which are directed against the city. Here the effects of global market dynamics are what undermine local autonomy and promote new demarcations, fragmentations and exclusions with the commercialization and privatization of the urban space. The concern that global capitalism, assisted by the nation state, now operates in the cities in a similar manner to the communist system is now shared by many artists and intellectuals. It was the cultural milieus that in the “post-industrial phase” of the 1970s and 1980s stimulated re-urbanization in alternative creative scenes and networks, and which operated more or less beneath the official city in the gaps and niches and at the same time in a network of wideranging transnational relationships. A specific idea of the city was formed here, referring to freedoms achieved, risks taken, but also unimaginable possibilities, which ultimately led to a radical transformation of urban and social relationships in the urban revolutions on the streets of the Eastern metropolises. As fervent proponents of the city, they advocate the city as a complex and dynamic agglomeration that comprises chances, options and risks. In their view this complexity, which had so restricted communism, should develop into a dynamic and conflict-laden, self-organized process of negotiation. Citizens against the city—Bendyk leaves his readers with a series of examples of how Warsaw acts in the “battle against the enemy forces of entropy”: the Equality Parade, the Science Picnic, the papal week.3 The author sees dynamics here that “allow the Warsaw duel be- —————— 3 The papal week was a daily public gathering at the Pi̅sudsky Square in Warsaw in April 2005 commemorating collectively the death of the pope Johannes Paul II. 74 REGINA BITTNER tween the forces of entropy, the negative energy of the urban space and spontaneous life to end well” (ibid., 365). The trust in the power of a more organic and spontaneous process of urban development in the evolution of cities like Warsaw is also shared by the architectural curator Gregorz PiCtek. His plea: Polish cities “might seem chaotic, but it is a creative chaos, which became a unique laboratory after 1989, in which a natural process of selection is in operation”. And in the process, it is not so much the instructions and plans from above but rather the many small steps by individuals between pragmatism and creativity which are increasingly shaping the face of Polish cities. In his view, it is above all the normality that gradually emerges from this process that represents a great asset for a country which was dominated for centuries by foreign rule and backwardness (PiCtek 2007, 32). The common factor in both positions is that they insist on the city as a lived in, commonplace, willful spatial context, in which the impositions of the political system and the market can be negotiated, modified and restricted in a specific manner. So do these two positions give any indications toward a special Central and Eastern European post-socialist city? “Citizens against the City” (Bendyk 2006, 351) can be seen as an assertion of the late-socialist space of experience and resistance of the city: a space that is composed on the one hand of alternative scenes, sub-cultural milieus and civil society networks and organizations with international range, but which also, on the other hand, was based on those ambivalent forms of secondary economies as special urban–rural arrangements, which peaked in the period of consumer socialism and without which the radical privatization of the cities after 1990 would not have been possible. This re-urbanization of the cities in the East not only contributed to the fact that these cities were placed on the global map even before 1990, but was also a decisive factor in bringing about the fall of the Iron Curtain. “Citizens against the City” reclaims this area of experience, the loss of which is once again feared, albeit this time due to the forces of the global market. Comeback or revolution? Henri Lefebvre’s announcement of an urban revolution at the moment when the Western industrial nations were on the threshold to becoming post-industrial societies, applied in equal measure to the East. Since the 1970s the post-industrial developments also led to reurbanization in Budapest, Prague, Warsaw and East Berlin. This, admittedly, took a different form than in Western metropolises, and consisted rather of kiosk markets, illegal backyard businesses, private galleries, living COMEBACK OR REVOLUTION OF THE CITIES? 75 rooms and alternative clubs, from which the citizens designed their city. They sold copies of Western labels, produced works of art for the international art market, transformed living rooms into places of artistic performance and were at the same time integrated into a comprehensive international network of flows of goods, information and people. “The urban revolution,” writes Neil Smith, with a view to the significance of Lefebvre’s early work, “is a paean to the space of the city and to the possibilities of revolutionary social changes that comes from the streets” (Smith 2003, XIX). Did the post-industrial society also find its paradigmatic place in the cities of the East? This is a question that presents an exciting perspective for trans-disciplinary urban research on Eastern European metropolises and which can open up further debate on the extent to which it is an urban revolution—in Lefebvre’s meaning—or a comeback of the cities which could and can be observed in Eastern Europe. The second position drafts the post-socialist Polish city as a chaotic laboratory, which forms itself in a spontaneous process of permanent trial and error (PiCtek 2007, 33). When enormous architectural investments displace the small buildings of the 19th century, when temporary markets occupy the remaining spaces of communism, when gated communities expand the edges of the city beyond all recognition in the immediate vicinity of socialist residential blocks, Gregorz PiCtek sees in all of this the signature of an open and dynamic principle of the city. The distrust of all forms of state planning and intervention might be seen as a post-socialist heritage, but it also expresses the knowledge of experience that cities like Warsaw “have always been chaotic”. That, in turn, picks up on the specific conditions of urbanization in this region—a rural–urban nexus, to which “Warszawa Funkcjonalna” already reacted, which structured the socialist urbanization, and as a result of which cities developed as open systems that continuously formed new arrangements through the constant exchange between people and goods and traffic. The Polish CIAM contribution, which caused such an international stir in the 1920s, understood this open and mobile system of the city to be a condition that wanted to give the modern planner a structure, a framework. Syrkus and Chmielewski recognized—and therein, without a doubt, lies the value of their utopian design—that the dynamics of migration, mobility and change belonged to the structuring logics of urban development in Warsaw. When Gregorz PiCtek won the “Golden Lion” in 2008 for his contribution to the national pavilion at the Venice Biennale, it was, again, a 76 REGINA BITTNER scenario in which a Polish author achieved international recognition. “Hotel Polonia”, the theme of the show, displayed large-scale photographic collages, in which, for example, newly built mega-churches integrated fun swimming pools and cultural buildings were converted into shopping malls. Polish cities were presented as “hotels”, a topos that has been used for a number of years in urban research: the term points towards the capabilities of cities to change and transform (Färber 2005). Therefore, in spite of all differences, some common features can be identified between the two internationally noted designs, “Warszawa Funkcjonalna” and “Hotel Polonia”—one from the beginning of the 20th century and the other from the beginning of the 21st: common features that suggest a “longue durée”, when, over the course of a century, Polish cities were designed as dynamic and flexible entities in a constant state of change, as pulsating interfaces of transnational flows of migration, goods and traffic, whose outstanding characteristic is transformation and openness. (Translated by Carolyn Kelly) References Bachmann-Medick, Doris (2006). Cultural Turns: Neuorientierung in den Kulturwissenschaften. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. Bendyk, Edwyn (2006). Warschau—Städter gegen die Stadt. In Katrin Klingan und Ines Kappert (eds.). Sprung in die Stadt. Chisinau, Sofia, Pristina, Sarajevo, Warschau, Zagreb, Ljubljana, 350–65. Köln: DuMont. Bielawska, Jolanta (2008). Wroc̅aw. Lebendigkeit der Kultur. In Yolanta Bielawska et al. (eds.). Urban Potentials. Konzepte und Handlungen. Rotterdam, Salzburg, Wroc̅aw, Budapest, Dresden, 35–41. Berlin: Jovis. Bodnar, Judit (2001). Fin de Millénaire Budapest: Metamorphoses of Urban Life. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Buroway, Michael, and Katherine Verdery (eds.) (1999). Uncertain Transition. Ethnographies of Change in the Postsocialist World. Lanham and others: Rowman & Littlefield. Crowley, David (2003). Warsaw. London: Reaktion Books. Doesburg, Theo van (1990). Über europäische Architektur. Gesammelte Aufsätze. From Het Bouwbedrijf 1924–1931. Basel, Boston and Berlin: Birkhäuser. COMEBACK OR REVOLUTION OF THE CITIES? 77 Färber, Alexa (2005). Vom Kommen, Bleiben und Gehen. Anforderungen und Möglichkeiten urbaner Praxis im Unternehmen Stadt. In Alexa Färber (ed.). Hotel Berlin. Formen urbaner Mobilität und Verortung. Berliner Blätter 37, 7– 20. Hann, Chris (ed.) (2002). Postsocialism. Ideals, Ideologies and Practices in Eurasia. London and New York: Routledge. Harvey, David (2010). The urban process under capitalism. A framework for analysis. In Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (eds.). The Blackwell City Reader, 32–9. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Henning, Eike (2006). “Planning, Building, Breaking, Rebuilding”: Stadtforschung und die Norm der europäischen Stadt. Soziologische Revue 29 (1), 26–35. Hoffmann, David L. (1994). Peasant Metropolis. Social Identities in Moscow 1929–1941. Ithaca (N.Y.) and London: Cornell University Press. Humphrey, Caroline (2002). The Unmaking of Soviet Life. Everyday Economies after Socialism. Ithaca (N.Y.): Cornell University Press. Humphrey, Caroline, and Ruth Mandel (2002). The market in everyday life. Ethnographies of post-socialism. In Ruth Mandel and Caroline Humphrey (eds.). Markets & Moralities. Ethnographies of Post-Socialism, 1–16. Oxford and New York: Berg. Kaneff, Deema (2002). The shame and pride of market activity. Morality, identity and trading in post-socialist rural Bulgaria. In Caroline Humphrey and Ruth Mandel (eds.). Markets & Moralities. Ethnographies of Post-Socialism, 33–51. Oxford and New York: Berg. Kil, Wolfgang (2001). Neun Notate zu einer Stadt, die sich nie fremder war als heute. Afterword. In Uwe Rada (ed.). Berliner Barbaren. Berlin: BasisDruck. Kohlrausch, Martin (2007). Die CIAM und die Internationalisierung der Architektur. Das Beispiel Polen. Themenportal Europäische Geschichte. http://www. europa.clio-online.de/Portals/_Europa/documents/B2007/E_Kohlrausch_ CIAM.pdf (accessed 23.04.2012). Kohlrausch, Martin (2008). The communication of architecture as transnational experience. Poland in the interwar period. CCGES/CCEAE Working Paper Series 16, 1–19. Toronto: CCGES. http://www.cceae.umontreal.ca/IMG/pdf/ Kohlrausch_FINAL__missing_French_abstract_.pdf (accessed 23.04.2012). Królikowski, Jeremi T. (1991): Powrót miasta do miasta. Architectura 6/7. PiCtek, Grzegorz (2007). Ein schöpferisches Chaos. Die Architektur der wiedergewonnenen Freiheit. In Jahrbuch Polen 2007, 20–33. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. http://www.deutsches-polen-institut.de/Downloads/ansichten/jb2007_piatek _piatek_warschau.pdf (accessed 23.04.2012). Schlögel, Karl (1991). Das Wunder von Nishnij oder Die Rückkehr der Städte. Berichte und Essays. Frankfurt/Main: Eichborn. — (2001). Promenade in Jalta und andere Städtebilder. München: Carl Hanser. Smith, Neil (2003). Foreword. In Henri Lefebvre. The Urban Revolution. London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 78 REGINA BITTNER Steets, Silke (2008). Wir sind die Stadt. Kulturelle Netzwerke und die Konstitution städtischer Räume in Leipzig. Frankfurt/Main and New York: Campus. Szelenyi, Ivan (1996). Cities under socialism—and after. In Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe and Ivan Szelenyi (eds.). Cities after Socialism. Urban and Regional Change and Conflicts in Post-Socialist Societies, 286–317. Oxford and Cambridge (Mass.): Blackwell. Turnock, David (2006). The Economy of East Central Europe. 1815–1989. Stages of Transformation in a Peripheral Region. London and New York: Routledge. Verdery, Katherine (1996). What Was Socialism and What Comes Next? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wynot, Edward (1983). Warsaw between the World Wars. Profile of a Capital City in a Developing Land 1918–1938. New York: East European Monographs. II: Urban Form and Representation Continuity of Change vs. Change of Continuity: A Diagnosis and Evaluation of Warsaw’s Urban Transformation Magdalena Staniszkis Preface The cultural heritage of a city, which is the main source of its identity, is often understood as the visible urban and architectural structure—that is, as the very stage for city life. But spatial development is neither the result of natural forces, nor of the economy—even the free market economy. Rather, a city’s development is created by the political decisions that are materialized in urban plans, and such plans are strongly influenced by contemporary urban theories, trends, and principles. However, the visions for a city’s changes as presented in urban plans are soon relegated to archives, where they are often not available to the public, although such visions are an important part of the city’s cultural heritage. Thus, in order to analyze, evaluate, and understand the process of change in any city, along with the changes of both the material, built structure and the intellectual part of its cultural heritage, those archived visions have to be taken into consideration. For what they represent is the very history of urban planning. Since a city is hardly something static, but rather something ever undergoing developmental processes, its identity also evolves and changes. Therefore, the city is a material document of the historical process of continuous change. Urban planning is the process of making decisions for the city’s future under conditions of inevitable uncertainty, but based on political declarations as well as programs for meeting the general goals of achieving better living conditions. Because the system of values can also change, so may the concept of “better living conditions” vary over time. In other words, the constraints on meeting needs and achieving dreams cannot be fully predicted. This is why the process of planning is continuous, just as the process of urban development is, too. The process of change may be described as continuous when new development is occurring in unbroken succession to the cultural heritage of 82 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS the city. Theoretically, the process of change, even when dynamic development takes place, might entail continuity with the intellectual heritage of urban ideas, as well as with the material heritage of the built structure. The necessary condition for such an idealistic, continuous process of development is that of a stable system of values compatible with the political, social, and economic systems. However, such stability of the city’s developmental conditions is practically impossible, or at least very rare. In fact, the flow of changes to any city is not continuous, but rather based around historical “mile stone” events. Yet even within these pivotal developmental conditions, a careful approach to the process of changes should be observed. The approach that predicates a continuity of change occurs when new future needs are planned to be met without disturbing the existing material heritage and in reliance on the intellectual heritage of urban ideas established in the past. Such a development could be dubbed a policy of completing and augmenting. A break with continuity occurs when the approach to new development is based on denying the city’s intellectual heritage of urban ideas and its existing physical structure. This approach strongly relies on new (previously unexpected) developmental goals and constraints that legitimate the unconditional necessity to change previous urban plans and even demolish the built environment. We may call such a developmental approach a policy of rejecting and erasing. Even for the most revolutionary historical change, the city is not a tabula rasa, so the policies of completing and augmenting as well as rejecting and erasing may happen in parallel in the same city. This concerns the selection of urban ideas and aspects of urban plans and chosen elements of the city’s physical structure. The history of Warsaw is extremely rich in revolutionary changes to developmental ideas, conditions, constraints, and goals, and this has influenced both the city’s urban plans and its physical structure. The development of Warsaw since 1990, which is the subject of this publication, began with one of the most revolutionary changes in contemporary history not only for Warsaw and Poland, but also for Europe. The year 1989 is the symbolic date of the end of a Europe politically divided since World War II. The new political and economic conditions that arose at the beginning of the 1990s strongly influenced the development of Poland’s capital. Today’s Warsaw is a different city compared to that of twenty-two years ago. CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 83 Indeed, such dynamic growth in such a short period is something altogether unusual in a “normal” city’s history. But the history of Warsaw’s development is not “normal” in the sense that Poland’s capital may not boast a continuous process of unbroken succession in building the city’s image, its cultural heritage, and its urban and architectural specificity. Warsaw’s identity is a result of historical “leaps” and violent ruptures from the very beginning all the way to modern times. This result stems from both the continuity of change as well as of changes of continuity in planning ideas and in physical development. To outline the development during the transformation period since 1990 and provide a better understanding of what happened in Warsaw and why during the last twenty years, a succinct review of the period up to the beginning of the 20th century is required. The history of urban planning and development between 1916 and 1989 is then presented in confrontation with the most crucial political changes of those years. The main features of the city’s structure, which define its identity, date from those periods. Hence, they are comprehensively described in order to allow analysis of the recent post-socialist transformation. Warsaw’s recent development is analyzed from the perspective of the most significant phenomena of the post-socialist urban transformation, which includes such factors as urban sprawl, the shrinking of open spaces, the development of hypermarkets (as we call them in Poland), the underdevelopment of public spaces, the revitalization of brown fields, townscape changes, and events surrounding the Palace of Culture in the city center. I shall provide a brief description of these changes in urban structure along with a diagnosis of events and the consequences for living conditions. In a further step, these phenomena will be contrasted with a contemporary understanding of the principles for sustainable cities. In closing, a synthesis is presented of Warsaw’s successes and failures, along with a brief, general conclusion for the approaches to continuity of change and change of continuity in the city’s development. 84 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS The history of Warsaw’s evolution The historical development Warsaw was settled in medieval times as a “city of citizens” on the Vistula river. The city’s identity was defined by the urban structure and typical architecture of the time: a town surrounded by red brick walls, enriched by the natural landscape—in Warsaw’s case, the high escarpment over the broad river with its scenic landscape. From the very beginning the city skyline became an important feature of the river valley landscape and, conversely, the close view of the river valley from the city was an intrinsic part of its townscape. The political decision in the late 16th century to establish Poland’s capital in Warsaw entailed a historic leap in the city’s development and a deep change for the city’s image and urban structure. The royal castle built at the edge of the Old Town and on the Vistula’s escarpment, together with the prestigious palaces built along the Royal Route, with parks connecting the city to the open landscape of the river, became an important feature of the new identity of this “city of nobles”. When the rapid development of European cities began in the 19th century, a process which determined their contemporary townscape, Warsaw’s development was constrained by a very specific political situation. For at the end of the 18th century Poland had been partitioned by three European powers and ceased to exist as an independent state. Warsaw itself became a “fortress city” on the western edge of the Russian empire. The onetime capital of Poland was surrounded by a system of military settlements which strictly limited the possibilities of territorial development. Even though a traditional European city structure developed in Warsaw and the architectural townscape was typical for the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the built up density of the city was extremely high. Living conditions were not compatible with the moderate hygienic standards to which people had become used. Creating the modern city Together with the political changes in Europe after World War I, Poland regained national independence as the Second Republic and a new era for the development of its capital dawned. The first sketch of a modern urban plan of Warsaw, the “To̅wiwski Plan” (Kotaszewicz 2004, 16f., fig. 10–12), was prepared in 1916 and the idea of developing the “hygienic city” was CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 85 continued in planning and in the city’s development for the next twenty years. The new Warsaw was built beyond the previously settled military limits and its densely built up central core. The urban ideas for the new development followed the very modern principles of shaping the city in the form of distinctive urbanized districts clearly divided by green corridors of urban open spaces. The star shape of open spaces became a unique feature of the large scale composition of the city’s structure, due to the historical change of continuity in the city’s development. The practice of erecting new structures in the densely built up, unhygienic city was rejected. Nonetheless, the newly built modern districts continue the traditional public space layout of streets and squares, yet they are much wider and greener compared with Warsaw’s townscape in the two or three decades preceding World War I. At the same time, modern regional planning started. According to the plan of “Warszawa Funkcjonalna” (“Functional Warsaw”) from 1934 by the architects Jan Chmielewski and Szymon Syrkus (Gutschow and Klain 1994, 83; Kotaszewicz 2004, 41, fig. 61), urbanization was to be limited to the built up belts settled along the public transport rail-lines. The strict limits for urban sprawl and the conservation of green fields were clearly defined in the urban and regional plans. Planning during World War II World War II became the most dramatic period in Warsaw’s modern history and at the same time a unique chapter in the history of the city’s urban planning. The plan “Warschau, die neue deutsche Stadt”, established by the German planner Friedrich Pabst (Gutschow and Klain 1994, 28–40) was probably the most spectacular example of the change of continuity in the idea of urban development, when the political goals of building the new city were to be achieved by the complete physical erasure of the city’s entire existing cultural heritage. At the same time Polish planners in an underground organization were working on the new development of Warsaw to be introduced after the war (ibid., 55–81). Their work was based on modernistic ideas of city development. Even though the Pabst plan was not implemented, at the end of World War II the central part of the city was converted into a vast pile of rubble all the same. 86 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS Developing the socialist city In 1945 Poland became a part of Soviet Russia’s sphere in the politically divided Europe, and so it was then that the socialist period of Warsaw’s development started. The first political decision taken by the communist authorities on the state level, that of rebuilding the historical urban and architectural monuments, might be qualified as the continuity of Warsaw’s development with respect to the city’s cultural identity. This reconstruction also must be treated as an obvious change with respect to the barbarian urban utopia of the Pabst plan. Due to this “reconstruction from the ruins”, Warsaw’s identity today is strongly based on its cultural identity—and even though the Old Town is not a genuine historical structure, it has been included on the World Heritage List of UNESCO. At the same time, however, the new leadership operated upon the principle that the political and social order had to be clearly visible in the cityscape. The most spectacular change to the continuity of Warsaw’s development came with the Palace of Culture and a vast open square below it positioned in the very center, where before World War II the dense grid of streets and urban housing along them had created the city’s image. The architectural aesthetics of the new skyscraper, similar to such edifices in Moscow, highlighted the revolutionary change in the history of Warsaw and defined the new city center’s image. Moreover, the modern “socialist city”, full of green areas available for all and the new “socialist-realist” architecture, replaced the densely built up “capitalist” central districts. The change of continuity in Warsaw’s townscape was at the same time based on the continuity of planning ideas initiated in modern urban plans, which can be observed by comparing the plans from archives (Fig. 2) (Kotaszewicz 2004; Mieszkowski and Siemiwski 2004; So̅tys and Weszpiwski 2002). The star shape of green ventilation corridors was strictly kept, even though the dynamic development of the new prefabricated housing districts took place in the city’s outskirts. The Athens Chart principle of positioning “buildings in parks”, and rejecting the townscape of streets and squares, predominated the visual image of the new neighborhoods. From that period, a significant change of continuity in the modernistic urban layout may be observed in Warsaw’s Ursynów district, where prefabricated (concrete-slab) apartment buildings were positioned along planned city streets and squares. But Ursynów, constructed in 1978, may also be qualified as an example of a return to the continuity of creating the traditional urban city structure rejected in modernist housing CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 87 development in the sixties and early seventies. Thus, the continuity of changes, together with the change of continuity in developing the city and in its modern planning ideas, determined Warsaw’s post-war urban and architectural identity. Warsaw’s built identity at the end of the People’s Republic of Poland When the new chapter in Warsaw’s urban development started in 1989, the ruptures of a political, social, and economic nature materialized in the city’s physical structure and in the documentation of urban plans. To define the post-socialist transformation, the following important features of Warsaw’s identity have been selected. The urbanization of the greater-Warsaw area in the form of built up belts incorporating existing satellite cities, serviced by the railway system introduced in 1934, was continued in regional plans into the 1980s (Chmielewski 2004, 165–169, fig. 164–168). This planned structure of Warsaw and its region was not fully developed, but was ready to be implemented. The idea of the star-shaped ventilation corridors was also continued in planning and development from 1916 to the beginning of the postsocialist period. Even though the star-shaped green areas were narrowed, when the new urbanization occurred, the spatial continuity of the open urban spaces was clearly visible in Warsaw’s townscape and due to that, Warsaw was recognized as a green city. The district centers and local neighborhood centers planned in the socialist period gave a polycentric structure to Warsaw, shaped as a conglomeration of cities within a city. However, the district centers, planned for the main public transport nodes, have remained undeveloped open spaces, and the areas reserved for community centers served as a location for temporary markets or parking lots in the beginning of the 1990s. The planned physical and functional structure was left to await completion. Due to the communist political ideas of changing the traditional social structure of Warsaw’s population, which was to be achieved by the introduction of the working class into Warsaw, the capital city after World War II became an important Polish industrial center. New industrial districts were planned and developed in the outskirts of the historical city core in the form of mono-functional zones according to modernist principles for urban zoning. Traditional urban public spaces were present in Warsaw 88 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS mainly in the historical core. Many lots along streets and on historical squares edges had remained empty since the end of the war. The historical “system of main city parks”, along with the ones developed in the socialist period (Kiciwska 2002) and neighborhood common greens, established an important component of the city’s public spaces—a kind of substitution for the lack of the traditional city’s living streets and squares in the prefabricated housing districts. The historical monuments restored after the wartime destruction of the architecture from the late 19th and early 20th centuries were in rather poor condition, and the socio-realist buildings of the 1950s created the townscape identity of the city’s central area. The modern architecture of the 1930s and the prefabricated architecture of the new housing of the 1970s dominated the townscape of the residential districts (Leｭniakowska 2005). The streetscape at the beginning of the 1990s was generally described as “grey” due to the predominant color of the architecture, but also due to the very poor quality of the public space arrangement. Nevertheless, rows of trees along most of the city’s main and local streets, the agricultural lands of the ventilation corridors, the historical public parks and those constructed in socialist times, the greenery of the housing districts and allotments—this all has given “grey” Warsaw also the image of a green city. In the center of Warsaw the Palace of Culture, surrounded by the vast Parade Square, was the main architectural symbol of the city. Instead of a downtown central district, the institutions creating city life were located in a single socialist-realist edifice constructed out of keeping with traditional scale and isolated from the city’s surrounding structure. The phenomena of the post-socialist transformation The transformation period is presented by comparing the previously described main features of the city’s character with the phenomena of the recent twenty-year development in order to observe the continuity of change and/or change of continuity in urban planning and in the city’s physical structure and how this influences living conditions in Warsaw. CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 89 Figure 1: Urban sprawl and a shopping mall in the suburbs of Warsaw (Photo: Marek Ostrowski / projektwarszawa.org) Urban sprawl Urban sprawl became the main phenomenon of the transformation period. During the first fourteen years of the transformation new development took place mainly in peripheral districts of Warsaw and in the surrounding counties of the region. A 3%-growth in population per year—the highest in the whole Warsaw region (Warsaw Study 2006, 4f.)—occurred in districts which have never been considered for urban development due to a lack of effective public transport. The agricultural fields in Warsaw and all over the region have been built up by individual single-family houses as well as by developer condominiums (Fig. 1). As the urban standards from socialist times stipulating the obligation for local schools, kindergartens, parks, and other services for inhabitants within housing areas was ne- 90 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS glected after 1990, this new development occurred in the form of monofunction dormitories. The urban sprawl which started in the early 1990s, and which has been continuing until now, must be evaluated as a revolutionary change of continuity of the existing and the planned urban structure of the Warsaw region for nearly 80 years. The reasons for such vast territorial urban sprawl are complex. Booming motorization and society’s growing wealth gave the opportunity to make the dream come true of living in a house with a garden in the picturesque landscape of a suburb. Previous housing conditions during the socialist period were essentially restricted to an apartment in a multi-family prefabricated house, which might explain the great demand for urban sprawl after the collapse of the socialist system. Yet at the same time the new situation of Warsaw and its region’s political structure have influenced this change of continuity in urban development. One important aspect of the post-socialist transformation is the emergence of local self-government, allowing for independence and prerogatives of local authorities at the county level with regard to urban development decisions. The new development policies of democratic authorities of Warsaw’s various districts and the surrounding regions have favored free market competitions, as a result of which new urban plans to open up the green fields to urbanization sprawled. Regional planning was largely neglected at the beginning of the transformation period. Obviously the lower prices of land in the suburbs and, in consequence, the lower prices of housing attracted many city residents to move to the suburbs. But those decisions were not just a deliberate choice, often they were the only acceptable economic solution, because the new luxury apartment houses built by developers within the city have been directed mainly to the very rich. Independent local development policies together with a lack of housing policy on the national and the local level, as well as the complete freedom given to developers in choosing the location of new construction sites and deciding the housing prices on a free market basis, all resulted in urban sprawl. The consequences of urban sprawl became a classic example of how the dream of living in the suburbs proved to be a nightmare, including spending hours in traffic jams every day on the way to work, school, for shopping or even for a walk in a park. CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 91 Figure 2: Built-up areas on the ground of open spaces in Warsaw plans; 1916: The Warsaw Preliminary Outline of Regulation Plan; 1938: The Warsaw and Surrounding Areas Master Plan; 1960: The Warsaw Long-Term Master Plan; 1982: The Warsaw Master Plan; 1992: The Warsaw Master Plan; 2006: The Warsaw Study (Drawing: Magdalena Staniszkis) 92 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS The three hundred fifty thousand people in cars and two hundred thousand people in public transit (Warsaw Strategy 2009, appendix 1)—Warsaw having one million and six hundred thousand inhabitants—crossing the city borders every day illustrate the scale of the mono-functional urban sprawl in the region of Warsaw. As the urban idea for the Warsaw region was created in the 1930s, the idea of sustainable urbanization had not even been mentioned then. Currently this idea could be indicated as a model solution for the region. The post-socialist urban sprawl has been at variance with all sustainable development ideas, if only to mention “TransitOriented Development”, according to which mixed use and pedestrianoriented development should be located on main transit lines (Calthorpe 1993, 41–67). Shrinking open spaces Building up Warsaw’s green ventilation corridors became the second most clearly visible phenomenon of the post-socialist urban transformation. The star-shaped open land system started shrinking and disappearing in plans (Fig. 2) as well as in the contemporary Warsaw townscape. Since the 1990s the green fields within the city became the most desirable locations for new constructions, mainly for luxury apartment housing. Building permits, resulting from the first post-socialist urban plan for Warsaw established in 1992 (Chmielewski 2004, 189, fig. 183) for development within the green areas have brought about an extreme narrowing of the ecologically active corridors, in some cases even their complete liquidation. The last general document on urban development policy directions, adopted in 2006 (Warsaw Study 2006), went even further in diminishing nature within the city. Reducing the green ventilation corridors and the plans to continue this process in the future is a drastic example of change in the continuity of modern Warsaw’s planning and development. Indeed, over the last twenty years Warsaw has mostly lost its generally unique urban structure as created ninety years ago and developed ever since. Planning the system of green ventilation corridors was facilitated in communist times by agricultural activity, which until 1990 occupied over one-hundred and sixty square kilometers (Warsaw Strategy 1997, 276), nearly 30% of the city’s territory. Stated-owned areas labeled “undeveloped CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 93 green lands”, largely located in the city’s central area, have also been an important part of the city’s greenery. When the political situation changed, the authorities of Warsaw did not try to find any solution for the conservation of the city’s green areas for the public good. The enthusiastic atmosphere for opening the city to largescale development in the liberal economy, the re-privatization of many “undeveloped green areas” and the demands of private and state owners of agricultural lands to designate those lands for urbanization resulted in the demise of the “star city”. As time has shown, the decisions to designate in plans so many green areas for development were not necessary to satisfy the new needs. After all, to this day many of them are still not being built up.1 This is in part because of a lack of real need for building sites, but also because of a lack of technical infrastructure. The costs of building the new roads and infrastructure to serve the planned on green fields development are much over the possibilities of the public budgets. As for example in the communities on the southern outskirts of Warsaw, were the urban sprawl is one of the biggest in the whole region, those costs exceed the communities’ yearly budgets by an estimated 980% in Lesznowola or 300% in Piaseczno (Kowalewski 2012). The shrinking of the city’s open spaces negatively influenced its functioning in many aspects. The local city climate, as the conditions for ventilation and temperature moderation and rain-water retention are weaker, has become worse and the conservation of the natural environment within the city is under serious threat (Szulczewska 2002). The city structure is no longer easily understood when the urbanized areas are not divided by green spaces and the whole city is becoming a vast built up territory. Easy access to recreational lands close to living places, which had been available for all, has now become a privilege for only a few. Warsaw with its star-shaped system of urban open spaces had been a perfect example of the “Balanced regional hierarchy” model of the sustainable city (Haughton and Hunter 1994, 288). The decisions to designate green corridors for new housing and business parks neglected the principles of sustainable development. The principle that “an ecosystem approach must be embedded in city management” (New Charter of Athens, part B.3) has not been adopted in the policy for Warsaw’s urban develop- —————— 1 There is a lack of available data on how many lots exactly have been built up. 94 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS ment. At the same time no standards for a coherent “green urban policy” for urbanized areas have been established on the state level. Hypermarkets—those enormous supermarkets and shopping malls The resignation from development of the polycentric structure of the cities within the city was an unexpected outcome of the transformation period. The long-planned “hearts” of public life in the city districts and housing neighborhoods, also envisioned in the plan from 1992, were awaiting appropriate economic conditions to be developed. Since the end of the planned economy, the activity of small and medium developers willing to construct shops, restaurants, offices, and multifunction buildings became a perfect force for the development of local centers and for completion of the urban idea of Warsaw as a conglomerate of small cities and urban villages. Yet instead of pursuing that advantageous track, since 1990 Warsaw’s authorities have permitted the construction of nearly 900,000 square meters in huge shopping centers, over 5,000 square meters each on average (data according to Jones Lang LaSalle), surrounded by vast parking lots of up to fifteen hundred positions (see Fig. 1). The growing demand for consumer goods, which was a result of rising wealth, has been met in these “churches of commerce” far from residential areas. At the same time the empty lots designated in plans for local centers have remained undeveloped. Building hypermarkets, instead of giving priorities to the development of local centers, should be considered a drastic change of the continuity of the planned structure for Warsaw. The development of local centers, as based on the new economic reality, would have demanded an active policy on the part of the city authorities. But the creation of public spaces and living shopping streets and squares along which developers could build their constructions required detailed urban plans to first be adopted. However, no such plans were prepared and enacted at the beginning of the transformation. Instead of appropriately detailed plans, the very general master plan of the city adopted in 1992 (the Warsaw Plan 1992), which demanded much less time to be prepared, and less involvement of the public authorities in managing the private sector’s activity became the main basis for constructing Warsaw in the early 1990s. Such a liberal plan, one that was quite “friendly” for the big-scale developers, as well as a complete lack of reflection on how hy- CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 95 permarkets in such a vast number would influence urban living conditions, were the main reason for not re-building the traditional city structure and changing the continuity of the urban ideas from socialist times. Concentration on commercial centers outside the housing districts has caused timeconsuming travel and resulted in mono-functional dormitory communities with no space for the local community’s social life. The fact that over 60% of Warsaw’s retail area is located in shopping malls and hypermarkets, and that over 40% of consumers have gotten used to commuting to the biggest hypermarkets for shopping and entertainment (Warsaw Study 2006, 15f.) does not offer a positive prospect for the development of local centers in the near future. The quality of life in such a city does not meet contemporary standards of sustainability. The principles and guidelines for creating a good living environment in cities within a city are described at length by Leon Krier (2009) and other propagators of New Urbanism in the collective publication edited by Peter Katz (1997), or in professionals’ manifestos (Charter for the New Urbanism). The city of Warsaw has neglected these principles altogether. Brownfield revitalization New development on post-industrial zones has become a characteristic phenomenon of the transformation since the 1990s. When, together with the new economic reality, the heavy industry plants of Warsaw ceased production, many lots were offered as attractive opportunities for new development within the city. These opportunities were gladly taken up by developers, mainly to construct business parks (Fig. 3). As a result, the process of revitalizing brown fields has become an example of continuity in the development of the mono-functional zone idea introduced in the urban plans of the socialist era. The previous industrial use has been converted into office space, but the outdated principle of concentrating work places in districts separated from other mono-functional city zones is a constant. Yet in the case of revitalizing post-industrial fields a change of continuity would have been preferable, rejecting mono-functional zones and replacing them with mixed-use districts. The dynamic activity of developers and the demand for new office building space had emerged long before the public authorities managed to 96 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS react to this phenomenon ever so intrinsic to the new reality. The lack of appropriate plans describing the new city’s public space layout and the mixed-use urban structure was apparent again, as was the lack of plans for local centers. This was the reason for losing the chance to create an exemplary modern city, as the new economic situation truly did offer an opportunity for the city’s favorable post-socialist development. Figure 3: Office buildings by JEMS Architects in S̅uﾉewiec Przemys̅owy, a postindustrial zone with 1 million square meters of office space constructed since the 1990s (Photo: Magdalena Staniszkis) Uncontrolled concentration of work places in business parks results in enormous traffic jams during rush hours, as the number of “white collars” in the districts became much larger than the previously predominant “blue collars”. This is because the new workers mainly travel by car. Such a spontaneous, territorially-concentrated development of offices resulted in the lack of construction potential for the development of the long envisioned polycentric city structure. The vast number of new office buildings already built in the post-industrial zones is also a lost chance for the development of planned multi-functional district or local centers and even of the city center around the Palace of Culture. Many of those places which were in fact served by effective public transport (as for example the planned centers of Mokotów district at the Wilanowska metro station or CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 97 ﾈoliborz district at the S̅odowiec metro station) and which were waiting to be filled with work places, are empty to this day. Since using the brown fields for the city’s new needs is a very correct approach to sustainable development, the specific case of Warsaw here is against the principles of creating mixed-use city districts. The delayed political reaction to the phenomena of the diminishing demand for industrial use resulted in other unsustainable development solutions. It is easy to predict that if appropriate revitalization plans for brown fields would have been prepared earlier, many green fields (where the development of new apartment housing and business parks was allowed) could have been saved. The unsustainable results for the overall urban structure which result from the wrong approach to the revitalization of brown fields show that sustainable development requires a holistic policy in managing the economic activities of private enterprise. Unfortunately such a policy was not adopted in Warsaw. Urban public spaces The new economic situation resulted in a vast number of new constructions of various functions, private as well as public. Warsaw took advantage of this to fill in the empty lots along the streets and squares in the historical city core. Due to the above, the urban form of the downtown’s public space has been completed, and the traditional city structure has continued to develop by new means of contemporary architecture (one example of which is the Supreme Court by architects Marek Budzywski and Zbigniew Badowski at Krasiwski square) or by historical reconstructions (such as at Teatralny square). Those new buildings and the many new bars, restaurants, art galleries and boutiques along the historical streets have introduced new activities which positively influence the quality of a city life in public spaces. Beyond that, public constructions of various types along the Vistula river front have started to develop as a new, living, public space in Warsaw. Development of the riverside boulevards can be qualified as continuing the general urban idea introduced in the plan from 1949, in which vast public parks on both sides of the Vistula were proposed (see Warsaw Central Area Plan, Mieszkowski and Siemiwski 2004, 91, fig. 106; 94, fig. 109). But at the same time, urban public spaces have not been created in the new districts developing within the previously agricultural areas. 98 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS The urban composition of these districts has been determined mainly by the rural land property divisions and an extensive net of public roads and paths in the suburbs. The traditional public spaces of a certain density, along with public parks and gardens, are not present in the vast part of newly developed Warsaw. Within the private condominiums, the new urban layout has been strongly influenced by developers’ demands of achieving maximum built-up density on the lot. As a result, the continuity of the modernistic “buildings in the park” composition can be observed, but with many fewer of the green commons characteristic of the socialist era (Fig. 4). Even if some of the big new developments are shaped in line with the continuity of the traditional city street and square structure, those spaces remain private, behind fences. The gate-guarded development, described by GCdecki in this book, has become a new phenomenon of Warsaw, together with a weak development of new public spaces. Figure 4: Gate-guarded communities located at the edge of SzczRｭliwice Park built on the agricultural land property (Photo: Marek Ostrowski / projektwarszawa.org) CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 99 The unique phenomena of the growing attractiveness of public spaces in the central area and at the same time lack of public spaces in the newly developing areas is connected with the authorities’ approach to urban planning. In the districts where the traditional urban layout was developed, or at least had been planned, as in the above example of Ursynów district, the new constructions could have easily filled in the empty lots and complete the city structure. However, the areas for public spaces were not designated in the new urban plans, nor did they occur as a result of the private developers’ activity. The plan for Warsaw prepared in the early 1990s, as well as the contemporary plans for the city outskirts which were predominantly privately owned agricultural fields, dedicated minimal areas for public spaces in the areas designated for development, aiming at minimizing the public costs of buying private properties to serve for public use and then develop and maintain them. Such general “low costs plans”, which established only the largest collector streets and in consequence huge city blocks, resulted in a lack of public spaces and in a vast number of private, fenced-off communities developed within these huge city blocks. The lack of a dense net of local public streets, of squares, parks, even schools and kindergartens in the outskirts of new districts, as well as the gate-guarded communities outside the city, represent lost opportunities for inspiring public life in Warsaw’s public spaces. Examples of this include the single family housing development in the outskirts of Ursynów district or the new city within the city in Wilanów district, the Miasteczko Wilanów, with over forty thousand inhabitants, or the 30 hectare fenced community of Marina Mokotów in Mokotów district I have described elsewhere (Staniszkis 2005). Such a spatial, not “city-like” structure has a negative influence on social integration, on the sense of community, and on developing a democratic society. “A primary task of all urban, architecture, and landscape design is the physical definition of streets and public places of shared use” (Charter of the New Urbanism, 19). This is the main obligation of urban plans, and it has not been taken into consideration in the recent urban planning of Warsaw. Townscape Since the beginning of the 1990s the variety and number of private developer constructions and new public buildings brought about a spectacular 100 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS change in Warsaw’s townscape. The contemporary architecture of Warsaw represents a variety of forms, aesthetics, and styles (Leｭniakowska 2002). Among these are the highest achievements, the “icons” of the new reality, which have certainly become an important part of the city’s new cultural heritage, as well as the pride of Varsovians.2 These “icons” include the Library of the University of Warsaw, which public opinion has also deemed the most successful contemporary building. But the freedom for architecture, the possibilities of using the highest technical and materials solutions, and spontaneous rejection of the prefabricated block aesthetics often resulted in overbearing opulence and outright kitsch. Figure 5: The skyscrapers in the skyline of Warsaw seen from the Siekierkowski Bridge (Photo: Tomasz Gamdzyk) As by law only the architecture of public buildings is a result of international competitions and only the few most ambitious developers are organizing competitions or are choosing distinctive Polish or foreign architects to design private constructions, today’s architecture in Warsaw is not always exactly what was wished for. The urge to mainly showcase the architect’s ego, or to imitate the most fashionable foreign examples, has only too often been more important than taking into consideration the urban context and creating a coherent order for the townscape. Unfortunately the development boom resulted also in the demolition of some of the best architecture of the communist period, with the most detrimental loss being —————— 2 The best Polish buildings of the 1990s selected by a professional body were shown in the exhibition POLSKA. IKONY ARCHITEKTURY [Poland. Icons of Architecture] organized by Architektura-murator in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2006, see http://www.muratorplus.pl/25382_27043.htm (accessed 09.03.2012). CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 101 that of Supersam, a shopping pavilion and icon of Warsaw’s modernist architecture with a roof made up of alternating arches and cables, constructed in 1962 and flatted in 2006 to build an office tower. Besides the new quality of architecture, the number of skyscrapers in the city center is a new phenomenon of the transformation period, one distinctively changing the scale of the city image and the city skyline (Fig. 5). Furthermore, selected public spaces, mainly in the historical district, due to the new landscape design, have been given a new quality of streetscape. But the quantity of positive changes to components of the city’s visual image did not bring about the expected qualitative change to the overall townscape. Figure 6: The view from the Palace of Culture towards Marsza̅kowska and Aleje Jerozolimskie intersection with the empty Parade Square on the first plan (Photo: Tomasz Gamdzyk) Besides the new architecture, probably the most recognizable change of the streetscape has been caused by the outdoor advertisements. The quantity and size of big-scale, colorful, and aggressive billboards, present in the center as well as in the suburbs have created a new kind of visual identity for Warsaw (Fig. 6) (Chmielewska 2005; Dymna and Rutkiewicz 2009). Permits for occupying the public space and to cover a building’s entire face with advertisements have changed the townscape of Warsaw, which certainly cannot be described as “grey” any longer. 102 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS The lack of the appropriate urban guidelines resulted in the random vicinity of buildings varying in height, color, shape, and size. This has caused a feeling of chaos, especially along the main peripheral streets (Staniszkis 2002). The weak planning regulations, due to the neo-liberal ideology of not disturbing free enterprise, are the main reason why the vast number of new constructions (the exceptional but also the most simple) did not create a new beauty for Warsaw or even so much as spatial order. Moreover, the city authorities to date have not managed to find a way to limit, if not eliminate (whether by urban plans regulations or by other city local laws) the outdoor advertisements which worsen the chaos of the streetscape. Figure 7: The visualization of the surroundings of Marsza̅kowska and Aleje Jerozolimskie Streets intersection, according to the awarded competition design in 2004 by architect Magdalena Staniszkis (Drawing: Marek Ziarkowski) No wonder that such a cacophony in space is not what was expected after the People’s Republic of Poland. Assuming that architecture reflects society, the Warsaw townscape says a lot about the condition of society and the mental attitudes of architects in post-communist times. The contemporary syndrome of the culture of the common good being trumped by the culture of individualism is plain in Warsaw. It seems that sustainable development ideas embracing “green architecture”, protection of the cultural CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 103 heritage, and the search for new values stemming from genuine culture have not been, with few exceptions, the goals of creating Warsaw’s townscape during the last twenty years. Around the Palace of Culture Warsaw’s identity is strongly connected with its center as the most recognizable part of the city, as a symbol to be identified with the whole city (Omilanowska 2010). The very specific phenomenon which has taken place in the Warsaw center since the 1990s is consequently also symbolic for the whole twenty-year period. Around the Palace of Culture the plans for changing the city center were commenced from the very start of the post-socialist transformation. The international competition for a new Warsaw downtown announced in 1992, was a natural decision stemming from the general will to change the image of the city, dominated as it was by the Palace of Culture surrounded by the vast Parade Square, the most powerful symbol of the socialist system. Among over three hundred competition entries the first prize was given to a project by architects Bart̅omiej Bie̅yszew and Andrzej Skopiwski, which presented the idea of changing the existing townscape by introducing a dense net of public spaces and buildings of a height traditional for Warsaw (Chmielewski 2004, 198, fig. 190; Omilanowska 2010, 132, fig. 10). Such a planned change of the city center can also be evaluated as a continuity of the city’s tradition, or renewed change broken by the Palace of Culture’s historical identity for the city. At the same time the urban plan for the central district (Warsaw Central District Plan 1993) was adopted (Chmielewski 2004, 193, fig. 84), and in this plan the “central emptiness” was designated for temporary use by a “central market”. Due to that political permission, but also in a big part spontaneously or even illegally, the empty, socialist Parade Square was converted into a living capitalist shopping district, but in the form of poor quality temporary malls (which looked like aircraft hangars) and street stands. During the time when the chaotic central market in the shadow of the Palace of Culture was a significant new symbol of Warsaw’s post-socialist transformation, the discussion about the new image of the central district was still underway. After thirteen years of debate about the form of the new center, the first new urban plan, based on the competition’s winning idea, was adopted by the city council in 2006 (Warsaw Centre Plan 104 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS 2006), (Fig. 7). Right after that achievement, new doubts about the townscape of Warsaw center arose and after another five years the new plan, adopted in 2010 (Warsaw Centre Plan 2010) designating the area for skyscrapers (Fig. 8) substituted the previous “traditional” plan. Together with the ambitious plans of creating a “Warsaw Manhattan” the market was liquidated and the empty space around the Palace of Culture reverted to the former identity of the center of the post-communist city. This uncontrolled chaotic development, the plans to reconstruct the broken urban tradition, and the will to create a completely new image of the city center—which all happened in one place in only twenty years—reflect the problems of the transformation period in the city as a whole. Figure 8: Warsaw Center according to the Warsaw Center Plan adopted in 2010 (Drawing: Grupa GSZ Szmyd & Zaborowski Architekci) The scope of new development which happened in Warsaw since the beginning of the 1990s, confronted with the lack of development of the center, may be explained by the lack of political will to create a new image of the city center and by the failure of the appropriate public authorities to manage the private sector’s construction activity. But the fact that the new, democratic politicians of Warsaw did not have any previous experience in managing the development of a big city in a capitalist reality might also be CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 105 an explanation for this failure. The permission to build a chaotic temporary market in the very center became an example to be followed in the whole city and influenced the development of the same type of constructions in other places of Warsaw. However, this lack of urban order and the permanent living in a temporary environment so unbecoming of a capital city obviously does not coincide with society’s expectations for better living conditions. The failure to guide the developmental boom into the central space of the greatest public transport accessibility, and at the same time the permissive policy towards the sprawl of new constructions in the peripheral post-industrial zones and in the green fields, is obviously at sharp variance with the guidelines of sustainable development. Conclusions The post-socialist transformation has changed Warsaw, but those changes represent successes as well as failures. The positive changes concern the visual image of the city’s central area owing to many new or renovated historical buildings and the new design of prominent public spaces—as for example, the historic Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street. The important change in connecting the city with the Vistula river has been achieved by constructing the Copernicus Center right on the river front and by recently commenced development of boulevards. The many top-quality architectural buildings of various functions in the central districts (as well as in the periphery) have changed the townscape of Warsaw for the better. There is no space here to mention them all, but important examples are to be seen in Krywski and Majewski 2005, or the illustrated guide to the most interesting pieces of Polish architecture of the last decade 101 Najciekawszych Polskich Budynków Dekady (2011, Agora Publisher). Other very important positive changes, such as protecting the natural environment thanks to building the sewage treatment plant and the underground metro, may also be mentioned. These successes are mainly the results of continuity of change, a policy of adding and completing, when new possibilities and needs filled in the existing and planned city structure on the basis of Warsaw’s historical development as established in the beginning of modern times and during the People’s Republic of Poland. Yet at the same time the 106 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS continuity of outdated ideas resulted in the failures of the development of mono-function business parks in the post-industrial zones. The failures of urban sprawl, the building up of the green corridors, the appearance of a vast number of shopping centers, and neglect of the development of local centers and social services within residential districts, all result from denying the long planned spatial and functional structure of the city and the region. Put another way: they result from a change of continuity. The obvious failures of the lack of public spaces in the newly developed areas, the gate-guarded communities, and chaotic townscape created by the variety of architectural forms worsened by the total freedom of outdoor advertisement, and especially the lack of a downtown center in Warsaw all result from the public sector’s refusal to manage the private, dynamic activity in building up the city. So the failures of Warsaw can also be qualified as a change in the traditional role of public authorities managing urban development. Warsaw was a city of international interest when the “To̅wiwski plan” and “Warszawa Funkcjonalna” were awarded prizes by international bodies in the early 20th century. Warsaw’s spectacular achievement of rebuilding the city from the ruins of World War II is also internationally known. In the early 21st century Warsaw is again a city to be discussed as an interesting case of post-socialist transformation. But the contemporary discussion is much concerned with the question of why the historic opportunity for dynamic development without communist limitations and with the promise of capitalism were not fully made avail of in the creation of a modern, sustainable city. In other words: why did urban chaos become a symbol of the transformation? (Staniszkis 2009). When communism collapsed, the urban ideas for Warsaw’s development were rejected together with the previous political system. But at the same time new, coherent ideas were not implemented. The previous urban development regulations were replaced with a neo-liberal policy of placing but minimal limits on private enterprise and with the free market economy political slogan “less government in the economy”, which was introduced into urban planning legislation and practice. The last twenty-plus years have witnessed spectacular growth in Warsaw. But the opportunities for dynamic economic activity, when the expectations for better living conditions became a reality in terms of the quantity of new constructions, did not result in a satisfactory new quality for the contemporary sustainable city as a shared environment for decent living. CONTINUITY OF CHANGE VS. CHANGE OF CONTINUITY 107 The lesson from the post-socialist transformation of Warsaw is proof that changing the continuity of a city’s specificity or continuing the past ideas without appropriate reflection and in neglect of up-to-date knowledge about the sustainable city may result in growth in terms of quantity, but not in growth in terms of quality. Warsaw’s post-socialist transformation is a warning for urban development based on free market forces alone. And it is proof that the public authorities’ political management of urban development is not only desirable, but necessary. References Calthorpe, Peter (1993). The Next American Metropolis. Ecology, Community and the American Dream. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Charter of the New Urbanism (1996). www.cnu.org/charter (accessed 09.03.2012). Chmielewska, Ella (2005). A close reading of the iconosphere of Warsaw. Space and Culture 8 (4), 349–80. Chmielewski, Jan Maciej (2004). Okres planistyczny 1982–1992, and Okres planistyczny 1992–2002. In Atlas Historyczny Warszawy—Plany zagospodarowania przestrzennego z lat 1916–2002, 177–216. Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Przyjació̅ Archiwum Pawstwowego m-st Warszawy. Dymna, Elﾉbieta, and Marcin Rutkiewicz (2009). Polski Outdoor. Reklama w przestrzeni publicznej. Warszawa: Klucze. Gutschow, Niels, and Barbara Klain (1994). Vernichtung und Utopie, Stadtplanung Warschau 1939–1945. Hamburg: Junius Verlag. Haughton, Graham, and Colin Hunter (1994). Sustainable Cities. London: Kingsley. Katz, Peter (1997). The New Urbanism. Toward an Architecture of Community. New York: McGraw-Hill. Kiciwska, Ewa (2002). System g̅ównych parków. In S̅awomir Gzell (ed.). Krajobraz Architektoniczny Warszawy kowca XX wieku, 233–58. Warszawa: Akapit. Krier, Leon (2009). The Architecture of Community. Washington DC: Island Press. Krywski, Wojciech, and Jerzy S. Majewski (2005). Nowa Warszawa. Warszawa: Buffi. Kotaszewicz, Teresa (2004). MiRdzywojenny okres planistyczny. In Atlas Historyczny Warszawy—Plany zagospodarowania przestrzennego z lat 1916–2002, 10–53. Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Przyjació̅ Archiwum Pawstwowego m-st Warszawy. Kowalewski, Adam (2012). Ekonomia chaosu urbanizacyjnego w Polsce. Gazeta Wyborca, 29 February. Leｭniakowska, Marta (2002). Architektura w Warszawie. Lata 1989–2001. Warszawa: Arkada Pracownia Historii Sztuki. — (2005). Architektura w Warszawie. Third edition. Warszawa: Arkada Pracownia Historii Sztuki. 108 MAGDALENA STANISZKIS Mieszkowski, Witold, and Waldemar Siemiwski (2004). Okres planistyczny 1945– 1956. Atlas Historyczny Warszawy—Plany zagospodarowania przestrzennego z lat 1916–2002, 55–129. Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Przyjació̅ Archiwum Pawstwowego m-st Warszawy. Omilanowska, Ma̅gorzata (2010). Post-totalitarian and post-colonial experiences. The Palace of Culture and Science and Defilad Square in Warsaw. In Alfrun Kliems and Marina Dmitrieva (eds.). The Post-Socialist City. Continuity and Change in Urban Space and Imaginary, 120–39. Berlin: Jovis. So̅tys, Maria, and Pawel Weszpiwski (Exhib. Directors). (2002) Urbanistyka Warszawy w planach archiwalnych. Exhibition organized by Association of Polish Architects (SARP) Warszawa. Staniszkis, Magdalena (2002). Lekcja z ulicy Pu̅awskiej. In Gzell S̅awomir (ed.). Krajobraz Architektoniczny Warszawy kowca XX wieku, 173–208. Warszawa: Akapit. — (2005). Prawo do przestrzeni publicznej. Czasopismo Techniczne A 102 (9), 281– 92. — (2009). Varsovie: le chaos urbain, signe de la transition. In Ewa Berard and Corinne Jaguand (eds.). Architectures au-delà du Mur: Berlin-Varsovie-Moscou, 19892009, 124–34. Paris: Picard. Szulczewska, Barbara (2002). Problemy ochrony przyrody. In S̅awomir Gsell (ed.). Krajobraz Architektoniczny Warszawy kowca XX wieku, 259–76. Warszawa: Akapit. The New Charter of Athens (2003). http://www.ectp-ceu.eu/index.php?option=com _content&view=article&id=85&Itemid=118 (accessed 09.03.2012). Warsaw Central District Plan (1993) [Plan Ogólny Zagospodarowania Przestrzennego Dzielnicy Warszawa–ｬródmieｭcie], Biuro Naczelnego Architekta Miasta Sto̅ecznego Warszawy, Warszawa. Warsaw Centre Plan (2006) [Miejscowy Plan Zagospodarowania Przestrzennego Otoczenia PkiN], Biuro Naczelnego Architekta Miasta Sto̅ecznego Warszawy, Warszawa. Warsaw Centre Plan (2010) [Miejscowy Plan Zagospodarowania Przestrzennego w Rejonie PKiN w Warszawie], www.mapa.um.warszawa.pl (accessed 09.03.2012). Warsaw Plan (1992) [Miejscowy Plan Ogólny Zagospodarowania Przestrzennego M.ST. Warszawy], Biuro Planowania Rozwoju Warszawy, Warszawa, Akapit. Warsaw Strategy (1997) [Strategia Rozwoju Warszawy do 2010 Roku], Warszawa, Elipsa. Warsaw Strategy (2009) [Strategia ﾈrównowaﾉonego Rrozwoju Systemu Transportowego Warszawy do roku 2015 i na lata kolejne], Warszawa. Warsaw Study (2006) [Studium Uwarunkowaw i Kierunków Zagospodarowania Przestrzennego Warszawy], Biuro Naczelnego Architekta Miasta Sto̅ecznego Warszawy, www.wydarzenia.um.warszawa.pl/studium (accessed 09.03.2012). Gating Warsaw: Enclosed Housing Estates and the Aesthetics of Luxury Jacek GCdecki The key objective of this paper is the analysis of the gated-communities phenomenon in the context of the Warsaw metropolitan area. The gated and guarded estates located in Warsaw attracted the attention of many professionals and journalists mostly because of the sheer number and scale of such investments. It is almost impossible to explain the intrinsic logic of that city without taking them into consideration, because, as de Certeau (1984) pointed out, they work both as synecdoche and asyndeton of the urban and social changes. Warsaw’s gated communities are treated here as the crucial and most visible sign of post-socialist urban and social structure. Applying critical discourse analysis, this paper uses the local discourse framework to depict the reality of Warsaw’s gated communities. I describe similarities and differences between discourses concerning the gated community type of housing estates in the city of Warsaw, in Poland, and in a global framework. Introduction For the purpose of this paper I have adopted a broad definition of gated communities in order to compare different types of gated estates in different parts of the world. “Gated community” is defined as walled housing estate with limited public access and internal regulations (Atkinson and Blandy 2006). Such a broad definition allows describing Warsaw’s gated communities without treating them as a global phenomenon. I agree with Chris Webster who claims that despite the available variety of ideas and projects (Fig. 1), the gated communities need to be analyzed first of all in relation to their local contexts and purposes. He notes that 110 JACEK GBDECKI “anecdotal evidence and research from other regions of the world […] suggest that the global growth in private communities has been influenced by the US experience. It would be wrong to assume, however, that there are no indigenous innovations contributing to the global phenomenon. Nor should it be assumed that the drivers of local markets for private neighborhoods or the developments they produce are uniform between (or within) countries and regions” (Webster 2002, 315f.). Figure 1: Entrance to Laguna Estate, Ursynów (Photo: Magdalena Staniszkis) The study presented here serves as representation of one of the most popular veins in gated-communities analysis—that is the description of life behind the gates, focusing on social profiles, cultural and lifestyle choices and preferences. This analysis could help to describe and classify divergent functions of gating, in particular in the post-socialist urban context. Focusing on the discourse of Warsaw’s gated communities and everyday life of their inhabitants, I hope to offer a deeper understanding of changes occurring both in social and urban landscape. GATING WARSAW 111 While analyzing gated communities it is important to grasp the relations and standards of social behavior, both physical and discursive, on every level: in the context of the given city or district, in a given cultural reality, in multicultural contexts, in the context of the whole continent and in a global perspective. Understanding the cultural and social role of gated communities in Poland, specifically in Warsaw, requires a dialectic approach to avoid trivial statements that frequently appear in the media discourse. In doing social and cultural research one must bear in mind that globalization does not necessarily mean homogenization and Americanization (Appadurai 1996). This is why a relational approach is adopted like in the comparative study of guarded and fenced estates in Berlin and Budapest proposed by Bodnar and Molnar (2009). As the authors state: “We suggest an inversion of this construct [the relational approach]. Harvey’s point of departure and arrival is the politics of public space; ours is the construction and politics of private space. We therefore examine new residential developments as they relate to public and quasi-public space, with special regard to the space of the state.” (2009, 793) Another difficulty in the search for the social meaning of these estates in the local context lies in the analytical language employed and is related to the terms used in English to describe the phenomenon. I am especially referring to the use of the English term “community”, which is not neutral in meaning since it implies the idea of neighborhood. An analysis of various meanings of the term “community” can be found in the works of Max Farrar, Colin Bell and Howard Newby. Farrar (2002) points out that the use of the term “community” both in scientific discourse and everyday usage serves to re-establish the model of social life based upon utopian ideas of solidarity, equality, model community and fairness. Yet using language clichés can easily prevent us from asking the vital questions relating to gated communities: Do the residents of these communities really form a kind of community and if so, what kind of community is it? We have to bear in mind the existence of two extremes: “locality” formed by people brought together by physical closeness and “community” defined according to the frequency and intensity of positive contacts among residents (ibid.). In my opinion, these issues get to the core of the phenomenon, because the English term “gated community” could be read as an oxymoron, i.e. as a figure of speech combining contradictory terms, and also because the reality of Warsaw’s estates sensitizes us to the question of whether the communities or neighborhoods we are dealing with are generally more 112 JACEK GBDECKI “gated” or more of a community. I am aware of the limitations, but I shall nonetheless use the term “gated community”. The residents seek separation rather than security; seclusion is more important than the hi-tech surveillance equipment. Or, to quote one article about Warsaw’s gated estates (“The conflict in the ‘Fortress’ Marina Mokotów”) reporting on the first serious problem in the development’s short history: “In Warsaw’s biggest gated development shops and cafeterias have already been opened. They are open to anyone. And that is what makes residents angry—we haven’t paid such a huge amount of money to let the scum come to the housing estate.” (Bartoszewicz 2005) The residents feel betrayed and deceived by the developer who promised them a safe “closed residential development”. The developer, a new discourse protagonist,1 explains that even with the gates open the guards are still able to control the access to the estate: “Everyone is supposed to inform the guards at the checkpoint of the purpose of their visit. The guard could ask the monitoring centre to observe the guest. […] He shows that surveillance cameras can follow the stranger at every step. […] Ryszard Kedzierski [the developer—J.G.] suggests that people should not get so paranoid, because Marina, as he said‚ ‘is still a part of the city’.” (ibid.) Most residents still seem to feel betrayed, despite the advanced technologies used to secure the estate. They want stricter regulations and more visible manifestations of enclosure. Exclusivity seems to be more desirable than security (in the literal and metaphorical sense). Residents’ expectations appear to be quite complex and are linked to their lifestyles, whereas their vision of communal life is rather limited and exclusive. Method The paper reflects my analysis of the discourse on gated communities in Poland. Discourse is defined as a set of related texts and the practice of creating, spreading and receiving them (Parker 1992). I treat the notion of text rather broadly as both written and spoken texts. It is also crucial to —————— 1 In earlier press articles, developers did not figure as discourse protagonists. GATING WARSAW 113 underline the significance of the social and cultural context for the type of discourse analysis I work with, i.e. critical discourse analysis (CDA: Fairclough 1989, 1995). Apart from a contextual definition of text, CDA’s intertextual approach allows for the observation of not only discourse dynamics but also of the dynamics of social and cultural transformations in Poland (Duszak and Fairclough 2008). Despite doubts concerning the regularity and objectivity of this method, specifically in the context of urban analysis, I maintain that this method of analysis is not just an alternative but a necessary tool in urban research. Constructivist epistemology and the methods of discourse analysis have gained much recognition among the still growing community of researchers dealing with urban affairs (Lees 2004, 101; works of Bob Jessop and the members of the Language Ideology and Power Research Group at Lancaster University). Its fundamental advantage, I am convinced, is the fact that it goes beyond the positivist paradigm. This liberation from positivism allows researchers to link their own topics to linguistic and social practices more tightly. Annette Hastings (2000, 133) rightly points out that discourse analysis introduces new issues, which I believe is its main benefit. It is possible to indicate at least three fundamental reasons why discourse analysis could be perceived as an adequate analytical approach to gated and guarded housing estates.2 The first reason is obvious—gated housing estates are areas of research which, by definition, are closed off and difficult to reach. The traditional methods and techniques employed in such cases are snowball sampling or recruiting a trusted informer/gate-keeper from the group in question. However, these practices prove to be insufficient because group members often display feelings of distinctiveness. Hiding behind the subjective feeling of having no time to waste, these respondents frequently raise their individual status, and higher social rank allows them to “free themselves” from the researcher (Nader 1988). Secondly, the gated community is, as noted earlier, a hybrid of local and global elements. The choice of discourse analysis as the preferred research method results, above all, from the desire to illustrate and understand these two aspects: the local specificity and the indisputably global character of —————— 2 Good examples of such analyses of Polish gated communities are based on Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of discourse (GCsior-Niemiec et al. 2009) or, as in my case, based on critical discourse analysis (Polanska 2010). 114 JACEK GBDECKI the phenomenon. Hence, in linking elements of everyday practices to wider political-economic contexts, CDA allows to see and compare examples of the same phenomenon in its local varieties. Reflecting the role of the media, local authorities, developers and public-private partners in the creation of these lifestyle communities, it is crucial to focus on the commodification of discourse. In a previous era, discourses on architecture, housing and urban planning were relatively free from economic influences, but now they are gradually and consistently undergoing commodification processes in mainstream media, both print and digital. By extending the study of gated communities to include the analysis of market discourses, it is possible to refer critically to the contexts in which specific images and metaphors are created and manipulated in the name of powerful players on the local urban stage profiting from them. The analysis is based on 165 articles published in Gazeta Wyborcza over the last 12 years and a number of articles from the Polish weekly magazines, Wprost and Polityka. Several reasons led to the decision to choose Gazeta Wyborcza as the main source of texts. Gazeta Wyborcza is the second biggest Polish daily newspaper (with a daily circulation of 426,515 in December 2011) with as many as 21 local sections. This fact made it possible to analyze gated and monitored communities in different local contexts, which was a crucial precondition for the research project. Also, the owner of Gazeta Wyborcza, Agora, publishes various newspaper supplements and magazines for architecture, real estate, and construction projects, which means that gated communities is a recurrent topic in these publications. Moreover, Agora initiated two important events: in 2007 it launched the campaign “Przystanek Miasto” and a public debate about gated communities in 2006.3 A body of 165 texts from the national newspaper is highly signifycant: the small amount of articles on the topic over the years indicates a —————— 3 The second phase of the research, which is not presented here, was based on in-depth interviews with the residents of gated communities in Warsaw and Toruw. Not only was the choice of estates driven by practical reasons, but more importantly it was dictated by the will to abandon the image of gated communities as cultural phenomenon characteristic solely for metropolitan areas. The interview phase was merely an addition to the press discourse analysis. The respondents were mainly asked open questions, which helped to determine their individual views and current situation, and gave them the liberty to express their feelings and opinions. GATING WARSAW 115 high level of social acceptance for the phenomenon of gated communities. In other words, the lack of public discourse is as relevant as its presence.4 Warsaw versus other cities in Poland The number of gated estates in Warsaw today exceeds 400 (Lewicka and Zaborska 2007). This figure roughly corresponds to the number of such estates per inhabitant in Buenos Aires, which is three times bigger than the Polish capital. According to Obarska (2008), gated estates make up 75% of the new real estate market in Warsaw. At least this was the case until 2008 when the financial crisis hit the property market. Gated settlements are located at the margins of local neighborhoods or in the suburbs, mostly in South Ursynów (Natolin and Kabaty) or in Bia̅o̅Rka, Ursus, Wilanów and Ochota. As Lewicka and Zaborska (2007) point out in their study conducted during the housing fair in Warsaw, 50% of respondents (i.e. potential buyers) would prefer to live in gated communities. I will focus on gated estates in Warsaw and contrast them with less central locations in Poland. Looking at the discourse on this form of housing from a broader perspective, different levels of approval for gated estates come into view depending on whether the analyzed text is from the Warsaw supplement or from one of the other regional supplements of Gazeta Wyborcza. Both content and tenor of the article were more enthusiastic if the text originated from a part of the country outside Warsaw. In the period analyzed (1995–2008) articles on the topic of gating came mainly from Warsaw, where the phenomenon was (and still is) widespread and where it was met with more criticism than in other parts of Poland. Only one-fourth of the articles refer to other cities in Poland (mostly to Poznaw, Katowice, Trójmiasto, Žódﾇ and Wroc̅aw). Yet a text from the Katowice supplement of Gazeta Wyborcza in 2000 predicted that: “In two or three years’ time we are going to face the same boom for luxury real estates which is now taking place in Warsaw. […] In the Silesia region today there are places where flats or houses are more expensive than in other parts of the local —————— 4 The whole study was published as Za murami. Osiedla grodzone w Polsce—analiza dyskursu (GCdecki 2009). 116 JACEK GBDECKI market. However, there are not many truly luxurious, closed, guarded estates or apartment houses around.” (Grabowski 2000) Reading regional supplements one could get the impression that people have been yearning for gated housing estates as the vanguard of modernization and progress, for example in Trójmiasto or Poznan: “The luxurious, furnished apartment in the prestigious district can cost three or four times more. Newly erected luxury housing estates are an alternative to those districts which were traditionally regarded as prestigious in Trójmiasto. […] Many people make up their mind and move to the guarded housing estate, counting on greater safety and comfort. Of course, in Trójmiasto and its suburbs one would not find as many as in Warsaw or Poznan. However, one can see that more and more construction businesses are going to develop similar investments.” (Rutka 2001) “The housing estate built by Atanera in Žacina (one of Poznan’s districts) will be inflated to the size of medieval Poznaw in just a few years. […] However we won’t beat the capital city where 17 hectares of the housing estate was fenced off in Kabaty alone.” (G̅az 2004) The “modernizing” function of these estates seems to be undisputed and universal. Yet the transformations of Polish cities (i.e. the increase of gated estates) have led to protests. Critics from various backgrounds raised their voices, but the investments are nevertheless treated as positive signs of progress and socio-economic development by the Polish population. To a certain extent, gated estates have become a part of the Polish “entrepreneurial” attitude to city development. They stand for economic growth and the prosperity of city residents. But, as the visiting professor of the University of Poznaw who engaged in revitalization programs in Lübeck and Frankfurt/Oder, Andreas Billert, pointed out, these gated, privatized communities are not the best representatives of the “European” city. Calling the “Europeanism” of Poznaw into question, he writes: “The European city would not have plans to transform green spaces into concrete, and public spaces open for everyone into closed and guarded ones, accessible for just a few. Poznaw impatiently awaits 2012 […] and already thinks about the next important date—in 2016 it wants to become the European Capital of Culture. […] Our guests will be the judges of how European Poznaw really is.” (Billert 2007) GATING WARSAW 117 The context of gating I now proceed to describing the contexts in which the discourse on gated communities in Poland and Warsaw takes place. A guarded housing estate does not merely create a comfortable home for financially successful residents; it also always constitutes a blend of traditional and modern architectural solutions. By using new building materials (steel, glass walls, marble wall claddings, etc.) and solutions (underground garages, terraces, private lifts to penthouses etc.), its symbolic language is equally understood by the producers (i.e. architects, interior designers and decorators), new owners and future visitors: The housing environment is expected to provide an adequate context that emphasizes the social status of its inhabitants. In analyzing the situational context, one must point out three relevant trends in the Polish press discourse which are indirectly related to the emergence of gated housing estates in Poland: 1) the increase in popularity of discourses on housing fashion and design, 2) the formation of the profession of property developers and a corresponding media image, and 3) the emergence of discourses characteristic of a culture of control. Over the past decade housing environments have undergone an intense aestheticization, especially in the metropolitan area of Warsaw. The pressure of fashion seems to be stronger than ever in the private sphere, owing to the printed media promoting the latest trends in interior design, and a more profound knowledge about architecture, thus shaping the current tastes of their readers.5 Looking at the growth of sales rates of interior design publications, one cannot help but notice that Poles are getting consumerist cosmopolitans—members of a new community, who are able to identify and purchase particular objects and products internationally valued by the higher strata (King 1990, 449). Each of these objects becomes an item of recognition and distinction (Bourdieu 2010). The use of new materials, sophisticated technologies and designer gadgets—and, for that matter, professional assistance services provided by designers—, seem to be —————— 5 According to ZKDP data in August 2007 the most popular interior design magazine was Cztery kCty with a turnover of 117,506 copies (36% of sale increase compared to August 2006). A popular title of the Murator publishing company was second in line—the M jak mieszkanie magazine with 73,288 copies sold (sale increase of 32%). The magazine Moje mieszkanie was third with 54,136 copies sold in August 2007 (22% more than the year before). The next positions are occupied by Dobre WnRtrze G (25,317 copies), Veranda (24,875 copies) and Dom & WnRtrze (22,235 copies). 118 JACEK GBDECKI common denominators, even if respondents do not admit it openly. Gated estates are found in the vicinity of high-rise building neighborhoods or in the suburban, often chaotically developed periphery. It is precisely in these contexts that they are perceived as strange and alien places—not merely because of their closed character, but also because of their distinct, sophisticated architecture. Thanks to the “new” architecture (more often rather postmodern than classically modern) and due to the, as sales experts put it, “above-standard” solutions (by which they mean facilities such as underground parking lots, terraces, CCTV and gates), these estates differ markedly from their surroundings. The second contextual element is the discourse on developers. The rapid transformation of Polish cities would not have been possible without influential property developers operating in the Polish housing market. They have become the new big players in the real estate market, controlling the entire investment process from the phase of designing the real estate to the final sale. Observing the market since the beginning of the 1990s, one notes that along with the rising number of developers in the market, the development of gated housing estates has continually increased. In 2006, large-scale developer companies controlled 30% of the primary housing market in the country, chiefly in Warsaw and other major cities. Until then they could continually expand their hegemonic position, but the recently introduced “Developers Act” from 16th September 2011 will strengthen the rights of buyers.6 The discourse on property developers is a significant supplement to the discourse on gated housing estates. It should be worth paying special attention to critical articles published at the beginning of the period analyzed, i.e. around 1990, when dishonest practices in the fields of advertisement and selling were flourishing. The dramatic stories were later replaced by narratives of “limited confidence”—i.e. texts which published warning advice for buyers on how to control property developers, offers and agreements. —————— 6 The precise name of the act is significant: “The Protection of Rights of the Buyer of a Housing Unit or Detached House Act”. A survey conducted in 2011 by the real estate agency Home Broker demonstrated that one in four developer clients decide to invest in an as-yet-un-built estate. The risk is extremely high—even an experienced company would not give the guarantee of finishing the investment on time; in case of bankruptcy of the developer the customers lose their money and their flats, and end up with the mortgage. GATING WARSAW 119 Finally, along with the transformations in the real estate market, one observes changes in the market of private security. Media discourse allows a glimpse on how the representations of crime prevention have changed, how different forms or models of security provision have emerged in Poland, and how privatizing processes in the realm of safety have become naturalized. Focusing on print media, two beliefs can be identified who are recurrently articulated by the middle class strata which, as David Garland (2001) notes, are typical representatives of the so-called “culture of control”. These beliefs concern a) attitudes toward crime rates: the public opinion is convinced that the high level of crime has become part of everyday life; and b) the opinion that the state is not able to provide adequate safety for its citizens. Despite the fact that issues related to crime prevention were strongly politicized in the Polish context, one can still easily identify a whole subcategory of articles focusing directly on the privatization of the security sector and community based policing. According to Gazeta Prawna: “The market of security services is now one of the fastest developing industries in Poland—by 2015 its value will have doubled and probably reach twelve billion Polish zlotys. Twenty-five large firms and three thousand smaller ones are operating on the market. There are 300,000 bodyguards in Poland, three times more than police officers.” (Gazeta Prawna 2011) The dominant frames Analyzing texts over the course of more than twelve years, several fundamental frames can be distinguished, which structure the descriptions of gated communities in Warsaw and other Polish locations. The most recurrent ones are concerned with the very reasons for gating: the need for safety and the desire for prestige. The frame of fear and, correspondingly, safety is most frequently cited to clarify individuals’ decisions and developers’ sales strategies. This frame often constitutes the main theme of texts, ensuring their internal cohesion, tying different texts together. This double motive appears mainly as selfsufficient explanation, although it sometimes co-occurs with the motive of prestige. The need for safety assurance seems undisputed: fear of crime is regarded as natural and rational, even though findings show that Poles 120 JACEK GBDECKI consider themselves rather safe in their neighborhoods.7 The motive of safety is subject to distinct commodification processes: notions of safety and fear constitute the basic advertising components. Commodification is specifically evident in brief advertisements that must offer a clear message about gating and its relevance. In the letter cited below the serious consequences of the commodification of discourse shows that people feel increasingly betrayed as reality catches up with the promise of a supposedly beautiful, peaceful environment offered in advertisements of these types of estates: “I am a resident of the Solar housing estate in Žomianki […] built by the B. company. It was mentioned in Nieruchomoｭci of 13 August this year [2003]. It is not true that the estate is guarded and that two thirds of its area would consist in parks and playgrounds. The estate and the cars parked there get regularly robbed and vandalized. The B. company charges an extra 210,000 PLN for the construction of a playground. Our proposals for better security solutions are ignored.” (Letter to the editor, quoted in Lindman 2003) The need for prestige, along with the feeling of fear, is universally recognized as the reason for the popularity of gated communities. The preoccupation with prestige structures the Polish discourse on gated housing as much as the motive of looking for safety based on the frame of fear. For instance, ordinary, rather small flats (according to a 2011 analysis the average flat size is currently 52 square meters for Warsaw) are presented as luxury apartments, and high-rise buildings are described as “apartment houses”. Even strictly informational articles extensively describe prestigious architectural implementations or suggest fancy locations nearby: fashionable neighborhoods, and so-called “good zip-codes”. The language of prestige is enhanced by terms suggesting privacy, exclusiveness and uniqueness. A house is not merely a building; it ought to evoke pleasant feelings and a certain atmosphere. Living in gated communities allows residents to engage in a range of leisure activities included in the price of the flat. The housing estates typically provide their own fitness centers, tennis courts and artificial lakes. The additional attractions in these developing semi-public spaces consolidate similar lifestyles, tastes, behaviors and —————— 7 The Public Opinion Research Center (CBOS) survey from March 2008 is a good example of this paradox: 68% of Poles think that Poland is safe, and 87% of them feel safe in their own neighborhood (CBOS 2008). GATING WARSAW 121 conventionalized class attributes: tennis courts, swimming pools (for adults), and beautiful playgrounds (for children): “The Cornflower housing estate will be guarded and monitored (monthly cost of this service per flat is PLN 60). Investors are planning the construction of a recreational center with a swimming pool, fitness club, golf course, tennis courts and a horse riding club. This undertaking is supposed to be realized within the next two years. A nursery school will also be built within the housing estate.” (MR 2002) A third and, in my opinion, crucial frame is the frame of aesthetics, which discursively supplements the motive of prestige. Aesthetics concerns the appearance and beauty of flats and the whole development, its surroundings and the image of the city as a whole. Although prestige and aesthetics are not the same thing, their separation seems rather artificial. Developers use the aesthetic frame to manipulate the image and prestige of their investments—and also to divert the public attention from more problematic topics like the privatization of public space. Other frames such as class have seldom appeared during the period analyzed. Far more attention has been devoted to prestige and aesthetics, as well as to the increasing social divide, rather than class formation. Public discourse focuses on the deepening social chasm between rich and poor, not on the formation process of a new middle class: “The residents of housing estates are more and more drifting apart from those who were not able to escape from blocs of flats in Chomiczówka or Klaudyny. They spend their weekends differently and walk their dogs somewhere else. The city is about to divide itself, as districts are socially diversifying. This is, to a certain degree, natural in capitalism, but what has happened to the idea of a commonly shared city?” (Blumsztajn 2007) Middle class formation, a theme widespread in professional discourse, is only gradually entering the press discourse, but evident in strictly informational texts. The notion of class is chiefly combined with suburbanization, and suburban housing estates represent the anchors of the middle class. The headline of one of the articles informs the readers on the current tendencies of the housing market in metropolitan areas in Poland: “The Polish middle class is slipping to the outskirts and suburbs. Some closer, others farther” (Zubik 2003). Articles devoted to presenting estate offers, especially in lead sections, insinuate and analyze this trend at the same time. Seeking to encourage potential buyers to move away from the cities, they read for instance: 122 JACEK GBDECKI “The young and the rich are escaping from the downtown center. They are looking for flats on the periphery, where the housing estates are guarded and there is greenery. Where are they going to? To Ursynów, because it has a subway connection, but also farther away: to Izabelin, Lipkowa, more and more people—cultural professionals and politicians—choose Bia̅o̅Rka, explains Nina Kuczywska from ‘Unique’ estate agency, as far away from the ugly buildings from 60’s and 70’s as possible, they prefer to live near the forests. It is similar to the process that took place in the West, but [in Poland] it started later. Residents are beginning to shun the city centre and this is a natural process.” (Kuczywska cited in Zubik 2003) The beginnings Although it is possible to identify the contextual elements of this specific discourse, it is nonetheless difficult to speculate about its origin. For a long time the media ignored the issue of gated communities in Warsaw’s reality altogether: guarded housing estates were available on the market and sought after by many, but there was no public discourse about it. The emergence of these housing types was treated as the natural result of a tangle of indeterminate events, no particular interests were presupposed and it was not problematized at all. Advertisements treated their sudden emergence as a natural event without assigning any special significance to the developments leading to it. A closer look at two texts from the initial phase might be worthwhile. One is directed at historical solutions applied in the local context; the second follows the “American track” in reference to one of the first housing estates of that type in Poland. The first article, dating from 1997, is an interesting example commenting on the origin of housing estates. The author, Andrzej OsRka, presented gated communities not as a new and culturally strange phenomenon, but rather as the return to the old idea of the tenement house, well-known from pre-war times in Warsaw: “The concept of the home as castle is back, the entire architectural complexes are being enclosed and guarded like fortresses. Now, however, high technology prevails: electronics, cameras and computers are replacing humans.” (OsRka 1997) In the second text from 1998, Dariusz Bartoszewicz describes luxury housing estates focusing on Curtis International, which directly refers to the US-American prototype: GATING WARSAW 123 “One of the first oases of luxury and a piece of America was created by Zbigniew Niemczycki, the chairman of Curtis International, in Warsaw’s Piaseczno. In the United States the middle class occupies these housing estates. Here, at the beginning of 1990s, when the first housing estate was built, it was an offer for the rich. The smallest house—living room, kitchen, toilet, bathroom plus three bedrooms in the attic […]—cost 130,000 dollars (1.7 billion old PLN).8 A month’s rent amounted to 4 million old PLN (half of it went to administration and security).” (Bartoszewicz 1998) The US-American origin of the phenomenon came to be known in the public sphere solely because specialists (sociologists, psychologists, urban planners) turned their attention toward the issue and linked it to an American lifestyle. This lack of public interest in the origin must be read as an implicit approval of this specific socio-spatial solution. From the very beginning, the emergence of gated estates has been treated as a self-evident, natural process and this neutralization of the topic has prevented more detailed public debates. The problematization of Warsaw’s gated estates A more problem-oriented phase set in when professional researchers and teams of scientists (sociologists, social psychologists and geographers) spread the knowledge and thus generated a professional discourse which slowly transformed and boosted an emerging public discourse, especially after 2004. The opinions of Bohdan Ja̅owiecki and Maria Lewicka along with others in her team have been frequently cited in press articles and used as a leitmotif of an emergent text type, which critically problematized the new phenomenon of gated estates. Three incidents have further promoted the discourse on gated communities. Firstly, the findings of the “Restructuring of Large Scale Housing Estates in European Cities” report of 2004, as well as the Warsaw Social Map published in the same year (Grzelak and Zarycki 2004) provided extensive data about social-spatial transformations, expectations and anxieties associated with the housing environment in the capital. —————— 8 I refer here to the Polish currency prior to revaluation in 1995, when 1 New Polish Zloty (PLN) replaced 10,000 old zlotys (PLZ). 124 JACEK GBDECKI Secondly, the research conducted in Warsaw in 2005 by Henrik Werth, a German student, garnered much media attention (see Bartoszewicz 2005). His map of gated housing estates became a crucial argument in the discussion about the specific character of Warsaw’s gating and the massive scale of the phenomenon. However, an even more significant reason for this public attention was the young researcher’s German origin. Hence, comparisons between Warsaw and Berlin played a vital role in problematizing the gating and for the first time fencing got treated as manifestation of a social pathology rather than a universal and natural process. A third important event leading to a more problem-oriented public discourse on gating was a conference provocatively entitled “Is Warsaw becoming a city of the Third World?” held in May 2006 at Warsaw University.9 The criticism in the context of urban planning focused on gated estates and various aspects of the chaotic urban landscape. Questioning the European character of the capital city, the conference helped to identify the “absence” of the one crucial participant in the discourse—namely the local authorities. The voice of the local government representatives was hardly heard in public during the period analyzed. The lack of presence of this important social actor must be read as the most characteristic feature of the Polish discourse on gating. Even though the political representatives fiercely rejected criticism of their decisions, they have not been able to formulate any clear opinion about gating. In the analyzed texts, information on local authorities only surfaces in the context of issues with land use (mainly green fields) and serious gaps in the urban infrastructure. However, authorities have preferred to remain silent and would not even comment on cases like the following, described in “The blocks by a dirt road”, an article claiming that one of the most exclusive housing estates in Warsaw (Pola Wilanowskie) had no adequate access road: “Even though the housing estate built by the Robyg company is being erected along Klimczak street, the access to it will be possible only through prolonging Marysiewka street. The trouble is that no-one knows when this stretch of road will be constructed. […] But this is not the only problem. The land is not in the pos- —————— 9 The chief architect of the city called the title of the event “demagogic” and added that “Warsaw is not, never was and never will be a city of the Third World. These photographs showing sharp contrasts and slums could have also been taken in New York, London, Paris, Milan or Barcelona.” (Bartoszewicz 2006b) GATING WARSAW 125 session of the city. Years ago the council of Wilanów community failed to decide to seize the land. […] Yet even after the change of the government of Warsaw, district authorities have not rectified the mistake. It should be the duty of the Municipal Bureau of Geodesy, but the officers, even though they have known about the problem for at least a year, are obviously not in any hurry to take appropriate action.” (Wojtczuk 2005) The absence of local government involvement seems to be the result of connivance or even an open support for large-scale investments. The lack of regulations and clear rules on expected infrastructural improvement and a distinctive city image just contributes to the widespread approval for these estates. Architects tend to shift the responsibility for gating on local authorities. The inner fences that were erected in an already enclosed housing estate—Marina Mokotów—seem to be a direct result of the local authorities’ lack of interest: “Let me explain how it happened: After the building of roads by the developer at the Marina, it turned out that the city refused to take control over them. Only then, the decision on the ‘layered fencing’ was taken, as architect Stefan Kury̅owicz makes clear, who was the chief designer of the ‘city within the city’—gated entrance and guard in the lodge included.” (Bartoszewicz 2006a) In search of beauty: the crucial role of the aesthetic frame The “beauty” of gated and guarded housing estates is the most significant distinctive feature of gated housing estates which sets them apart from their chaotic post-socialist urban surroundings. Analyzing the space of Warsaw, it shows that the prestigious character of gated communities results from the provision of “exclusive” access to aesthetically composed spaces. The following statement of a developer, found in one of the earlier articles in the 1990s, clearly points the important role of aesthetics in the discourse formation: “If you want to write solely about the beautiful architecture of our housing estate—it’s a deal, then let’s talk. If your focus is on the ‘island of luxury’, there will not be any discussion. Presidents of international banks are living here. Any text published in Gazeta will decrease their sense of security—so we were told by the head of the property developers who created this excellent, comfortable housing estate in Warsaw, which is praised for the best quality architecture.” (Bartoszewicz 1998) 126 JACEK GBDECKI The ongoing fragmentarization of the city has been additionally intensified by the chaotic, counter-productive development of buildings, lack of spatial regulations and gaps in infrastructure (Staniszkis in this volume). This is related to the loss of public order in general, which results in financial problems and weakness of public institutions. Therefore, the gated communities appear as a reaction to the poor quality of housing in Warsaw. The title of the conference mentioned earlier seems to be crucial for the understanding of the popularity of these gated estates. It is worthwhile looking at gated communities as an effect of spatial mess: in the context of ubiquitous chaos any orderly, neat and planned territory becomes a value in itself (see Kusiak in this volume). Elements of a discourse appealing to the beauty of housing estates have turned up with varying intensity. Aesthetics was a dominant element in the initial phase of the public discourse on gated housing, as part of an affirming trend, but over time it got replaced by the topics of safety and prices. However, after a period of intense criticism, aesthetics has found its way back into the discourse, helping to improve the damaged image of housing estates. The discourse is currently focusing on elements other than prestige or fear, which seem to be too controversial for public argument. The topos of “quality of living”, for instance, directs the attention away from issues of social exclusion to the improvement of the urban fabric. The re-emergence of aesthetics in the discourse changes both the nature of texts published in Gazeta Wyborcza and authors’ interests. Consequently, problematic issues are consciously omitted and the focus is bent on architectural topics, the style and the beauty of buildings: “K.E.N. Ave. […] is slowly turning into a metropolitan street. It is dissimilar to everything that came into existence in Warsaw after the war. Rather, it resembles the pre-war Pu̅awska Street. This is because of the many houses with leveled dimensions, and arcades with shops on ground floors, internal courtyards full of green places that are fully guarded. Last not least one also finds cozy side streets”. (Majewski 2003) Spectacular construction sites like Marina Mokotów—officially known and promoted as “the city within the city”—, represent a harmoniously constructed urban landscape that plays an important role in providing a sense of security for contemporary urban dwellers. Even though local examples of realized master planned communities are rather modest, they truly deserve their name in the context of the surrounding architectonic and urbanistic chaos of post-socialist cities. GATING WARSAW 127 In some cases, however, one gets the impression that aesthetic cohesion is a useful tool for sanctioning and rationalizing practices of spatial and social segregation which otherwise could be subjected to criticism. Exploiting the beauty of the landscape in the description of Warsaw gated communities seems to have at least three functions: 1. the aesthetic dimension distinguishes housing estates from the rest of the urban surroundings; 2. aesthetics justifies the spatial segregation in the name of improving the quality of living; 3. the beautiful is exploited by developers as an alibi, trying to render gated estates more acceptable for the public (Turner and Edmunds 2002; Low 2004, 158). Gated and guarded housing estates, as I have shown (GCdecki and Smigiel 2010), create an “affective ambience” characteristic for spaces of consumption. The move to a new aesthetically appealing area could indicate the desire to fence themselves off from the lower classes by demonstrating taste (Turner and Edmunds 2002). Gated estates thus serve as spaces for the distinction from others and act as a mechanism for the production of cultural difference: moving to a fairly expensive new development allows us to expect that neighbors will share our aesthetic tastes and values (Gans 2005). Housing qualifies as a strong message to or about conspicuous consumption (Veblen 1998), or proper taste (Bourdieu 2005). Aesthetics plays the key role here. In the chaos of the city, “islands of luxury” become heterotopias and represent another real space which is as perfect, meticulous and well-arranged as our own space is disordered.10 Aesthetic practices of the new middle classes are both conscious and public. Hence, the inhabitants of gated communities often ostentatiously focus on current fashions and trends. It is precisely because of this reflective type of consumption both of and in urban spaces that the residents of gated estates should be seen as representatives of the new middle class. Consumption practices are not only limited to residential areas, they also include activities in public space, such as eating in proper restaurants, ordering latte macchiato in cafés or frequenting posh fitness and gym clubs. Class is, hence, communicated through the existence and use of a “basic —————— 10 This corresponds to the earlier case of Jesuit colonies described by Michel Foucault. 128 JACEK GBDECKI infrastructure”. In addition to the gated settlements proper, also the facilities offered there promote and consolidate new middle-class consumer practices. Conclusions Summarizing the impact of gated estates on the changes in social urban structures in the case of Warsaw, one should, I think, reintroduce the notion of “milieu”. It could be a useful tool for exploring the transition from the traditional perception of a class-based society to a society based on different lifestyles.11 To understand gated communities as a specific milieu makes it easier to see that they have developed into a significant sociocultural phenomenon. Critically called “islands of luxury” or “marble cages”, these estates nonetheless constitute modern aesthetic points of reference on Warsaw’s map. However, the discourse on gating in Poland is still at the stage of “problematizing” the phenomenon. Professionals—mainly urban researchers from different disciplines and a couple of critical journalists—present gated communities as a kind of social disease. Journalists and academics often use the metaphor “cancer”, which is—according to Fairclough— quite typical if unresolved social problems persist. The same rhetoric emerged in the British press in the 1990s, when gated communities in the United Kingdom were seen as negative import from the United States without providing answers within a local context or establishing general rules for gating processes. The discursive practice of describing gated communities merely as examples of a supposedly “American way of life” was recurrent until Anna Minton published her report on “Building balanced communities” (Minton 2002), which was a turning point in the public discourse. As a result, the problem-orientation gradually gave way to —————— 11 For many researchers the concept of milieu is the key category allowing for the operationalization of the cultural approach to class issues proposed by Pierre Bourdieu (Alheit 1999; Alheit and Dausien 2002; Mochmann and El-Menouar 2005; Vester 2005). The concept defines social class not according to data about employment or income but according to similarities in habitus, patterns of behavior and tastes as distinguishing factors. GATING WARSAW 129 a discussion about British specifics of the phenomenon and finally brought about a discourse on possible solutions that would limit gating and create socially sustainable communities. With respect to Warsaw’s gated communities I would like to make two concluding remarks: First of all, the wider neo-liberal context is more palpable and thus criticized in the case of the capital city than in any other metropolitan area in Poland. Gated communities were initially defined as a visible form of neo-liberal change in the planning of contemporary urban spaces. On a local scale, gated communities are an element of consolidation or creation of social stratification of the indigenous metropolitan class.12 Second: most characteristic for Warsaw is the lack of local authorities’ commitment; as discursive protagonists they are practically invisible. Critics have stressed that the emergence of gated communities is intrinsically linked with the lack of regulations and clear rules in town planning. Yet under chaotic conditions there is no stopping the developers from making more profit by building more gated communities. Last not least, also the municipal governments indirectly profit from it, because each gated community brings further improvements to the local infrastructure. References Alheit, Peter (1999). On a contradictory way to the “learning society”. A critical approach. 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Webster, Christ (2002). Property rights and the public realm: gates, green belts and Gemeinschaft. Environment and Planning B 9, 397–412. Wojtczuk, Micha̅ (2005). Wilanów. Eksluzywne osiedle na Polach Wilanowskich. Bloki przy polnej drodze. Gazeta Sto̅eczna. Nieruchomoｭci, 17 August. Vester, Michael (2005). Class and culture in Germany. In Fiona Devine, Mike Savage, John Scott and Rosemary Crompton (eds.). Rethinking Class. Culture, Identities & Lifestyle, 69–94. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Zubik, Ma̅gorzata (2003). PRdem ze ｬródmieｭcia. Gazeta Sto̅eczna. Nieruchomoｭci, 30 April. Zukin, Sharon (1991). Landscapes of Power. From Detroit to Disney World. Berkeley: University of California Press. The Liminal Cityscape: Post-Communist Warsaw as Collective Representation Dominik Bartmawski Introduction The present chapter is a culturalist response to two strategic goals of the book. First, it enters the sociological discourse whose aim is to delineate the patterns of change and continuity in Warsaw under post-communist transition. Second, unlike the bulk of pertinent literature that foregrounds materialist concerns, it contributes to this discourse from a socio-semiotic vantage point. I therefore refrain from discussing the complex problems of economic, financial, and institutional logic associated with the changes experienced by the city after 1989. Instead, I shall outline what Warsaw can and does mean to various interpretive communities existentially connected to the city or preoccupied with it by profession and interest. Hence, what follows is a comparative interpretive glance at discursive tropes, objects and images that comprise Warsaw as collective representation. This task entails a qualitative reconstruction of Warsaw’s complex selfimage. The question is how the city is narrated, perceived and imagined, rather than what constitutes its organizational makeup. Therefore, this essay is more about the patterns of urban imagination exhibited by the inhabitants of the city, and less about the arrangement of its urban infrastructure proper. Although both spheres are interrelated, they clearly follow separate kinds of social logic. This does not mean that the feedbacks between them are weak, on the contrary: it is because both retain autonomy that they are able to exert pressure on each other. In short, they are subject to reciprocal conditionality. For the sake of argumentative clarity I shall treat them as analytically distinct, despite the fact that they overlap within the imbricated texture of late modern society. In other words, the difference between fact and perception is not taken to be of an ontological nature. When it comes to complex, emergent social structures such as cities, rigid dichotomies like subjective versus objective, 134 DOMINIK BARTMAvSKI theory versus practice, or vision versus legacy are deceptive and get increasingly reconstituted by the shifting boundaries between such master categories as the real and the virtual, the public and the private. Research agendas based on clear-cut dichotomies often do not recognize cultural representations and perceptions for what they are—the building blocks of the civil sphere which at once connect and diversify human communities. Such dichotomous frameworks also fail to take a city’s identity on its own terms, i.e. without the prejudice against social constructedness of urban spaces and doctrinaire normativism of political commitments. In a new society of electronic networks the city has become an image and a brand, and as such it refers as much to other images as to the physical reality at stake. As contemporary reality complexifies the logic behind the master binaries of our culture, the aforementioned traditional distinctions become tenuous, if not untenable. A change of description and explanation is imminent. This pressing need to overcome the dualistic approach and come up with a more synthetic, supple perspective has been recognized in the urban studies literature, notably in the research conducted in and on post-communist environments (e.g. Cupers and Miessen 2002, 49; Koolhaas 2001; Soko̅owska and Cope 2009, 8; Hinkel 2011, 6). It appears all the more urgent as the rapid development of the electronic technologies steadily and profoundly recalibrates our experience and understanding of the concrete aspects of life. Cultural urban theorists are even inclined to argue today that “there is no pre-existing ‘physical city’ […] instead, we might say that contemporary urban space is co-constituted by the relation of media to a variety of other forces, including architecture, urban planning and design, regulatory and legal regimes.” (McQuire 2011, 116) Keeping these assertions in mind, I will regard the connection between material form and representations of Warsaw with a greater sense of nuanced feedbacks between physical fact and abstract meaning, i.e. as a relation of mutual constitution, in which the two dimensions simultaneously enable and constrain each other, thus giving rise to a specific urban situation. Yet the emphasis is on the city as collective representation, for it is this dimension of urbanity that has hitherto been undertheorized. Of course, municipal and state institutions cannot be simply disregarded or changed overnight, even under revolutionary or transitional conditions. The hard, institutional wiring of cities always matters. Entrenched interests, professional networks, legal obstacles, ownership issues and sheer organi- THE LIMINAL CITYSCAPE 135 zational inertia are all part and parcel of any transitional city’s basic condition. Yet the operations of this wiring do not make any sense without reference to the cultural software actualized by people in their everyday activities. Local culture and external symbolic influences jointly structure the ways in which a given urban environment is approached, used and eventually transformed. It is always a local mixture of the old persisting codes and new imaginaries that informs the shape and content of individual and collective behavior both inside and outside institutions. Put differently, soft factors like public behavioral codes, work ethics, civil self-understanding of citizens, ideological commitments, religious beliefs and prevailing aesthetic sensibilities make a hard difference. They affect decision-making processes and influence the senses and sensibilities of a city’s community. Although never totally open-ended, there is a certain indeterminateness to social actions in cities according to personal attitudes, collectively shared convictions, and—last but not least—the flexibility and availability of intellectual and aesthetic repertoires that are chosen to validate collective efforts. This is how concrete materiality merges with immaterial meanings, even if the two always remain distinct aspects of social life (see Bartmawski and Alexander 2012, 4f.). The city is often viewed as an ideal ground for testing this intricate sociological phenomenon. It has long since been recognized “as the medium, through which modernity gets expressed, worked through, concretized” (Bell and Haddour 2000, 1). “Sociologists as dissimilar as Max Weber and Robert Park have argued that the laws of human nature and society are nowhere more evident than in the city.” (Abbott 2007, 72) Throughout the 20th century, from Georg Simmel to Richard Sennett, city has been sociologically approached as a social reality sui generis and the locus of social transformations that provided a key intellectual impetus for the entire discipline. However, the body of work represented prominently by the two sociologists just referred to was a disciplinary touchstone rather than an example of urbanist “normal science”. Over the years a variety of pragmatic considerations had many urban sociologists consider issues of urbanity as specific problems to be explained for the sake of public policy rather than modern conditions to interpret for the sake of sociology. The city was reduced to a sociological Petri dish valued for what was in it rather than for itself, i.e. as an emergent cultural quality (Berking and Löw 2008, 8). This situation reflects a more general state of the social sciences, in 136 DOMINIK BARTMAvSKI which the humanistic sociological traditions laid out in the works of Znaniecki or Durkheim’s late writings have been marginalized. Only recently sociologists rediscovered the culturalist tradition of thinking about cities and space in general, perhaps best exemplified by Siegfried Kracauer who once wrote: “Whenever the hieroglyph of any spatial structure is decoded, the foundation of the social reality is revealed” (Kracauer 1995, 29f.). This statement is a theoretical leitmotif of Martina Löw’s sociology of space (Löw 2001), which was conducive to a more constructivist agenda for urban studies (Löw 2008a). Let us look in greater detail at such tendencies and their implications for social sciences in general. State of the discipline Given the increasing social complexity of cities and the sweeping technological transformation of contemporary society, new conceptualizations begin to emerge in social sciences and a true paradigmatic shift seems more plausible than ever. It is hardly controversial anymore that the “soft” semiotic factors already referred to are as important as hard physical facts, such as the financial potential or infrastructural actuality. But it is not easy to establish how exactly the semiotic factors become socially consequential. Likewise, the processes of how culture penetrates the different dimensions in which it is expressed are hard to map out. Paradoxes occur: at a time of the “pictorial turn” (Mitchell 1994), we do not only witness a rapid merging of the semiotic economies of the Internet with cities, but we also observe a parallel proliferation of traditional forms of urban signage (Sadin 2007). Perhaps this is why urban sociology is lagging behind the reality it purports to fathom and explain, especially when it comes to culturally elucidating the connection between the “hardware” and “software” of urban life. While much has been written or said in lay and professional debates about how the material sphere affects the perceptual dimension, the opposite directionality of influence has remained understudied or is simply downplayed. We still know precious little about how consciousness interferes with the concrete, how our culture shapes our cities. Many branches of urban studies were prone to err on this side, and they have been changing only incrementally. THE LIMINAL CITYSCAPE 137 For instance, over two decades ago, the anthropologist Joseph Rykwert noted that “while the way in which physical urban space is occupied is much studied, the cultural space is not treated as an aspect of the ecological space that urbanists typically focus on.” (Rykwert 1988, 24) Some time later, Rem Koolhaas referred to urban space as still undertheorized, unduly subsumed under unrevised categories of social critique and conservative aesthetic judgment. According to him, both urban experts and citizens are confined to the modernist mindset predicated on a set of narrowly defined pragmatic and aesthetic concepts such as regularity, harmony, proximity, etc. He characterizes this kind of mentally sticking to traditional notions as “modernist nostalgia”, alerting us that while “we are still stuck with this idea of the street and the plaza as the public domain, the public domain is radically changing” (Koolhaas 1996, 45). Indeed, the public sphere has been irrevocably altered by the ubiquitous new media that facilitate an unprecedented burgeoning of participatory public space and dramatically increase user-generated content in communication networks (McQuire 2011, 118–128). These changes have inspired media theorists to challenge “the dominance of narrow and instrumentalist models of communication” (ibid., 127), which have also been vitiated by cultural sociologists working from constructivist premises, who emphasize meaning over information, and experience over communication (Alexander 2008, 782; Bartmawski and Alexander 2012, 3f.). In conjunction with the remarkable democratization of the world after 1989, these processes galvanized one of the most profound, peaceful transformations of modern history. But this transformation has not been completed yet, just as there is no end of the technological virtualization in sight. A critique of the traditionally conceived public sphere is salient for the present project. Among other things, it makes observers of cities like Warsaw more aware of just how consequential the perception and uses of a city are. Indeed, this transformative agenda has proved to be an enduring master trope in Koolhaas’s work. A decade after he made the comments cited above, he felt compelled to reiterate the same misgivings in an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist (Koolhaas 2006, 26). Elsewhere he maintained that “the entire discipline possesses no adequate terminology to discuss the most pertinent, most crucial phenomena within its domain, nor any conceptual framework to 138 DOMINIK BARTMAvSKI describe, interpret, and understand exactly those forces that could redefine and revitalize it.” (Koolhaas 2001, 27) In his view, a key problem remains the bifurcation of the urban as a research domain, crippling exchange and intellectual cross-fertilization. Scott McQuire refers to the same issue when he writes that “understanding of the field has frequently suffered from disciplinary fractures, notably too neat a division between accounts focusing on architecture and the design of material infrastructure and accounts focusing on socio-cultural factors.” (McQuire 2011, 113) This new instantiation of the old tension between techne and episteme has made the corresponding discourses almost mutually unintelligible. Urban sociologists admit that only in the last years the multidisciplinary questions concerning the non-banal, constructivist nature of space have begun to be systematically explored (Löw 2001, 9; Schroer 2006, 9). Others concede that “the issues of cultural form are of quite recent interest in urban studies” (Källtorp et al. 1997, 5). Undoubtedly, this has to do with the normative presuppositions of Marxism whose “brilliant but deeply misleading” theoretical legacy has profoundly influenced sociology (Alexander 2012, 25), breeding reluctance and skepticism within the discipline toward culturalist resources of its own intellectual tradition. A rigid focus on production rather than reception and the use of things or ideas has warped the sociological problem-setting. As a result, materialistic approaches still prevail at the expense of a material culture paradigm. Even in the hands of leading space and urban sociologists like Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja and especially David Harvey, cities are treated as reflections of a capitalist reality in which “money is both measure and mask, and as such it becomes the mother of representation” (Friedland and Boden 1994, 30). In the seminal works of Lefebvre, for instance, urban space is “never more than a pale imitation of the state-capitalist logic” (Löw 2008a, 29). As sociologist Martina Löw (ibid., 30) points out, all these researchers “place too much emphasis on the capitalist dimension of spatial structure to the exclusion of any experience of the emotional qualities of space.” Consequently, a rather paradoxical situation has arisen, where—as Koolhaas put it—“great attention is paid to the packaging of space, but no attention to the space itself” (1996, 63). Other sophisticated exercises in urban sociology, for instance Neil Brenner’s theory of scaling, are not sufficiently tuned to the relativity and social constructedness of its character and meanings either (see Löw 2008b, 284). THE LIMINAL CITYSCAPE 139 This systematic, materialist bias prevented urban and space sociology from fully internalizing a series of anti-essentialist tenets developed by a number of social scientists from the 1970s onward. Sociologists have remained oblivious to the message, if not to the very existence of the assertions like the following, formulated very early by Emile Benveniste: “Considering economic or materialist notions in isolation from other aspects of social life or claiming that they originate exclusively and entirely in objective needs of a material order that ineluctably favors only one solution would be a serious error.” (Benveniste 1973, 161) Today it is harder than ever to gainsay adequacy of this warning. The stories of the anti-communist movements and post-communist transition show this clearly enough, and therein lies the value of a case study of Warsaw. Whether we like it or not, perceptions, feelings, beliefs, desires, collective representations, symbolic codes, ideological attachments, in short all the patterns of a cultural universe matter a great deal in modern societies. Their social efficacy points—inter alia—to the continued existence of enchantment alongside the forces of capitalist disillusionment. They inspire and sustain opposition movements in politics, and fuel market-driven technological revolutions. Just like financial and temporal resources, they set the general parameters of what can be done, and how. In Eastern Europe after 1989, their place-specific interactions with objective material conditions have led to curious reversals and paradoxes in all post-communist and other transitional societies (see Berdahl 2003), contributing to a more general contemporary demand for constructivist cultural anthropology of the urban (see Özyürek 2006, 22). By the same token, this tendency has recalibrated anthropology itself, which is now seen to be in need of “shifting its gaze from the remote to the local, from the exotic to the urban” (Halliday 2002, 168). In sum, urban space, particularly in transitional times, is a far more complex social construction than any materialist paradigm, either left- or right-leaning, allows for. It requires a cultural anthropological approach that is attentive to details without fetishizing them, and “links them to wider social theory” (Emmison and Smith 2000, 149). The capitalist ordering of social life, especially under post-communist transition, is not the determining factor of social dynamics, nor is it inherently and absolutely right or wrong when it comes to its urban solutions and their consequences. Local knowledge and cultural specificities inflect the general blueprint of the top-down systemic transition. Not just urban infrastructure 140 DOMINIK BARTMAvSKI proper, but also the patterns of existing interpretive frames structure the ways in which a city is managed, used, lived and felt by its inhabitants. To illustrate this point concisely, one could say that there is nothing in an urban wall that could tell us whether it will become an iconic graffiti surface, and it is not just the graffiti itself that determines whether it is an “artwork” or “act of vandalism”,—or maybe an entirely negligible urban signifier. In all its potential guises, graffiti is a socially conferred and culturally maintained meaning. Comparative studies of cities like Berlin, Warsaw, Prague or Budapest are an instructive sociological exercise. What can we gain from applying this theoretical approach and comparative methodology? For one thing, it helps us realize that to a considerable extent, urban space and its material aspects are what individuals and societies make of them. Cities, especially capitals, are not just landscapes of power struggle—they are dense symbolic socioscapes, in which the multitude of contingently enacted collective performances incessantly clash with one another and influence the city life. Put in a more pragmatic language, this means that culture and symbolic creativity shape the economy of cities as much as the other way around, with New York being just one muchvaunted example of it (Currid 2007). Seemingly immaterial and elusive aspects of a city like “atmosphere” or “aura” of its streets and buildings are important factors which count (Löw 2008a, 45). Contrary to lay opinions, these qualities are not simply derivative of the “objective” character of the physical environment. Rather, they are attributed to objects by people who establish symbolic references to other meanings and other spaces. There are always different valences to these qualities, each of which is imbued with unique meanings. They are narrated or ignored by gate-keepers, amplified or merely noticed by the media, developed or neglected by existing urban communities, criticized or condoned by the public opinion leaders, creatively adapted to existing conditions or abandoned, perceived as authentic or kitschy by foreign visitors, etc. Here, the role of artists, students, intellectuals and the so-called “creative classes” seems crucial (Florida 2003). For instance, as some observers argue, all kinds of creative urban types, from hipsters to true bohemians, “generate an atmosphere of cultural richness and innovation that attracts more obviously productive types who have lots of choices about where to live and will pick places they find exciting and attractive.” (Lemann 2011, 78) In Central European countries like Poland the role of intelligentsia, or “cultural bourgeoisie”, has been particularly consequential for the “project THE LIMINAL CITYSCAPE 141 of making capitalism and civil society” during the post-communist transition (Eyal et al. 2003, 23). The actual agency and sociological variability of this phenomenon are, of course, open to debate, but any full inquiry would go beyond the scope of this essay.1 Yet some preliminary insights can be made by linking the aforementioned analytic concepts to a series of empirical phenomena found in Warsaw. Below I discuss how certain aspects of the materiality of Warsaw interact with social imaginaries that surrounded it after 1989. Specifically, I shall evoke the cultural codes that inform a series of developmental trends of the Polish urbanism, and the discursive tropes that are repeatedly deployed in the Polish debates and more general narratives on Warsaw. The juxtaposition of the corresponding codes, tropes and urban practices of Berlin illustrates the constructedness of a city’s identity and reveals what is special in the case of Warsaw. Only comparatively established relations between the urban imagination and the urban environment can reveal what counts and in what way in the life of cities. What follows is an invitation to more systematic studies that can shed light on these relations in action. Warsaw as a special case study When Joachim Christoph Friedrich Schulz visited Warsaw in the early 1790s and witnessed the partitions and decline of the Polish Kingdom, he treated the city as the key to understanding the state of the country, and made a symptomatic observation: “Warsaw gives a much friendlier impression than I expected. And, as long as one does not accidentally lose one’s way in the side streets, you are tempted to believe that you are in one of the most beautiful cities of Europe.” (Schulz cited in Pickus 2001, 175) —————— 1 Still, the importance of the artistic and intellectual creativity for the urban and national wealth is undeniable. Leaders of cultural institutions working in transitional countries like Poland have observed that disregarding this finding means “the greatest loss to the national economy” (Rottermund 2005, 7). Social theorists have acknowledged that the question of culture is not whether it matters, but in what way (Vaisey 2008, 603). 142 DOMINIK BARTMAvSKI Over two centuries down in history the situation is not very different. Guarded expectations towards the city prevail not only outside, but also within Poland itself. The 21st century Warsaw often impresses people, especially visitors who remember its rather uniformly drab outlook from three decades ago. Yet the legacies of that forbidding time persist. It is still a post-communist city, marked by the dispersed urban fabric of the anonymous Soviet-style neighborhoods and characterized by sharp contrasts, perhaps more than ever. Well-designed structures are often found next to the appalling ones. Impressive symbols of affluence have gradually risen not far from sites of decay and abandonment that remain unchanged. Sweeping changes coexist with seemingly ineradicable dregs of history; orderly urban fabric neighbors urban voids, and beyond meticulously restored highlights of the Old Town, Warsaw’s regular landscape seems often haphazard and—like many other urban areas in the country—is littered with ill-supervised advertisement spaces, prompting accusations of “aesthetic pollution” (e.g. Scruton 2004). The incessant presence of numerous construction sites exacerbates the historically conditioned feeling of transitoriness, even if it endows the city with a palpable atmosphere of social dynamism. In Poland itself, this somewhat schizophrenic state of affairs is often deplored and derided, but there is only a mediocre record of systematic and far-reaching attempts to combat the problems in the two decades following 1989. Consistent urban planning is still non-existent in Warsaw, and the civil, grass-roots initiatives geared toward the common good have limited transformative impact, despite a notable increase in numbers recently. After communism, the narrative of ownership rather than participation has held sway over the urban imagination of the vast majority of Poles; purchase and commercial investment still trump renting and non-profit uses of space. Particularly in Warsaw, time and energy of the affluent educated classes are devoted to acquire a suburban house or a flat rather than cultivate an inner city community. The symbolics of property (car, apartment, TV set, plot of land, etc.) seems more salient to the Poles than the pragmatics of accessibility and the aesthetics of shared spaces. Individual status-signaling defines the everyday life of the city more than the creation of the common good within the communicative and regulative institutions of the civil sphere. All these tendencies find their clear expression in the city’s fabric. I will return to this issue below. THE LIMINAL CITYSCAPE 143 As a result, Warsaw’s interiors may often appear as much more impressively designed and managed than its exterior spaces. Perhaps the starkest contrast of this kind emerges between the inner courtyard of the Polonia Palace Hotel and the space just across the street from it. This 1913-building, one of the few of this size and age that survived the World War II, faces the garbled Defilad Square, which was only provisionally defined after the war and left to remain largely unaltered to the present day. Any attempt at redesigning of this prominent section of the urban city core has been marred by perpetual delays and incompetence of politicians whose lack of communication with profit-oriented urban developers and regular citizens makes this place—and Warsaw as a whole—seem to “belong to no-one” (Bartoszewicz 2009; Ja̅owiecki et al. 2009). As one might expect, there is a great deal of the symbolic struggles behind the political inertia that left this central plaza largely unchanged during the first two decades of the post-communist transition. The huge surface of the square is still being influenced by spontaneously ordered features of microurbanism (Wasilkowska 2009, 18; Helbing and Nowak 2009, 58–61) and the place remains dominated by the enormous Palace of Culture and Science. There is no denying that Warsaw was ruined on an unparalleled scale by the historical misfortunes of the 20th century. The city is still marked by many scars of World War II, and anointed by the iconosphere that reminds one of this apocalyptic experience. The title of a 2008 open-air photo exhibit about the destruction of Warsaw said it best: “The City of Phoenix. War*saw Everything.” Indeed, there is no other European city that experienced the ruthless forces of two totalitarianisms, German Nazism and Soviet Communism, more intimately than Warsaw. Its urban tissue was severely disrupted and the sense of lack of durability is acute to this day. These combined aspects make the trope of vanitas not only omnipresent in Warsaw, but also endowed it with a “multitude of supplementary meanings” (Morawiwska 2008, 7). Likewise, there is little doubt that the severe economic exhaustion and legal discontinuity caused by the communist government of Poland profoundly hampered the necessary urban upgrade of the capital. In particular, “the unsolved land property right problems render physical management of the city center labyrinthine” (ibid.). However, Warsaw’s persistent irregularity amounts to more than that. Its image of an acephalous urban organism is linked as much to the disastrous historical setbacks as to sheer ignorance and current indifference of its citizens, which tends to be explained by the fact that in the wake of 144 DOMINIK BARTMAvSKI World War II the social makeup of the city underwent total disruption and change, just like its material fabric (Madurowicz 2007, 145). Simultaneously with the infrastructure, also the familial and generational continuity of Warsaw had been largely wiped out. The majority of Warsaw’s inhabitants today are new residents, at best second-generation dwellers. Lacking strong identification with the city has contributed to breeding a purely instrumental attitude to the capital, making it an economically dynamic, but socially “orphaned” town. This type of uprooted utilitarianism is indeed widespread (ibid.) but it does not stem from the historical demographic implications of the postwar period alone. It is also connected to the post-1989 exhilarating experience of free market consumption and the popularity of neo-liberal values during that period. One might say that Warsaw has been affected by the more general spirit of a suddenly triumphant laissez-faire agenda, symbolically indicated by the proliferation of shopping malls and a rather uncoordinated growth of skyscrapers. Within this meaning structure, Warsaw has been seen mainly as a money-making machine, not a place to live, let alone identify with. Only in recent years has this mindset begun to be stigmatized by a minority of concerned citizens. Civil initiatives like “Do you live and work in Warsaw? Pay your taxes here” have few precedents and hardly any serious counterpart at the level of the official municipal management. Yet the fact that they have been forming already indicates a change in identification patterns corresponding to the undeniable transformation of Warsaw from an “utterly provincial” capital to a regional financial and cultural center. Dynamic cultural non-for-profit foundations like BRc Zmiana established in 2002 introduce much needed civil quality to the life of the city. The recent increase in civil participation groups can be interpreted as considerable (Kusiak and Kacperski in this volume), but it is a relatively new phenomenon, hence the extent to which it will qualitatively change the city’s identity and everyday functioning is yet to be sociologically assessed. The result of such assessment will always depend on a specific frame of reference used as the benchmark. However, one thing is certain: the scale of civil negligence associated with forty-four years of communist order is such that the room and need for urban improvement in Warsaw is large, and the symptoms of Warsaw’s “belonging to no-one” persist. The situation of the Defilad Square is a high profile case in point. Official efforts to convert the square into the representational, prestigious downtown area have commenced in the early 1990s, around the same time THE LIMINAL CITYSCAPE 145 when authorities in reunified Berlin launched construction work for the new Potsdamer Platz. The latter has long become a reality, while the Defilad Square project never left the planning stage. Provisionality and commercial interests reigned Warsaw’s urban planning throughout the first two decades of the transition. For more than twenty years now, no consequential action to put an end to this situation has been undertaken. The authorities remained passive; and even when they finally cleared the ground for a prestigious project in the square’s center, the New Museum of Modern Art, there was neither a constructive follow-up, nor any temporary solution, like for instance the Humboldt Box at the Schlossplatz in Berlin. Polish urbanists refer to this condition as “the paralysis of urbanization”. They emphasize that it “does not stem from a lack of vision, since there is a plethora of them, but from the inability to articulate them, negotiate the multiplicity of interests, including these of a grassroots character, as well as the lack of tools for reaching a compromise and adjusting it to changeable reality.” (Wasilkowska 2009, 25) While the diagnosis sounds accurate to anyone who keeps track of the development of the city, on a sociological level it explains as much as it obscures. Although the symptoms are correctly identified, they are presented as the problem itself, because the approach relies on a narrow, technical definition of urban “vision”, thus circumventing a series of fundamental sociological issues at stake. In particular, it does not answer the questions it generates, namely why the involved parties are “unable to articulate” their urban visions properly, and what are the necessary “tools” to tackle the problem. This predicament depicts the sociological underdevelopment of urban studies I have addressed in the first section of the chapter. These questions need to be taken seriously in order to understand why it makes sense to describe Warsaw in terms of an “urban paralysis” at all. Once our understanding of urban vision is conceptually broadened and sociologically extended, the answers emerge. An historically conditioned cultural disenfranchisement of Polish society is often cited as the reason why the capital city is underutilized and nostalgically misunderstood as an imaginary space by its citizens. As one Polish cultural critic argues, post-war Poland has been an “ideational cemetery”, a kind of “void” or “desert” regarding collective imaginaries and cultural mythologies (Werner 2008, 252). If Warsaw is indeed the urban “prism that refracts the Polish political style” and collective imagination (Zernack in Schulz 1986, 350), it seems justified to see the ur- 146 DOMINIK BARTMAvSKI ban paralysis of the city center as directly linked to the representational weakness discerned by Werner. It is hardly exaggerated to assert that after two decades following the break of 1989, Warsaw as a cultural space still remains somewhat “culturally inarticulate” and struggles with its being fairly “unarticulated” as city. Its self-definition is quite opaque and its general outside perception obscure. The Polish civil society is comparatively inchoate despite the great promises once suggested by the transformative potential of Solidarity movement. However, this is a relative condition, because Warsaw’s symbolic capital and spatial potential could now be converted into a formidable asset. Warsaw possesses a critical mass of stories, sites and places, the old and the new ones, to become an internationally remarkable city. While it still seems to be lacking a critical mass of dedicated citizens to systematically act on this potential, Warsaw’s cultural activists are acutely aware that “the city is a complex structure based on a multitude of networks and translation processes. […] Petty actions can redefine existing entities: breaking totalizing structures and leading to the strengthening of emerging elements which had been invisible before. An empty square can turn into a lively market after a change of surface.” (Erbel 2009, 71) Moreover, the city’s inarticulateness might incrementally frustrate and thus transform the collective consciousness of its inhabitants, owing partly to its fast growing international openness. Even though Warsaw continues to be somewhat inhibited by what other critics describe as Poland’s post-colonial trauma (e.g. Thompson 2006; Janion 2007),2 the very emergence of a critical post-colonial discourse,—just like the new civil initiatives concerning the identification with the city mentioned above—, is yet another symptom of Warsaw’s deepening awareness of representing an attractive, experimental semiotic space. —————— 2 These authors argue that Polish culture exhibits some paradigmatic features of a characteristic post-colonial inferiority complex related to the long, troublesome stretches of Polish history when the country was erased from the political map by the neighboring powers (1795–1918), or subjugated to external political forces (1945–1989). Ireland is usually named as another European example of a formerly colonized country that is now gradually coming to terms with its troubled past in terms of post-colonial transformation. The issue is relatively new to the Polish humanistic discourse and controversially debated by Polish intellectuals. THE LIMINAL CITYSCAPE 147 For example, more reflexive and intellectually sophisticated acts of embracing the material heritage of the communist era indicate the city’s coming to terms with its troubled history. The pertinent examples include an inner city local train station from that era, Warszawa Powiｭle, which has been preserved and turned into a café. The iconic communist Palace of Culture and Science has been granted the legal status of historical monument in 2007, despite the protests of many prominent citizens. It is undeniably Warsaw’s icon, even if some still call for its destruction, describing it as “monstrosity” or “troubling giant”. Adding a huge clock to its spire in 2000 led to comparisons with London’s Big Ben (Kloch 2006, 204), thus opening up a space of semiotic re-signification, parallels with US-American skyscrapers included. Warsaw’s urban signage of the cold war time has been symbolically vindicated and critically acclaimed abroad (Karwiwska 2011). A richly annotated photo map of Warsaw’s Socialist Realist architectural heritage, Archimapa 1949–1956, has recently been published (PiCtek and Trybuｭ 2011). Especially the last two initiatives contribute to the processes of creating a space of cultural and aesthetic codification of Warsaw that the city has been brutally deprived of. Of course, these phenomena should not be taken as the ultimate symbols of the post-colonial liberation of Poland. Rather, they indicate the beginning of an arduous process in which the gestures of aesthetic rehabilitation must come to terms with the real historical damage wrought by the communist regime (Polak 2009, 20). However, the incipient Polish postcolonial discourse as such helps elucidate an idiosyncratic cultural approach that appertains to many Poles who see their capital in skeptical, self-deprecating, martyrological and quasi-objectivist terms, thus evidencing a peculiar mixture of inferiority and superiority complexes. According to interviewees in Warsaw, the city is neither culturally nor symbolically comparable with Rome, symbolically comparable, but economically incomparable with Berlin, but clearly on a par with Moscow in every respect (Madurowicz 2007, 182f.). These responses tell us little about the specific differences, but they are meaningful with regard to the historically conditioned imaginaries harbored in the Polish perception of Warsaw’s relation to its European counterparts. Poles share them confidently without realizing the tricky relativity of these designations. For instance, there is an apparent lack of realization that present-day Berlin seems to be culturally and symbolically much stronger than Rome, and that the German capital is popularly narrated by the Germans themselves as “poor but sexy”. The recog- 148 DOMINIK BARTMAvSKI nition is lacking that it is precisely Berlin‘s social mythologies and cultural options, rather than its relatively scarce industrial and business opportunities, that attract individuals and companies even from distant parts of the country known for their strong local identities. While the Western centers are slow to distinguish between Central (post-communist) and Eastern (post-Soviet) Europe, the Polish perspective is still marked by its own inertia, a set of the local, path-dependent denials and clichés. Thus, as far as Warsaw’s collective imaginary is concerned, it is a city still lost in translation. Numerous discourses which constitute a large chunk of Warsaw’s public image are indicative of this fact. For instance, commenting on the delayed reconstruction of the Defilad Square, Dariusz Bartoszewicz wrote that the new center of Berlin “should be a cause of national pride”, whereas the center of Warsaw is “shameful”. Indeed, the trope of “chaos” has unsurprisingly become a perceptual archetype of Warsaw after 1989 (Madurowicz 2007, 182), and the swift and well-organized execution of the German reconstruction of Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz has set new standards in urban space revitalization. But to the extent that Bartoszewicz’ criticism represents the modernist nostalgia and actual complexes of Warsaw’s inhabitants vis-à-vis the Western neighbor, it also betrays a deep misunderstanding of the neighbor’s contemporary internal debates. It particularly ignores the fact that few among those responsible for Berlin’s legendary creativity and openness would describe Potsdamer Platz as a cause of national pride. On the contrary, Berliners, whether of German or foreign origin, tend to see such reconstructive initiatives as artificial impositions of “hackneyed icons” (de Leeuw 1999, 63). As a matter of fact, Polish experts were among those who described the Potsdamer Platz as an example of a “rigid master plan that stifles heterogeneity and is conducive to the emergence of representational but imbalanced urban fabric” (Wasilkowska 2009, 18). Yet this approach is rarely addressed in the mainstream channels of Polish public communication. Likewise, the fact that the destruction of communist-era buildings and their replacement with reconstructed old architecture regularly sparks off heated debates and accusations of kitschy nostalgia, is swept under the mat, although many regard it as “the worst kind of architectural crime” (Ourrousoff cited in Grossman 2006). Most importantly, there is little mention of the fact that what the critical gate-keepers and Berlin’s creative classes celebrate as the city’s transitional uniqueness is precisely its unregulated character propitious to artistic THE LIMINAL CITYSCAPE 149 and improvised use: empty, abandoned sites or relics of the communist-era design are creatively re-appropriated and culturally recycled (see Cupers and Miessen 2002; Bartmawski 2011), or symbolically renarrated (Berger, Müller, Siewert 2003). The process of a top-down “normalization” of urban space is often resisted by Berlin residents, and quasi-historical or hypermodern reconstructions are fiercely contested as inauthentic. Even if sometimes ineffective, these contestations routinely generate social energies that translate themselves into the development of alternative spaces. As a result, the urban voids of Berlin tend to be affirmatively seen as “spaces of uncertainty” imbued with an urban potentiality defined outside the framework of the capitalist market (Cupers and Miessen 2002). In Warsaw the same kind of places are derisively described in the influential quality media as “scary wild fields” (Bartoszewicz 2008). It is quite symptomatic that the Western neighbors are quicker than the Poles to recognize the “iconic” status of local landmark buildings like Warsaw’s 1970s Central railway station (Szaflarski 2012). Contrary to what many Poles had believed, a recent article in Neue Zürcher Zeitung made the point that instead of a complete reconstruction, a proper refurbishment was sufficient to render the place truly remarkable. The Swiss paper suggested that the owner, Polish Railways, was not aware of possessing a true architectural gem. While Poles tend to overlook or deny the potential of the relatively new elements in the city center, one third of the population is reported to want the old townhouses back (Bartoszewicz 2008), presumably to have the urban core look “like an old European city”. At the same time, the emerging middle class that could afford to live in these reconstructed or refurbished spaces has instead contributed to an unprecedented development of gated neighborhoods in Warsaw, like for instance Marina Mokotów. This tendency does not abate, even though the crime rate in the city has systematically decreased after 1989. The inhabitants of Warsaw achieve civic order and security at a cost of spatial exclusion and social isolation. The irony of the situation seems lost on those involved. The impression prevails that only a few professional interpretive communities identify this phenomenon as “ghettoization” of Polish urbanism (Ja̅owiecki and Žukowski 2007) and as “the amalgam of aspirations and demons of the Polish middle class whose members are willing to live a neat and comfortable life, yet are too overworked and antisocial to systematically establish relations of trust with their neighbors and develop local communities.” (PiCtek and Trybuｭ 2008, 115) 150 DOMINIK BARTMAvSKI What the last two authors recognize are the conservative implications of the fact that the people they describe are very new to the Western-style middle class, the first generation propertied bourgeoisie. The absence of such a domestic bourgeoisie in the first decade after 1989 was a “particularly glaring feature of the Central European transition” (Eyal et al. 2003, 16). Largely unbeknownst to that emerging middle class, its peculiar urban habitus astonishes the Western observer more than the city’s gaping open spaces and its alleged barbarity. This is what is memorized as “typical” for Warsaw, as it “makes living in it so different from other cities,” pushing the city toward a situation in which “an urban mix of lifestyles and cultures can hardly be seen” (Koch 2007, 40). In short, Warsaw is in a paradoxical socio-urban condition, seeing itself progressing in its own—slightly Americanized—eyes, but being oblivious to the fact that by the same token it generates an inverted image of itself from a western European perspective: a lot of what is new and modern in Warsaw is seen from this vantage point to de-urbanize the city instead of improving it as metropolis, while the undeveloped and out-of-date spaces and buildings are valued as an asset rather than embarrassing obstacles. The cultural, intellectual and aesthetic views that underscore this condition are not restricted to lay audiences but seem to affect professional and cultural milieus as well. A sense of post-colonial marginalization coupled with provincial inadequacy and a materialist mindset continues to shape the evaluative standards regarding the whole country even among professional observers. For instance, the western Polish cities of Poznaw and Wroc̅aw are deemed to be in a better developmental position than Cracow, because they are “closer to Europe” (Ja̅owiecki cited in Ja̅oszewski 2011). Likewise, the struggling industrial city of Žódﾇ is believed to have bright prospects because “two new highways will soon intersect next to it bringing investors” (ibid.). Warsaw may be immune to this critique as its cosmopolitanism and wealth set it apart from every other city in Poland. And yet it engenders skepticism and frustration as often as it inspires faith and enthusiasm, continually serving as the template for a darker, sarcastic view of the Polish urban face. Andrzej Stasiuk’s novel “Nine” introduces a particularly poignant, relentlessly subdued imagery of Warsaw: “The city on the other bank of the river looks like a mockup of something yet to be created. Tiny towers attempt to touch the sky, it has always been like that, always too small.” (Stasiuk 1999, 19) THE LIMINAL CITYSCAPE 151 A character in the novel questions the post-war reconstruction of the city, commenting that “the whole city reeks of corpse” (ibid., 77). Indeed, the city’s graffiti iconosphere includes symbolic images of Warsaw’s death, symptomatically referred to by a semiotic re-appropriation of Warsaw’s official emblem, the mermaid. A documentary about the extraordinary rebuilding effort in the decades following World War II is tellingly entitled “Warsaw: the city that survived its own death.” In sum, not being able to either quickly execute and creatively narrate a series of unified reconstruction plans, or confidently stride beyond the modernist categories of beauty, harmony and order, the citizens of Warsaw tend to construe the city mostly as disorganized by the transitional present (viz. the tropes of labyrinth and chaos), or victimized by the catastrophic past (the tropes of phoenix from ash or death). The emphasis is on the cumbersome rather than the exhilarating character of Warsaw’s protracted liminality. Its post-communist “in-between-ness” evinces features of a more permanent cultural post-condition (see Erjavec 2003; Marcus and Fischer 1999). It is symptomatic that also prominent citizens of Warsaw see it in this way. Consider, for example, the following statement by a Polish journalist from an introduction to the book entitled The Wonders of Warsaw: “I am glad that Warsaw has been surging ahead since the fall of communism and that it is bearing an increasing resemblance to a true European metropolis. The only pity is that the city will continue to be ‘unfinished’ for many years to come.” (Or̅oｭ 2007, 5) Uncomfortably self-positioned between “polluted” East and mythical “West”, escaping the “second world” without quite reaching the “first”, proud of its dynamism, but nostalgically dreaming to be at last “done”, Warsaw seems reluctant to fully re-invent its identity around the strategic uniqueness of an idiosyncratic borderland city, and re-orient its self-perception accordingly. It is also unsure about fully allowing a creative, bottom-up use of the developmental chaos it is unable to conquer with traditional means, and too risk-averse to add purely cultural components to the business plans of its most prominent projects geared toward the post-industrial revitalization of its historical spaces. This condition of hesitant reinvention transpires both in the institutional dysfunctionalities and in the predominance of profit-orientation in Warsaw’s re-urbanization efforts. Regarding the former, one may note that during the first decade of the transition alone twelve ministers of culture 152 DOMINIK BARTMAvSKI succeeded each other, none of whom ever attempted to fundamentally change detrimental systemic legacies or make a sustained, overarching effort to promote a new unified image for the Polish capital (Purchla 2005, 11). No wonder then that post-1989 Warsaw may indeed appear to be cut loose, especially when looked at from the outside, and as such it is bound to inspire a love-hate relationship with the rest of the country. With regard to re-urbanization, ambitious current projects like the revitalization of the former Norblin factory with the purpose of creating new office and commercial spaces (Wojtczuk 2012) indicate the problems other spatial environments have in finding their way to the key sites of Warsaw. Despite, or perhaps precisely because of these dysfunctionalities and cultural deficits, Warsaw keeps reasserting continuity and liveliness by developing a paradigmatic micro-element of city life for which it was once renowned: a vibrant café and restaurant culture. It is only now that the city truly regains its former attractiveness in this respect. In 1958 there were only 90 cafés, nearly five times less than in 1858, and only 360 restaurants, compared to 1,200 before World War II (Budrewicz 2008, 136). In an international comparison it is worth noting that London had nearly 2,000 coffeehouses in the 18th century (Rybczynski 1995, 41). The continuity aspect of Warsaw’s café culture is emphasized by the successful presence of traditional establishments in the city center like the Blikle café which has successfully built its brand around the continuous operation on the same spot on one of Warsaw’s main streets since 1869. The novelty aspect on Warsaw’s café map is introduced by the bohemian-style places away from the center, for example in the district of Praga, whose numerous cafés galvanize an atmosphere akin to that of Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg or Friedrichshain (Kusiak and Kacperski in this volume). Some of the proprietors explicitly invoke this comparison on their websites, and cosmopolitan visitors publicly confirm it (Gross 2006). The comparison with former East Berlin’s alternative venues and spaces is not accidental. Warsaw’s transitional specificity and atmosphere is more similar to Berlin than both cities have so far realized. The difference lies in the urban narrations, and how widely the affirmative narratives of transitional, liminal urbanity have been embraced by the public. Even a cursory look at the practices, discourses and images of Berlin which helped legitimizing its liminal character as full-fledged style demonstrates that urban reality is a meaning-making process rather than an objective, concrete space. In the book “Berlin Style”, published nearly a decade ago, we read: THE LIMINAL CITYSCAPE 153 “Can you fall in love with a city that receives you so indifferently and in an almost uncharming way? With endless streets through which the east wind is always blowing? And with an armada of construction cranes putting up terrible grey buildings? You can—but you need time. Berlin is no love at first sight […] If you really want to have success with Berlin, you have to learn to understand the brassy pragmatism of its inhabitants. You must stroll through dilapidated gates into blooming inner courtyards until you can gradually put together the mosaic. Because every one of Berlin’s neighborhoods has a different world—nothing really matches, but everything somehow makes a whole. Berlin doesn’t stipulate any style and sets no limits.” (Reiter 2004, 6f.) Similarly, the Berlin volume in the “StyleCity” series advertises the city as “embodiment of an exhilarating, inspiring and often chaotic central European history and culture” (Tichar and Peters 2004, 8). It is amazing how readily these descriptions would fit contemporary Warsaw, too. Yet the first two decades of the transition did not see Warsaw engage in a vibrant construction of such image. Moreover, too many people act as if such engagements were futile. What was often rejected and dismissed in Warsaw has from very early on been embraced and elevated to the status of cultural value and aesthetic style in Berlin. Doubtlessly a significant part of this cultural reinvention of Berlin has its origins in the Western liberal gaze towards its Eastern other. West Berlin before 1989 attracted many liberal groups and individuals due to the structural and cultural incentives for its residents. They were often the carriers of that liberal gaze. According to this view, the “East” in Berlin signified then a right degree of post-revolutionary freedom and an experimental atmosphere generated by the “passing of mass utopia” (see Buck-Morss 2002). Regardless of how inaccurate this perception was (Vanstiphout 2001), it effectively helped mobilize a considerable, liberal human capital that reinforced Berlin’s cultural myth. When coupled with East German rental prices, it contributed to the city’s post-communist social rejuvenation and its rebranding as global cultural center. A combination of these factors, supported by moving the capital from Bonn to Berlin, attracted not only the West Germans but other West Europeans as well as many other people, including thousands of young Israelis (Hagin 2011). As a result, according to 2012 Global Cities Index of A.T. Kearney Berlin is today among the top twenty global cities despite its relatively weak economic performance and an exceptional distribution of the German metropolitan leadership between Frankfurt am Main, Munich and Berlin (Hales and Mendoza Pena 2012). Warsaw neither had a similar socio-cultural input, nor an abundance of inexpensive rental space that 154 DOMINIK BARTMAvSKI could incentivize foreigners to settle there. The lack of affordable and wellmaintained rental housing facilities still marrs the city’s life quality which lags far behind compared to Berlin—in 2011 Berlin was ranked 17th worldwide according to Mercer Quality of Living Survey, while Warsaw is not even listed among the first 50 cities. Moreover, with Berlin assuming the iconic status of the post-communist liminal city, Warsaw is faced with the additional challenge of putting its own spin on these identity tropes, in order to avoid being seen as a mere “copy” of Berlin’s urban condition. But there is a growing realization that Warsaw constitutes an urban space capable of becoming a full-blown urban laboratory that symbolizes the post-communist transition in its own right, no less than Berlin, and perhaps better because it is more representative of the Central European post-communist experience. With it comes the increasingly widespread awareness that it is this situation of controlled experimentation rather than the trope of nostalgic museum which is more compatible with the master metaphors of contemporary urban development. Poles and foreigners alike are becoming gradually outspoken about the multitude of actual affinities between the two cities. Despite the continued dominance of suburban ownership over urban participation and the traditional aesthetic canons, many Poles nowadays notice the fact that “a cool city does not necessarily have to be pretty”, thus recognizing and challenging both the old modernist nostalgia and the new capitalist utopianism. More and more it is admitted that “Warsaw and Berlin are not pretty, but they host plenty of pleasant and interestingly adapted places” (Korduba 2012). Clear urban parallels between the two cities are now being recognized and documented (e.g. Wojtysiak 2011), whereby Warsaw constructs broader frames of architectural reference for its specificity. At the same time, Warsaw’s own aesthetic and civic potential is indicated by such initiatives as a two-volume walking guide to Greater Warsaw (Majewski et al. 2007 and 2008). Conclusion What kind of urban imaginary emerges from these preliminary glimpses into the city’s fabric, self-perceptions and collective representations? Warsaw is a liminal cityscape, even more in flux than it was at the beginning of the 1990s, when its potential was suddenly unlocked. In uncannily keeping THE LIMINAL CITYSCAPE 155 with its official emblem, the mermaid, its image is one of a hybrid entity, one that straddles not only the gap between the provincial communist past and more international capitalist future, but also the disjuncture separating the modernist nostalgia from the late modern forms of urban sociability. The nostalgia still structures a great deal of popular frames of reference drawn on by Warsaw’s inhabitants to make sense of their city. The simplified Cold War-era binaries of West/East, Europe/Asia, or private/common remain present as ready-made background representations of a normative character. On the one hand, Warsaw seems to disapprove of its liminality and still wants to become what it cannot really be. On the other hand, it now begins to test its tentative, open-ended character to see what it might become. Yet the non-nostalgic, late- or post-modern urban imagination seems restricted to the circles of experts, intellectuals and artistic communities. Although as influential as ever, they lack in number and diversity compared with the Western counterparts they often look up to. The material contrasts representing Warsaw’s hybridity are not yet consistently and creatively capitalized on within the channels of mainstream cultural production and symbolic representation. The contingent and malleable character of cultural meaning attribution has only recently been more broadly recognized. As far as wider social circles are concerned, Warsaw’s stylistic eclecticism and garbled urban form still represent the concept of unaccepted, unwanted and unreconstructed hybridity. Its material expressions are not embraced as valuable assets worth sharing with the world. Indeed, Warsaw’s heritage has often been narrated in terms of unusable vestiges, instead of hitherto unused values. At the same time Warsaw is immersed in the dynamic process of transforming its central areas into a high-rise business district, with the skyscraper as the key signifier of Warsaw’s urbanity. This process is currently entering a new stage involving demolition plans, for not just pre-1989 structures, but also for buildings constructed in the 1990s. This phenomenon indicates the coexistence of the lack of a transitional urban master plan in Warsaw and the distinctive laissez-faire vision of an US-American type that informs the developmental imagination of the city’s movers and shakers. They seem undeterred by the North American lesson that “the image of the successful central business district assiduously cultivated by city planners and municipal administrators in the 1970s and 1980s with glamorous skyscrapers has turned out to be false measure of urban health” (Rybczynski 1995, 227). 156 DOMINIK BARTMAvSKI As Rybczynski concludes, and the example of contemporary Berlin amply demonstrates, “neighborhoods are the lifeblood of any city” (ibid.). Nonetheless, Warsaw’s learning curve becomes steeper as it moves up the stairs of post-communist transition. As it constantly multiplies and tightens its connections to the world and rediscovers the abundance of its non-conventional places and “hidden architectural gems”, it becomes increasingly aware of the paradoxes of the post-communist transition. It also starts to realize that not only Berlin, but also financial centers like Frankfurt am Main promote themselves as cities peppered with “non-places” and “secret sites” (see Stollowsky 1999; Berger and Setzepfandt 2011). Thus, in a sociological sense, Warsaw is a city for the advanced, because its identity is still relatively opaque, unobvious, challenging but also openended and malleable enough to accommodate new, radical forms of urban experience that have already been successfully tested and enacted elsewhere. Increasingly frequent associations with the cutting-edge urban environments like Berlin are gradually yanking Warsaw out of the rigid cultural binaries inherited from the past. Moreover, the past-oriented identity of the city is currently being offset by more openly future-bound initiatives. Apart from the process of slowly adding the new items to its catalogue of public sites and institutions, Warsaw begins to enter broader, international cultural discourses via award-winning artistic visions inspired by its strangeness rather than its beauty. The success of the Polish Pavilion at the 11th International Architecture Biennale in Venice in 2008 was a high profile example. Here, Warsaw and the country it represented showcased an ironic, but nevertheless earnest and sophisticated face drawing on its peculiarity to illuminate the common themes of late modernity. It thus proved once more that it has the capacity to be perceived as a “special” place. References Abbott, Andrew (2007). Against narrative: a preface to lyrical sociology. Sociological Theory 25 (1), 67–99. Alexander, Jeffrey C. (2008). Iconic consciousness: the material feeling of meaning. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26, 782–94. — (2012). Iconic power and performance: the role of the critic. 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Schulz. Reise nach Warschau, 347–57. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. III: Social Practices and the City Sanitation and Disorder in Warsaw’s Urban Space: Cultural Determinants of Waste Management W̅odzimierz Karol Pessel The goal of this article is to provide new insights into the uniqueness of Warsaw as regards the question of public and private control of sanitation and trash collection, and their influence on certain specified social environments. This article draws on both empirical data and references from the author’s recent research. Since solving the problem of trash and the disorder it engenders in residential areas are major achievements of a city as a social form and historical institution, sewage and waste management can serve as an appropriate means to assess Warsaw’s contemporary social and civic experience. Introduction: regarding the peculiarity of Warsaw and sanitation There are at least three reasons to regard Warsaw as a uniquely peculiar and unusual city. First, the capital of Poland literally survived its own death. The city was obliterated by Hitler’s troops after the failure of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 (Borowiec 2001, 137–155). There is in fact no place in Warsaw where one would not come across some reminder of the past. However, compared to Cracow, one merely finds historical traces, memorials or modern reconstructions of destroyed buildings in Warsaw (Elﾉanowski 2010). In this way, Warsaw could be deemed eccentric, unlike Cracow, where the physical fabric and big-city culture has remained largely intact (Wood 2010) because the historical capital of Poland escaped catastrophic destruction. Second, in the Communist era after the end of World War II, during the reconstruction of the city, major social and demographic changes occurred. Many local city residents had either died in the war or emigrated, 164 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL while a new population rushed in to take advantage of the opportunities provided by living and working in Warsaw. These new arrivals were people of rural origin, unaccustomed to an urban way of life. In this respect, the political breakthrough of 1989 resulting from the fall of communism was for Warsaw only one event in a long series of crisis points. Whereas the historical development of cities like Paris and London proceeded as a gradual and continuous accumulation of architectural and social fabric, this continuity was interrupted in Warsaw. Consequently, social divisions are not reflected in the appearance and topographical structure of Warsaw, in contrast to the cityscapes found in other urban centers. Warsaw’s aesthetics seems scratched and chaotic. The urban space shaped by its inhabitants resembles more a deviation from the norm, a kind of idiosyncratic backwater, rather than an intentionally built structure and integrated entirety created over time as a result of rational public policy and social consensus (Sulima 2005, 35). After the systemic transition of 1989, Warsaw was challenged by the need to restore its developmental continuity, but attempts to meet this challenge have been chaotic with lackluster results. Prime among the obstacles to the re-establishment of developmental continuity are Warsaw’s unique issues with sanitation. Finally, Warsaw’s uniqueness is directly related to the horrors of war, which many people had only survived by using the underground network of water and sewage systems strategically. It is a fact that over the course of half a century Warsaw has been restored according to a pre-existing “master plan” of extant underground infrastructure. Only by traversing these labyrinthine sewers, insurgents and war casualties were able to escape the violence of warfare in the city of Warsaw. Urban narratives of survival, heroism and social resistance linked to the sewer systems and tunnels are an iconic and highly symbolic part of the national memory (Davies 2004, 327–358). Initially, the sewage system defined a spatial structure. Then at some point a crucial transformation occurred, whereby this physical reality was then projected onto an affective, psychological dimension of urban life. However, the value of these symbolic, emotion-based historic narratives from Warsaw’s past is doubtful if they are naively employed in the service of modernization, supporting unthinking and dogmatic practical action. An attachment to affect-laden symbols often undermines practical thinking, the very resource required for the development and organization of a modern and effective system of sanitary maintenance of public spaces and private backyards. In a city re-created out of the rubble and ashes left by SANITATION AND DISORDER IN WARSAW’S URBAN SPACE 165 the total devastation of war, inadequate regulation of solid waste collection resonates with the painful history of this city and once again testifies to a unique discontinuity which defines Warsaw’s contemporary identity. This article offers an analysis of various contemporary manifestations of these discontinuities, symbolizations and ways of experiencing a critical “crunch time” for culture in respect of street cleaning and the hygienic practices of ordinary citizens of Warsaw. The focus will be primarily on the subject of garbage, but the argument will also take into account the problem of sewage, for these two issues are closely linked and inseparable. In the second part of this article I want to add my comments and interpretations to the broader field of academic research. Various empirical references establishing Warsaw’s unique peculiarity will be supplemented. Much of the data presented here is a continuation and extension of the author’s previous publications on socio-historical and anthropological studies of sanitation in Warsaw (Pessel 2010). Comparing and contrasting past and present periods of the city’s history is useful in this argumentation, because it allows to tease out the diversity of Warsaw’s paradoxes and contradictions and helps to determine whether they in fact should be considered as truly unique and worthy of analysis. The year 1989 represents an important turning point not only in Polish history but also in the development of Warsaw’s infrastructure. As such, it should be clear that any diagnosis of what happened at that point in Warsaw’s history would also benefit greatly if it was made the subject of a rigorous, long-term historical analysis. Snapshot from a backyard This short field note is restricted to the author’s own yard, located in the city center at the intersection of the main artery, Marsza̅kowska Street and Wilcza Street. It is a place where both monthly rents and free market real estate prices are not particularly low. The following account applies specifically to a yard dustbin, also commonly referred to as a “dumpster,” and its immediate surroundings. One would find there a precipitous, high, threecorridor gate, as befits the architectural values of the socialist building style in the early 1950s. Once there were public toilets for both sexes located there. Soon after the collapse of the communist system, the toilets were closed for unexplained reasons, as if the municipal authorities had deter- 166 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL mined that it was more appropriate for the city to have the corners of the gate sprinkled with slaked lime in order to suppress any unpleasant defecatory smell. At the turn of the millennium, the gate was bricked-up and sealed off. The women’s toilet was taken over by an elegant optical shop, and the toilet for men was squeezed out by a beer bar, so effectively that its owner forgot to make toilets available to his customers. The dive was located in the basement, after the toilet enterprise went bankrupt. However, the end of its activity did not mean the end of marking the walls of the yard with urine. Although the residents no longer have to face crowds of tipsily shouting students at the gate, they still must endure the shouts of one of their neighbors who often stands in her window and rebukes the rowdy men unceremoniously facing the wall of the dustbin with their backs turned toward her. Interestingly, she shouts even more loudly at women who squat to urinate in public view. In Warsaw, even the walls of the Mayor’s Office are regularly sprayed with urine, a fact that is eagerly reported in the tabloids. Frequent occurrences of obnoxious odors are of course found in every big city, but in Warsaw this cultural habit may result in cases of embarrassing behavior. During the times of the systemic transformation, large numbers of old public restrooms (at gates, in basements or free-standing) were eliminated. More specifically, the majority of them were transformed into commercial properties and taken over by food and beverage service providers. Motivated by the desire for immediate profit, the municipality of Warsaw could not be bothered with planning the construction of new toilets. Also, many restaurants and pubs made restrooms unavailable for non-customers who felt an urgent need. Either they had to pay a fee for using the toilet or they were obliged to order something. Still, between 2005 and 2006 Warsaw’s newspapers launched an appeal to owners of food and beverage outlets in the Old Town, asking them to be more generous and let people use their toilets. As social anthropologists and historians have demonstrated (Dürr and Jaffe 2010; Strasser 1999), dirt in the most general terms is an anomaly, a deviation from the cultural norm, while leaving a mess is uniformly considered a public policy offence. These scholars argue that, in any given social group, acts of producing trash and litter are carefully defined due to the fact that in these contexts, order must be established by an advance consensus to prevent chaos and the descent of urban spaces into anarchy. SANITATION AND DISORDER IN WARSAW’S URBAN SPACE 167 Figure 1: Impurities at the described gateway, Warsaw, Marsza̅kowska Street (Photo: W̅odzimierz Pessel) The field note presented here gives rise to the assumption that in the civic space of Warsaw many things have not yet been assigned a designated place, in contrast to more developed metropolises where waste and dirt have already been assigned the status of matters out of place in the anthropological sense of the expression (Douglas 2002, 2). Cultural categories of purity and urban pollution are often blurred and the sphere of urban materiality is not well separated from the realm of symbols (for similar conclusions on neon signs: Chmielewska 2010, 66). Similarly, in a city like Warsaw, garbage and sanitation facilities can become something positive, something that is more than simply a part of the material culture and not merely a neutral physical element of the cityscape. These facilities thus represent a kind of affirmative social meaning. For someone who is not familiar with Warsaw’s paradoxes, it might well be incomprehensible that part of the funeral for Jacek Kurow, a leading Polish oppositional politician who died in 2004, took place among garbage cans located behind a block of 168 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL apartments in the ﾈoliborz district where he lived. Yet in their own cultural understanding, the mourners showed sincere respect for Kurow using the trash bins symbolically, because in communist Warsaw they were the only safe places where the supporters of evolving Polish democracy could meet, since they were overlooked by secret police eavesdroppers. The bins promoted patriotic conspiracy and guaranteed tidiness at the same time. This certainly was a crucial precedent which contributed to rendering the cultural categories of dirt avoidance quite ambiguous. Figure 2: Car wreck in the yard, undergoing a (strange) process of re-aestheticizing (Photo: W̅odzimierz Pessel) Because of the advent of uncoordinated trends of individualism after communism’s collapse, Warsaw’s present-day community lacks a similar focal point (see also Kwiatkowski 2007). Warsaw’s citizens seem as yet unable to acknowledge that the introduction of order in their city puts constraints on their behavior. Rational analysis suggests that the residents should first negotiate acceptable and reasonable constraints in order to be able to create and support broader civic structures, even though they might engender occasions for complaint and negative emotions which the resulting dissent calls forth. At the moment, it is impossible to identify any specific consensus the population might embrace regarding a resolution of the conflict, because too many different attitudes prevail. As yet, Warsaw lacks a meaningful and functioning model for creating a public space for SANITATION AND DISORDER IN WARSAW’S URBAN SPACE 169 citizens to utilize and share. There is no integrated model of an urban cultural philosophy in sight around which Varsovians could rally. At this point in the discussion it is important to clarify that the trash problem is not simply one of quantity; nor is it a hidden psychological artifact misrepresenting Warsaw as one of the world’s largest “messy” cities. On the contrary, many foreign visitors perceive Warsaw as an especially clean capital. Yet they spend most of their time in places that are attractive and dedicated to serving the needs of international business people and tourists. Warsaw compares favorably with Paris, Berlin, London, New York or Beijing with regard to the quality and glamour of its cityscape and a relatively healthy environment. Other world metropolises are afflicted by significantly bigger air pollution problems coupled with their own garbage collection challenges owing to the different scale of population density and physical size. Warsaw is much smaller and more compact, but the belief that it cannot be deemed tidy derives from implicit historical and social factors, and is not necessarily substantiated by empirical research. If any discontinuity in architecture can be remedied, as argues Jerzy Elﾉanowski (2010, 72f.) in his essay on “manufacturing” ruins in Warsaw, the remedies must be applied in a manner different from the ones employed in the immediate post-war period. Elﾉanowski contends that it is impossible to “manufacture” progress. Warsaw’s pre-war architectural fabric was torn and frayed, with many holes that were artificially patched as a result of random and chaotic governmental policies. A failure to see Warsaw as an integrated whole of various social, cultural and architectural attributes resulted in the sad sentimentality observed in the creation of artificial ruins and of newly-constructed buildings imitating older architectural styles. The gap in civic experience A fundamental characteristic of Warsaw’s everyday life shows in the various ways the “peculiarity quotient” in civic experience is sustained: the mess we inherited from the previous Communist era does not blend in with the ideal new order of things. In Warsaw people usually blame the existence of debris and disorder on the authorities. Office holders represent an assumptive “them”, they are different from “us”. In this logic, not the citizens of Warsaw pollute the city and litter the streets, parks and 170 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL yards, it is “the other”, for the rubbish always belongs to the “them”. More than two decades have passed since the post-communist systemic transformation, but “they” still do exist, and even now “they” do not rise to the challenge. Warsaw’s inhabitants are reluctant to take responsibility for what was previously within the scope of the so-called people’s authorities, and although progress is being made, it is a very slow process. In a previous era the mess was spatially ordered and framed by the political system, whereas in the new order the mess is often perceived as “descending into anarchy”. The chaotic day-to-day experience comes with an unsettling awareness that every progress eventually turns out to be of a temporary nature, and that Warsaw’s development lacks direction. At the same time, the disorienting dynamic of privately financed commercial development is proceeding rapidly. The creation of sanitation systems is often neglected in the context of urban development. The city planners of a bygone era left many blanks in Warsaw’s housing landscape, this holds true for attractive development parcels and greenfield or brownfield sites alike. Real estate developers regard these vacant properties as tasty morsels. Imbued with the buccaneering spirit of a free market economy, they do not value ecological or aesthetic principles, while municipal authorities are too hesitant to work out effective development policies. Consequently, developers’ greed and their acquisitive instinct for seeking out developable real estate are given free rein (see Staniszkis in this volume). Curiously, this kind of greed seems to have infected even enlightened academics. After 1989, also experts exhibited an un-scholarly bias towards commercial development and conveniently identified privatization as an appropriate way to introduce order into the urban landscape. Bohdan Ja̅owiecki and Marek S. Szczepawski, both urban sociologists, would happily have wanted the city to sell off the water and sewage system companies, the so-called Filtry. In a popular handbook co-written by these Polish professors, they imply that the Filtry are essentially wasteland within the city center (Ja̅owiecki and Szczepawski 2002, 208). To preach the dismantling and disposing of such historical artifacts is a positive act of abuse of a public good. Warsaw’s historic Filtry were established in 1886 and modern infrastructure was implemented successfully over time. Although legally the Filtry have been listed buildings of historic significance since 2008 and SANITATION AND DISORDER IN WARSAW’S URBAN SPACE 171 qualified as treasures of Warsaw’s heritage, they still exist as a functioning and viable public water plant.1 In comparison, the water plant in Berlin, the Berliner Wasserbetriebe in Friedrichshagen completed seven years after the Filtry, is now an industrial museum, obsolete and antiquated. The parcel of land between Koszykowa and Filtrowa streets, where Warsaw’s Filtry are located, is worth millions on today’s real estate market. Yet the relocation of the plants is technically impossible. Figure 3: Installing the sewage system at Koszyki district in Warsaw (Photo: Archive of Warsaw’s Waterworks) It is a truism of both human nature and the capitalist marketplace that property developers are inclined to throw their weight in and lobby or pay for more influence. But a certain type of urban residents just also behaves alike. Negative social behavior spread shortly after the demise of communism, for instance with regard to the unregulated phenomenon of un- —————— 1 For a view on the engineering beauty and location of the Filtry in downtown Warsaw: http://www.poland.gov.pl/Filtry,warszawskie,12227.html (accessed: 18.01.2012). 172 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL registered street market stalls known as “camp-bed business” (handel z ̅óﾉka). In the beginning, small traders from Warsaw put up their camp beds in the street selling clothes, cheap knock-offs of perfumes, pirated recordings, books and other tchotchke. It was not customary for these merchants to sweep the sidewalks after they had finished. Instead they left it to the wind to clean up after them. This invasive type of trade was hailed by officials in neo-liberal terms as the “birth of innovation” and “entrepreneurial enterprise”. From my point of view, this economically profitable practice unfortunately degraded the existing sense of urban order in Warsaw, and, as a side effect, helped institutionalizing an inept disposal system in the city. In the 1990s, this putrid reality of garbage-generating streettrading had much in common with actual landfill sites. In Warsaw approximately 4,000 illegal waste dumps have been identified recently, some of them in green areas where people want to relax like the woods in Bielany or Kabaty. Warsaw’s official response to these illegal backstreet trash heaps is as feckless as tilting at windmills, yet its liquidation would be too costly. “Fly-tipping” (that is, furtively dumping waste) has risen to the rank of an applied art of urban living, and city wardens are unlikely to catch flytippers accomplishing their “spatial practice”. As Michel de Certeau would conclude, we have to contend with “ordinary practitioners of the city below the thresholds at which visibility begins” (de Certeau 2011, 93). Carting waste out of sight When Warsaw’s residents are confronted with disorder, they regard it as either caused through negligence or as a state of affairs that is supposed to be permanent. Whoever might try to change this situation is made to feel uncomfortable, because it is seen as an infringement upon an unwritten civic consensus, and therefore qualified as wrong-doing. In Poland generally, what is commonly known as “clear-out” takes place twice a year, before Christmas and Easter; this is not meant as a statistical commentary on reality but as a pragmatic example of generalized civic indifference toward public space. Still, a commitment to avoid unhygienic behavior is thereby engendered at least within the private sphere of citizens’ lives. As modest and small in scale as the results of these clear-outs may be, they are a step SANITATION AND DISORDER IN WARSAW’S URBAN SPACE 173 in the right direction, toward the thin line that is drawn between acceptable and unacceptable sanitary behavior. For example, in one building in my vicinity the tenants are seeking to increase control over the gross behavior of their fellow residents. Consequently, the neighbor from my yard now dares to confront people urinating on the tenement’s walls trying to dissuade them from this bad habit. Thus, if Warsaw’s citizens like to have their own personal space nicer or tidier, they no longer avert their gaze from such an anti-social behavior. However, fighting for pristine order in public spaces is felt be a waste of time, or rather an unnecessary extravagance, because there are more urgent things to be accomplished. Symptomatic of Warsaw’s challenges is the issue of modernizing and achieving more effective utilization of garbage collection resources. In their cutting-edge study Rubbish! The Archeology of Garbage, two USAmerican researchers contend that incineration, i.e. burning refuse, will play an important role in the future (Rathje and Murphy 2001, 174–186). Vienna, for instance, already has four incineration plants, but the capital of Poland still has only one single plant in operation since 2001. In socialist times no incineration took place at all. The Solid Communal Waste Utilization Plant in Warsaw is located within the Targówek district on the right bank of the Vistula. The plant accepts barely a fraction (just 10%) of solid communal waste per year for complex utilization. In 2007, Warsaw mobilized funds for an expansion of the incineration plant at Targówek to process at least one quarter of the solid waste Warsaw produces every year. But soon afterwards the local government announced a change in priority and used the money to build a new bridge over the Vistula river north of the city (i.e. the Maria Sk̅odowska-Curie Bridge, opened in 2012), and improve arterial roads with European football fans in mind. The extension of the Solid Communal Waste Utilization Plant in Warsaw has been postponed on several occasions because carting rubbish away to landfill sites is less costly. It has been decided, it seems, that Warsaw can ill afford incinerating trash since so much construction work has been delayed. Moreover, after announcing the modernization of the plant, residents from Targówek initiated protests (see reports in the daily press: Olszewska 2010). Despite reasonable ecological arguments, the locals call for compensation from the city authorities. The list of demands includes new bicycle routes, the revitalization of parks and asphalting of access roads to apartment houses. Curiously, this situation is reminiscent of a pre-industrial system of barter or 174 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL bargaining, for Warsaw’s government needs the consent of the local community to be allowed to apply for funds from the European Union. The European Union requires that Poland sustainably recycle more than half of its urban refuse by 2015. According to official statistics, in 2011 only 12% of the garbage produced in Warsaw was recycled. However, the author’s informants from the brotherhood of garbage collectors, who are not gullible enough to believe our policy makers, tell a different story. They suggest that the real result is not even half as good as official statistics claim. Simultaneously, the waste management fees have risen by approximately 25 euros, i.e. 110 Polish zlotys per ton, compared to the year 2000. It is indisputable that inhabitants of many European cities in fact have to pay much more for municipal garbage collection than Varsovians. Nonetheless, for the first time since 1980, garbage disposal has become a noticeable budget item for Warsaw residents (one should bear in mind that the average monthly gross income in Poland amounted to 3,573 zlotys, i.e. 800 euros by the end of 2011). In the communist era garbage disposal was virtually complimentary and, consequently, had no great impact on the family budget. Also, these rising fees include an extra tax for dumping rubbish instead of recycling it. This means that, in effect, a rubbish tax is charged in Warsaw as a kind of “down-payment” for penalties which the European Union will impose on Poland in the near future. Warsaw’s traditional method of removing refuse relied on peasants carting away rubbish to suburban fields, where it purportedly was used as fertilizer. Inorganic rubbish was transported to commercial landfill sites outside the city. This custom extended from time immemorial through World War I and well into the first half of the 20th century. The carters were officially licensed service providers and had to obtain permission for their trade from the city government, especially during the time of partition, when the Warsaw region was under Russia’s control and subjected to its legal authority. The system of refuse disposal then was neither coherent nor effectively enforced by alien officials, who after all represented Tsarist Russia, an occupying foreign power. Each property owner had to pay for garbage collection on his own account; consequently, trash hauling took place irregularly and service was erratic. Household waste was shamefully stored away in backyard middens, or stealthily piled up in prohibited areas of public city space by landlords scrimping on the regular fees for licensed carters. In Warsaw, the first municipal enterprise responsible for garbage collection, ZOM (Zak̅ad Oczyszczania Miasta), was founded in 1927, in a SANITATION AND DISORDER IN WARSAW’S URBAN SPACE 175 newly independent Poland. Yet when ZOM started operating as a legitimately licensed company, Warsaw’s population was still not legally obliged to keep public housing or private properties clean. The Garbage Act intended to regulate sanitation in Warsaw and other large Polish cities was enacted by the Polish parliament only shortly before the Second World War, in mid-1938. The act imposed an obligation of systematic garbage collection on Varsovians, proscribing traditional middens in the city. After World War II, as a result of the nationalization of Polish industry, ZOM had a monopoly in Warsaw and was renamed MPO (Miejskie PrzedsiRbiorstwo Oczyszczania). At first, the enterprise carted all refuse to the landfill in Radiowo, located in a buffer zone of the Kampinos backwoods. Later, garbage trucks drove to Žubna, a small village south of Warsaw. The garbage dump in Žubna, established in 1978, was probably one of the largest sites of this type to ever be constructed in Poland, thus Žubna came to be known as “The Garbage Mountain”. Considering the long history, one must say that the city’s inhabitants have become accustomed and even inured to the sight of widespread distribution of garbage in and around Warsaw for at least two centuries. After the collapse of communism in 1989, the free market re-emerged. As a consequence, today’s municipality of Warsaw sells garbage collection franchises by tender on a yearly basis. The city of Warsaw is divided into different zones in which garbage collection rights are assigned to the highest bidder for a trash-hauling contract. Many companies compete for these municipal contracts and also make individual deals with private owners or residents’ communities to serve commercial and residential blocks. In 2001, the landfill in Žubna was closed for fear of environmental pollution; presently, each company is responsible for its own garbage dump. Investigative journalists have claimed that smaller companies are guilty of storing waste without the required sanitary permit, using inappropriate places for this purpose. However, these references to the dysfunction of Warsaw’s trash disposal system only hints at the mischief and intrigues that would be revealed, if more attention was directed to the problem. For instance, the public limited liability company Miejskie PrzedsiRbiorstwo Oczyszczania w m. st. Warszawie, successor to the former Warsaw rubbish hauling monopoly, seemed unable to invest in its own sorting and recycling plant until recently, even though this company is the oldest and biggest waste collector in the city. Because MPO is so hard-pressed by European Union legal requirements, the company has now slowly taken 176 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL measures to plan the construction of a sorting plant. As a consequence, MPO pays various small private companies which accept MPO’s garbage and in turn “spirit it away” to landfill sites that charge no fees. Warsaw’s rubbish is thus transported into far-distant areas of Poland. The sad fact is that it is carted away “out of sight and out of mind” rather than being recycled or disposed of properly. At the end of the 19th century Boles̅aw Prus (1847–1912), a novelist with close ties to Warsaw, wrote that residents loved their rubbish so much, they would not want to part with it (Mi̅osz 1982, 291–303); they lived with refuse and they breathed it. They felt no need to distance themselves from garbage, for to them it seemed rather unproblematic. Even today Varsovians regard incineration projects with suspicion and consider them as “trendy” and elusive extravaganzas. Their relationship with trash was ridiculed by the famous intellectual almost a century ago (Prus 1954, 131f.), but it is bitterly ironic that his comments still apply to today’s situation so accurately. Subversive underworlds and cultural inversions In Warsaw it is still generally believed that what is really useful cannot be tidy at the same time. Here, a reminder is due that the Polish culture is in fact a literary and heroic one, and this cultural type often gets pompous and turgid in its social expressions. Warsaw prototypically reflects these Polish cultural attributes. Warsaw’s sewage system is obviously an integral part of the urban infrastructure, as it carries water and feces. Yet it is also the carrier of heroic cultural associations and meanings related to the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Non-Polish intellectuals interested in Warsaw might like to watch the film Canal (Kana̅) by Andrzej Wajda, an internationally acclaimed Polish filmmaker (Reid 1991, 185). This poignant film, released in Poland in 1957, had widespread international distribution channels even beyond the Iron Curtain. Wajda shows how the sewage system transformed itself into a hero of almost human character. Partisans took advantage of the sewers as a secret system of alternative city passageways during the time the city was under siege by Hitler’s soldiers. In Warsaw, the material reality of the sewer systems merged with a heavily fraught cultural narrative which produced martyrs. With good reason did Polish wartime SANITATION AND DISORDER IN WARSAW’S URBAN SPACE 177 poets write about the insurgents’ blood purifying Warsaw’s streets of the contamination of Nazi servitude during the Uprising. In the literary context, throughout the post-war period filth and dirt have never just functioned as concrete entities engendering practical action; filth and dirt were always endowed with myths, historical experiences and symbolic representations. Heroic, martyr-haunted post-war Warsaw was a city celebrating itself for being the capital of a ghetto, of ruins and graves ever after. The original city had to make an excruciating descent into the underworld and has remained there ever since, thereby accomplishing a peculiar cultural inversion: surfaces, this cultural imperative says, can be neglected but the underworld replete with myths and heroism must be protected. On that account, the Warsaw Metro is an interesting case in point. Construction plans surfaced as early as the 1930s, but World War II prevented any further course of action. After the war, communist authorities pursued the plans on paper until the mid-1970s. Construction was finally initiated in 1983, but excavation work dragged on due to economic difficulties. As a result, only one underground line has been completed so far (as of 2012). The first eleven kilometers were inaugurated in 1995, and the last stations on the route from Kabaty to M̅ociny were opened in 2008 (23 km altogether). This epochal investment could be paraphrased as a well-harmonized element of space in the civic commons. It appeals to Warsaw’s inhabitants because of its freshness, barren functionality and metallic scent of modernity. Varsovians have longed for such a civic resource and have grown to respect “their” underground. This respect is reinforced by the deeply resonating memory of the heroic meanings invested in their sewer system. My students very often point out that subways in other metropolises abound with rubbish and horrible smells, but the Warsaw Metro does neither succumb to a comparable state of pollution, nor to casual vandalism or littering. It is probably the most immaculate subway system in Europe, free of wanton degradation by it users. Not even vagrants do loiter in Warsaw’s metro stations (cf. Declerck 2008). They feel intrusive and out of keeping with these clean spaces, where even the common man does not possess the temerity to create a mess and drop litter. Passengers monitor each other in favor of hygiene and municipal authorities take great care to maintain the cleanliness of subway stations. However, these observations do not contradict or invalidate the predominant logic of disorder in Warsaw’s civic character. If residents cherish a place and perceive it as hygienic and tidy, they will tend to keep it in 178 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL order, but in areas that fail to impress Varsovians, they nevertheless leave their litter all over the place. Nowy ｬwiat, for instance, is always kept clean because it represents Warsaw’s glamorous high street. The Metro is an exceptional example since it evokes heroism in a twofold sense. On the one hand, it is associated with the noble and subversive underworlds exploited during the Uprising of 1944. On the other hand, it represents the culmination of the struggles and sacrifices of many generations. At last, people seem to think, Warsaw has its subway (north to south line), and however modest it may be, it finally gives us the feeling of completeness and continuity. It serves as a counter-image to assuage the city’s fabled neuroses involving gaps and missing quantities. Looking at the future and wanting to enhance the day-to-day reality as well as the historically symbolic meanings of the Warsaw Metro, the city’s councilmen have recently announced the construction of a second line (east to west) with much fanfare. Vagrants, the Polish equivalent of the clochards in Paris, i.e. homeless people freely moving along the most important urban byways (with the exception of the Metro) and scavenging garbage for a living, represent an emerging social stratum in Warsaw, as they appeared just shortly after 1989. In the Polish language vagrants are often referred to as “divers”, because going through dustbins in Polish connotes “diving” or immersion. For Varsovians the word does not have a distracting overtone. The homeless are the visible signs of decline of the former capital city’s “unsafe underworld”, the entire panoply of second-class figures that in communist times included petty thieves, illegal money changers, harmless scrap metal pickers, pimps and various goldbricks. As socialist propaganda would have it in previous times: all citizens were employed, no-one littered the streets and the cleaning service always arrived on time. After the systemic transition in the 1990s, these second-class inhabitants of Warsaw either morphed into small businessmen or became redundant, human flotsam. It is a fact that totalitarian forms of oppressive control, which the communist system exercised over the people, are unpleasantly retained in the memory of Varsovians. As a result, dustbin scavengers are allowed to be widely visible in the urban space, because they symbolize release and freedom from oppression. This situation brings to mind cultural practices from our previous political era, when it was considered an (almost criminal) offense to store or throw away rubbish and recyclable materials instead of feeding them back SANITATION AND DISORDER IN WARSAW’S URBAN SPACE 179 into the production process. Storage interfered with the norms of socialist propaganda. The First Secretary Gomu̅ka used to say that in his house nothing was ever wasted because it was the home of a good communist. Yet many types of today’s garbage just did not exist. Nowadays novel throwaway things are heedlessly being generated, such as beverage empties, broken glass and chemically stained paper littering the streets. The free market forces depend on attractive packaging, which results in a wasteful overabundance of wrapping material. Since the end of communism in 1989, citizens have been conditioned to frown upon reusable goods by marketing and advertising discourses, feeling they have a right for compensation after the poor consumption opportunities during the communist era with its empty shops and short supply. Despite the old household mantra not to throw things away because you might need them in the future, Warsaw’s residents love to discard useless or slightly used things remorselessly, relishing in the feeling of luxury just like the new “townies” (see Bauman (1997, 13–15) for their definition as urbanized individuals with an exuberant sense of freedom and ontological success defined in terms of consumption). By this logic, abundant dumping grounds then become status symbols, proving that one has finally “made it” (Bauman 2004, 12). In the early 1980s, when I was still a child, I used to deposit waste at one of Warsaw’s scrap metal, bottle-return and paper-recycling centers. Standing in a queue with members of those marginalized individuals who represent today’s underclass, my self-respect was none the worse for the experience, and I did not feel in the least threatened by the contact with these “threshold” individuals (Turner 1995, 125–130). It was simply my response to the grammar school teachers who taught us to save money and acquire a properly informed civic attitude. Today, fewer recycling centers exist, and they are mostly located on the urban fringes. The recycling centre on Cardinal Stefan Wyszywski Square was one of the first inner-city centers to close down after the end of communism. After 1989, the customers of the recycling centre I mentioned above turned into odoriferous scruffs, people stigmatized by a strong social taboo. By virtue of their cultural status, they might be compared to pre-war “night people”, which is an old-fashioned expression to refer to a class of undignified, illegal and taboo professions like street sweepers, cesspit cleaners and pimps working at night-time. The lack of concern over these closures reflects the meager regard the trash-beleaguered city dwellers have for issues of public hygiene. Although 180 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL highly desirable, a shared “consciousness of sanitation” is currently nonexistent in Warsaw. This troublesome reality, like Pandora's plight, is not completely hopeless. However, challenges abound. The more the people of Warsaw want to be recognized as modern city dwellers, and the more they acquire new means for that purpose, the more trash they generate. In a similar vein, Dominique Laporte (2002, 127) has identified sanitary innovation in cities with an “end of lack”. Making a cultural spectacle of trash With the exception of Warsaw’s Metro, municipal authorities seem helpless when faced with the problem of trash. Law enforcement is rather weak and has no measurable impact on social behavior. Also, Warsaw’s inhabitants have not yet developed sufficient awareness of the need of legal regulations in the field of sanitation. One explanation could be that during the postsocialist transformation policing rules and regulations for tenants have disappeared from the stairwells in housing estates and multifamily buildings. After 1989 the regulations were seen as part of a discredited legacy of enforced collectivism implemented in everyday life in the People's Republic of Poland. On Youtube there is a clip showing dustbins in the subway below Rozdroﾉe Square, near the Royal Baths Park (Žazienki Królewskie).2 Even if you have never been to Warsaw, be assured that this clip is not intended to be a joke or a malicious misrepresentation: there is one dustbin to every two square meters in that subway, which altogether makes ten dustbins in a row. It might sound ridiculous, but that is how it goes in Warsaw: owing to administrative fragmentation and lack of a systematic and coherent policy of disposal, each waste container has its own separate management. City authorities are responsible for only a part of the street bins, the rest are maintained by the road administration, cooperatives or contract firms. Because these organizations work independently, they are free to put up trash bins wherever they deem it necessary. In other words, if the city of Warsaw —————— 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM0RwZKnTEk (accessed: 15.11.2011). More reliable evidence is on the website of a local television station: http://www.tvnwarsza wa.pl/archiwum/0,1650882,wiadomosc.html (accessed: 20.01.2012). SANITATION AND DISORDER IN WARSAW’S URBAN SPACE 181 was the owner, the city authorities would have to exercise control over waste management and its challenges, and the outcome would have probably been different. Analyzing the post-socialist disorder, it should be noted that sanitation chaos and the sluggishness to dispose of garbage is grounded in a widely shared conception of private property, which is a historical legacy. In traditional Polish culture, property was not conceived as belonging to a particular person, it was somehow heaven-sent or owned by god. During the communist era, ownership became a state monopoly, i.e. all property belonged to the state. For a short time after 1989 everything that inhabitants could grasp, nail down, appropriate or enclose, was deemed theirs. Let’s take a case from Muranów. This inner city area was built on the rubble of the Jewish Ghetto in the typical manner of working-class estates. The terrain is uneven and a little hilly in some places, since it was impossible to cart away a million tons of rubble and other refuse during the early postwar restoration of Warsaw. At present in a backyard in Muranów, a cultural spectacle of sorts regularly takes place, in which rubbish plays the predominant role. Tenants conspired and locked up their garbage arbor. In the jargon of sanitation workers “arbor” is an expression for allocated small booths designed for the storage of waste waiting for collection. These arbors are usually built from white cinder blocks.3 The locked arbor in Muranów has been equipped with a high-tech security camera, and warning signs say: “No dumping! No trespassing!” This community of tenants has cast itself as the Big Brother prying on possible culprits from other buildings who want to dump trash and large pieces of junk like chairs, beds or timber. Although it seems most welcome that tenants should organize themselves, it is striking that at the same time they do not feel in the least responsible for the environment in their proximity, where chaotic disorder still prevails around the communal green street bins. The space in the yard shared by a couple of houses is monitored by a camera that has been installed directly in front of a building self-governed by a different tenant community, which in turn wants the monitored arbor removed. Spied-upon tenants retort that the contraption spoils their view on the common yard. In short, Varsovians’ behavior as regards sanitation issues exhibits rather surreal traits in- —————— 3 Photos: http://m.warszawa.gazeta.pl/warszawa/51,106541,9383527.html?i=1 (accessed: 15.11.2011) 182 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL cluding tribal rivalry, greed and self-reliance,—arguably also forms of postcollectivism (cf. Skidelsky 1996, 17). Yet an infallible sense of property and ownership is always spontaneously evoked where any Varsovian sits or stands. Littering the ground around them with cigarette butts, banana peels and candy wrappers helps marking their personal territory in the public sphere, legitimating their presence in the city. This is also true for “open lavatories” which, if urgent need be, will materialize ad hoc on every corner—under a tree, against a wall, in gateways or lanes, in the lift for the disabled, in subways or train stations, even a yard dustbin could serve as a public toilet. Combining the functions of “urinal” and “dustbin” is a pervasive habit in Warsaw, as the example of my own backyard has shown. Little wonder though that Warsaw dogs also defecate on the sidewalks without anyone cleaning up after them. Littering is just not deemed a problem. Rather, it is regarded in a positive light and proudly considered as proof of a “spark of existence” (Sulima 2005, 35), as a kind of evidence that one has—in some way at least—made use of the city for enjoyment. Weird as it seems, the permanent presence of garbage is an affirmation that Varsovians feel at home in their city. Litter and garbage are familiar, homelike items, “companions of ours”. If Varsovians had to clean up the dozens of empty plastic bottles they leave on city lawns, they would probably feel deprived of their ontological security. A traditional Polish saying, na starych ｭmieciach, means “to be on the old garbage” and has the positive connotation of “being here to stay”, feeling existentially safe and rooted in a place. A clean-up would, paradoxically, threaten the secure sense of identity of Warsaw’s inhabitants. Furthermore, the manifestly clean and organized parts of Warsaw’s civic space resemble artificial sanctuaries, for instance the sterile shopping malls—the grand cathedrals of consumption (Ritzer 2009, 11)—, or uniform office blocks and other featureless symptoms of urban sprawl. They offend the comforting habitual because they are associated with luxury, which denotes something distressingly unfamiliar. Paradoxically then, these clean and orderly realms cannot naturally serve as a universal pattern to be replicated; they are just an exception proving the rule. SANITATION AND DISORDER IN WARSAW’S URBAN SPACE 183 Following a tradition of coercion: cleaning-up At this point it is essential to re-visit the past in order to show that in previous times orderliness and sanitation in Warsaw was achieved by means of coercion, which is why only a minority of the population today values neatness and modernity. Because of this idiosyncratic mindset of Varsovians, pressing innovations in sanitary engineering have always been warily looked upon for fear of negative impacts. Constructive attempts to improve public hygiene are suspiciously regarded as harboring sinister intentions and trigger fears of foreign intrusions. This recurrent problem typically overlaps with the functional weakness of the municipal authorities— societal paranoia amplified by administrative incompetence. An instructive example was set in the second half of the 19th century, when Russian-occupied Warsaw had a rather modern sewage system compared with other high-ranking cities in Russia and metropolises in Western Europe, Paris included. Yet this modern sewage system could only be built in an “inferior” Polish city with the help of the then-president of Warsaw, a retired Russian general, who had the courage to stubbornly get his views heard and implemented regarding the need for civic and sanitary awareness. In an ironic twist, however, General Starynkiewicz himself represented the outgrowth of a foreign “enemy” authority. He initiated improvements in Warsaw’s sewerage in defiance of the majority of its inhabitants, compelling them to clean up after them, albeit in pursuit of a loftier goal than mere superficial tidiness. It was Starynkiewicz who invited outstanding designers and sewage engineers from the Lindley family to Warsaw. They had previously solved sanitary problems in other major European cities, including Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg. Curiously, at that time, the majority of Warsaw’s population regardless of social class or education was against sewage systems, indoor-plumbing and bathrooms. The townspeople had only ridicule and derision for Starynkiewicz and the British engineers, whom they accused of being shrewd plotters, Kulturkampf promoters and tricky Jews planning to burden poor Warsaw dwellers with unnecessary sinks and toilets, bringing the city to the verge of bankruptcy. It was feared that underground public utilities might spread diseases and be used in scandalous ways by Poland’s ethnic and political enemies. This calumny was in fact a cliché: the inane koinos topos was regurgitated in an infamous anti-Semitic text called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, such underground infrastructure installations are characterized as 184 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL clandestine and insidious instruments in a larger Jewish plan for achieving global domination. Yet ultimately, General Starynkiewicz succeeded in wearing down the resistance to realize his vision of a more hygienic and wholesome urban environment. Let me give you an example to illustrate the continuity between the present-day resistance to progressive ideas of urban sanitation and the way Warsaw’s citizens regarded similar issues and plans in the past. The construction of the first genuine rubbish sorting plant in the city, in the W̅ochy district, was delayed several times after local communities had lodged protests with the municipality concerning the behavior of the garbage collecting enterprise MPO. Public opinion proclaimed that recycling would actually endanger lives. Eventual profits from the modern trash sorting system, it was the line of reasoning, would turn out to be minimal, while the residents’ health would in fact suffer, because rotting garbage was a source of contagion. Varsovians wasted no opportunity to concoct creative rhetorics to advance their argument. In 2011, they came up with the idea that the many refuse bins at the sorting plant would attract flocks of birds, thus posing a threat to airplanes landing at OkRcie airport (Olszewska 2011). This neurosis was unavoidable and in itself contagious: increasingly, people in Warsaw came to believe that garbage disposal must necessarily lead to unhappiness. A deceptive breath of cleanliness The beginning of the era of democracy in Warsaw was marked as much by the commercial introduction of detergents as by the spectacular toppling of the monument of Feliks Dzierﾉywski, the despised head of the Soviet secret police. In my childhood days the disinfectant lysolum was ubiquitous. Warsaw’s public toilets and school toilets in particular reeked of this caustic chemical solution. After the systemic transition, the olfactory sphere in the city also changed and became gentler and more world-class. But the luxuriant relishing of those “smells of absolute cleanliness” advertised to Warsaw’s inhabitants from the city’s billboards must have ensnared the minds of our hapless citizens. The successful raising of consciousness of everything trendy in hygiene lulled people into a kind of unconsciousness regarding their real needs,—a state of mind which gave rise to bizarre out- SANITATION AND DISORDER IN WARSAW’S URBAN SPACE 185 comes. For instance, the subway station in the heart of Warsaw, below Dmowski Roundabout, gets cleaned by sanitation professionals using special vehicles, so that passing pedestrians can enjoy the freshened air. However, in the adjoining elevators for the disabled the stench of feces and urine is overwhelming, because people use them as public lavatories. Here you will find yourself wading in excrement just one step away from the crowded public places. Only the protuberant superficial facades are protected against disorder and stench; the background areas are subjected to degeneration and sanitary misuse. While Warsaw’s neglected, underdeveloped areas become ever more crudely “ornamented”, most people still feel it is sufficient to show off a few sparkling new dustcarts and place a couple of recycle bins in the side streets to justify heralding the glorious news that, finally, the city has come to grips with the garbage problem. By the same logic, the city’s recycling campaigns are seen as part of the pervasive financial squandering by the authorities. Warsaw’s residents derive a kind of perverse pleasure from imitating and appropriating achievements and solutions originating in Western European cities. Yet the presence of supposedly superior, imported cultural models represents something tawdry and noxious, a deluge of ubiquitous pollution flooding into Poland’s capital. Worse still, a “third wave” of garbage—computer junk and electronic refuse—, is already rushing toward Warsaw, although the city has not even tackled less problematic trash such as old furniture, washing machines, rusty refrigerators and construction debris dumped in front of garbage arbors in countless backyards. At first glance it just looks like organizational dysfunction. However, on a deeper level it represents a profound fundamental incongruity: Warsaw has not yet seen the old tide of refuse recede, while the next huge wave of rubbish is already approaching. Epilogue without end In the case of Warsaw and its relation to garbage, one searches for a focused and concise urban-cultural metaphor with concern. Arguably the “intrinsic logic” (Berking and Löw 2008; Löw 2010) of Warsaw after the systemic change is founded on sentimental notions linked over a long period of time with a series of historical calamities. The unsatisfactory result 186 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL is that the lessons learnt from these catastrophes are often only superficially understood, yet nevertheless translated into stopgap solutions, which help to perpetuate the idea that trash and garbage are commonly accepted components of the urban environment. Trash is regarded as an irregular but tolerated feature of everyday life, although its existence exposes significant deficiencies in both public and commercial infrastructure development and governmental policies. The provisional cultural consensus in Warsaw implies that disorder and littering may occur in spaces where usually residents ought to expect it to be out of place. Despite significant ongoing political and social changes, municipalities and residents have a proclivity to espouse values of the supposedly more advanced nations of the Western world. They “make do” by cultivating capitalism without adequate capital, but at the same time they persist with policies and strategies that are, in fact, makeshift solutions. Warsaw’s residents live in a metropolis but they have not yet learnt to negotiate the complexities and subtleties associated with it. In this light, non-Varsovians should not be surprised upon encountering a recycling model that does not even actually provide recycling. Garbage and trash are no longer classified as anomalies according to traditional anthropological usage, but neither are they usefully re-classified. And so it goes that at the end of the day, Warsaw’s polluted quantities are neither managed nor disposed of effectively. This is not to say that Warsaw is categorically fated to suffer eternally from pollution and disorder. There is hope and reason to believe that Warsaw’s messiness might one day become a rich source of cultural capital. Provided Mary Douglas is correct when she writes in her classic work on taboo and dirt that we should employ cultural peculiarities “as a magic lamp to be rubbed for gaining unlimited riches and power” and “make them powerful for good” (Douglas 2002, 180). So should we not be hopeful and assume that an excess of disorder will generate in Warsaw abundant opportunities to create order for an improved future? Those who are familiar with Warsaw’s cultural and social history can imagine a renaissance born out of the chaos engendered by the city’s multitude of eccentric but vivifying cultural attributes. The time has come to realize that the urgent challenge before Varsovians and their leaders is to ensure that civic efforts to achieve a hygienic state of affairs are no longer allowed to be dependent upon impulses and nostalgia, i.e. on motivations that are seasonal and ephemeral. The droll conclusion is that a scheme needs to be developed which allows Warsaw’s residents to re-negotiate their special relationship SANITATION AND DISORDER IN WARSAW’S URBAN SPACE 187 with trash and garbage. Such a program must ultimately be founded on rational public policy initiatives supported by the urban population’s acknowledgement of and respect for the authority of legitimate regulations and the overarching rule of law.4 References Bauman, Zygmunt (1997). Postmodernity and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Polity Press. — (2004). Wasted Lives. Modernity and Its Outcasts. Cambridge: Polity Press. Berking, Helmuth, and Martina Löw (eds.) (2008). Die Eigenlogik der Städte. Neue Wege für die Stadtforschung. Frankfurt/Main and New York: Campus. Borowiec, Andrew (2001). Destroy Warsaw! Hitler’s Punishment, Stalin’s Revenge. Santa Barbara: Praeger. Certeau, Michel de (2011 [1984]). The Practice of Everyday Life. Transl. by Steven Rendall. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Chmielewska, Ella (2010). Material errata. Warsaw neon and socialist modernity. The Journal of Architecture 15 (1), 53–70. Davies, Norman (2005). Uprising ’44. The Battle for Warsaw. New York: Viking. Declerck, Patrick (2008). Les Naufrages. Avec les Clochards de Paris. Paris: Plon. Douglas, Mary (2002 [1966]). Purity and Danger. An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London and New York: Routledge. Dürr, Eveline, and Rivke Jaffe (eds.) (2010). Urban Pollution. Cultural Meanings, Social Practices. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Elﾉanowski, Jerzy (2010). Manufacturing ruins: architecture and representation in post-catastrophic Warsaw. The Journal of Architecture 15 (1), 71–86. Ja̅owiecki, Bohdan, and Marek S. Szczepawski (2002). Miasto i przestrzew w perspektywie socjologicznej. Warszawa: Scholar. Kwiatkowski, Krzysztof (2007). Between individualism and the community life imperative. Dilemmas of the present-day architecture. Czasopismo Techniczne A 2, 149–54. Laporte, Dominique (2002 [1978, French original edition]). History of Shit. Transl. by Nadia Benabid and Rodolphe el-Khoury. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press. —————— 4 My biggest debt for acknowledgment is to Allen Jaworski from Seattle (USA) who has unflaggingly discussed this paper with me and I am very grateful for his patient corrections and editing of early drafts of the text. I am also especially grateful to Monika Grubbauer and Joanna Kusiak for their criticism and their being kind enough to comment on my unclean approach making me sensitive to some important comparative issues. 188 WŽODZIMIERZ KAROL PESSEL Löw, Martina (2010). The Intrinsic Logic of Cities. Towards a New Theory on Urbanism. Lecture on the conference of the European Urban Research Association (EURA). Darmstadt, 24 September 2010. Mi̅osz, Czes̅aw (1983). The History of Polish Literature. Updated Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press. Olszewska, Dominika (2010). Konflikt o spalarniR ｭmieci na Targówku—bRdzie bunt? Gazeta Sto̅eczna, 2 June. — (2011). Sortownia ｭmieci we W̅ochach grozi katastrofC lotniczC? Gazeta Sto̅eczna, 19 July. Pessel, W̅odzimierz Karol (2010). Antropologia nieczystoｭci. Studia z kultury sanitarnej Warszawy. Warszawa: Trio and Collegium Civitas. Prus, Boles̅aw (1954). Kroniki. Vol. III. Ed. Zygmunt Szwejkowski. Warszawa: Pawstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. Rathje, William, and Cullen Murphy (2001). Rubbish! The Archeology of Garbage. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Reid, Donald (1991). Paris Sewers and Sewermen. Realities and Representations. Cambridge (Mass.) and London: Harvard University Press. Ritzer, Georg (2009 [1999]). Enchanting a Disenchanted World. Continuity and Change in the Cathedrals of Consumption. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press. Skidelsky, Robert (1996). The World after Communism. A Polemic for Our Times. New York: Macmillan. Strasser, Susan (1999 [1992]). Waste and Want. A Social History of Trash. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Sulima, Roch (2005). Przestrzew publiczna. MiRdzy anarchizacjC a estetyzacjC. Kultura Wspó̅czesna 4 (46), 34–41. Wood, Nathaniel (2010). Becoming Metropolitan. Urban Selfhood and the Making of the Modern Cracow. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. Visible and Invisible Ethnic Others in Warsaw: Spaces of Encounter and Places of Exclusion Aneta Piekut Introduction This chapter discusses the socio-spatial distribution of foreign residents in Warsaw. It explores how they are present in the city space and whether they are spatially concentrated or dispersed throughout the metropolitan region. Two concomitant questions are whether foreign immigrants live separated from Polish residents, and if and where they have regular interactions with Poles. The chapter looks at different types of places in Warsaw and demonstrates some of the spaces of social encounters (and/or exclusion) of both invisible ethnic “others”, who reside temporarily in Warsaw, and of settled, visible ethnic “others” with Polish residents. Among many other social, cultural and economic changes, post-1989 transformations in Poland resulted in shifts in international migration patterns as well. In the last two decades, the lion’s share of international inflows of people and capital went to just one city in Poland—Warsaw. Thus, the Polish capital constitutes a specific labor market for both lowerand high-skilled foreign migrants. Post-1989 changes in Poland brought about new migration patterns that were related to the global division of labor. Whereas highly skilled foreigners from Western Europe, North America and selected Asian countries found employment in the primary labor market (i.e. secure, stable, well-paid jobs), newcomers from the former Soviet Union and other Asian countries were shunted to the secondary labor market (i.e. unsecure, unstable and poorly-paid jobs) (Iglicka 2000). The division has been most distinct in Warsaw of all Polish cities. Given the dissimilar status of foreigners in the primary and secondary labor markets, this study compares their involvement in various social spaces in Warsaw. Despite many complexities, I argue that there are generally two distinct groups of foreign residents living in Warsaw and that they differ in terms of their migration status and their visibility in the public sphere. The first group comprises “typical” economic migrants, who could 190 ANETA PIEKUT be described as visible ethnic “others”. By “visible” this paper means foreigners of any race of nationality who are regularly encountered by local residents in their day-to-day affairs. The most numerous group among them are immigrants from Asia, particularly Vietnam, China and Turkey and the former Soviet Union (USSR). Asians’ labor market niches are in vertically integrated wholesale and retail trade and gastronomy, whereas people from the former USSR undertake manual jobs in the construction and domestic services. Although the Vietnamese are well integrated within the local labor market, in terms of socio-cultural adaptation they are more likely than other migrants to do business with co-nationals and stick to their own national cultures and ethnic community.1 Data analysis demonstrates that they are also more spatially concentrated in Warsaw than foreign residents originating from the former USSR. Highly skilled migrants constitute a second distinctive group of “others”, but they are invisible and most of them stay only temporarily in Warsaw. In this paper “invisible” ethnic others are non-Poles who live, work or study in Warsaw but remain unseen by most Varsovians, thus the encounters are less frequent than in the case of “visible” ethnic “others”. They usually originate from Western Europe and North America. Expatriate communities2 in Warsaw are quite numerous due to the concentration of diplomatic posts and foreign companies and joint ventures in the city. They have fewer opportunities to socially mix with Polish residents than “typical” economic migrants. They live in prestigious neighborhoods, some of which are enclosed estates featuring luxurious housing. International schools and social organizations catering to their co-ethnics and elite business people constitute specific places that integrate expatriate communities, but are to some extent kept apart from Polish people. In the remainder of the paper I will unpack differences in the sociospatial involvement between these two groups of foreigners and in their relations with Polish residents. Besides describing residential patterns of these two groups of foreign residents in Warsaw, the chapter discusses their presence in different types of spaces, including public spaces (e.g. streets, public services, public transport, leisure facilities and shopping —————— 1 Still, the Vietnamese community in Warsaw is not homogenous and it is internally divided by age cohort, social status and political preferences (Grzyma̅a-Kaz̅owska 2008). 2 The adjective “expatriate” is used in the paper with reference to people that are sent for a fixed time abroad by employers (Cambridge 2007). VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE ETHNIC OTHERS IN WARSAW 191 places), intermediate spaces (e.g. schools and workplaces) and private spaces (e.g. homes). Finally, the presence of these new ethnic “others” is examined from the perspective of their influence on the cityscape. Immigration to post-socialist Warsaw International immigration to Poland was almost nil before 1989. Some foreigners have lived in Warsaw during the socialist era, but the numbers were insignificant. They were mainly citizens of other countries of the Socialist Bloc. However, some of the pre-1989 trailblazing inflows were crucial for the later development of more significant immigration streams and constituted the origins of post-1989 immigrant communities. The Vietnamese are the best example: they constitute one of the biggest and most established foreign communities in Warsaw tracing their roots to the first wave of migration from Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s as part of intra-Socialist Bloc student exchanges (Okólski 2010). In the 1990s, some of these Polish-educated Vietnamese returned to lay the groundwork for more numerous and complex migration networks of subsequent immigration from Vietnam (Halik 2001). Since most of the available data is outdated, an assessment of the stock of foreigners living in Warsaw will not be possible until more detailed results of the 2011 census are published. According to the 2002 census, approximately eleven thousand foreigners were living in Warsaw (Górny et al. 2012). In 2004, the census data were revised upward by the Office for Foreigners, which estimated that almost twenty thousand foreigners were living in Warsaw, or 1.5% of the city’s population. The numbers are not high and pre-war Warsaw was much more multicultural, with every third resident coming from a non-Polish ethnicity (Ilczuk et al. 2006). After the Second World War, due to the extermination of Jews in the Holocaust, the re-demarcation of Poland’s borders and the repatriation of ethnic minorities’ populations, Poland became quite homogenous; national minorities were marginalized and their cultures excluded in the Polish People’s Republic (Jasiwska-Kania and Žodziwski 2009). Since 1989 Warsaw has become much more ethnically diverse than it had been as a socialist city, and foreign population in Warsaw now comprises almost one fourth of all foreigners in Poland. 192 ANETA PIEKUT Warsaw’s foreign population differs in terms of migration status, countries of origin, occupation and average age from foreigners living in other Polish cities. Foreigners residing in Warsaw are more likely to be only temporarily staying in Poland, more often come from Western Europe or the Far East and they are less likely to be from a former Soviet republic (compare Table 1). However, in 2004 Vietnamese and Ukrainians were still the two biggest groups of foreigners living in Warsaw, each comprising 10% of its foreign population. While the former took the first place among settled immigrants, the latter predominated among temporary immigrants. Other major immigrant groups living in Warsaw originate from France (9%), Russia and Belarus (6% each), Germany and Great Britain (5% each). Table 1: Regions of origin of foreigners in Warsaw and Poland Regions of origin Europeb Western Former Soviet Union republics Far East Central-Eastern Europea North America Africa Middle Eastc South and Central America Australia and Oceania No citizenship No data Total Warsaw N % Poland N % 5,726 4,995 4,274 1,262 1,105 742 695 243 125 68 26 29.7 25.9 22.2 6.6 5.7 3.9 3.6 1.3 0.6 0.4 0.1 17,413 37,154 9,758 6,891 3,957 3,230 3,342 905 322 1,308 449 20.6 43.9 11.5 8.1 4.7 3.8 3.9 1.1 0.4 1.5 0.5 19,261 100.0 84,729 100.0 Notes: aCountries of the former Socialist Bloc excluding USSR. bOther European countries. cArab countries of the Middle East, Turkey and Israel. (Source: Office of Foreigners 2004) Foreigners in Warsaw are younger on average than both the population of migrants living elsewhere in Poland and the indigenous Warsaw population. Their age profile is determined by the predomination of economic migration among migration flows to Warsaw. Since foreign immigrants usually come to Warsaw in order to undertake a job, they are mostly in the mobile age cohort (18–44 years old). Additionally, the young age of for- VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE ETHNIC OTHERS IN WARSAW 193 eigners relative to the Polish population is caused by the fact that immigration has only been sizeable since 1989, so the foreign population has not grown old yet. Foreigners in Warsaw are also better educated and more often work in non-manual occupations than either foreigners elsewhere in Poland or the indigenous population of Warsaw. “New ethnic minorities” thus constitute valuable human capital for the Warsaw labor market and bring in high skills and unique knowledge. While immigration from Vietnam can be traced back to socialist era exchanges among communist countries, the post-1989 transformations, including political and economic changes, have played a crucial role in shaping contemporary immigration patterns from both the West and the East. Flows from Western Europe and North America to Poland, and to Warsaw in particular, were a result of foreign investment, as human capital followed financial capital (Rudolph and Hillmann 1998). Since Warsaw has been the most favorable location for foreign direct investments and transnational companies’ headquarters, the city was the natural destination for highly skilled foreign migrants, such as managers, directors and various types of specialists. Political transformation, work opportunities and change in the migration regimes, among others, made Poland an attractive country for economic migrants originating from countries of the former Soviet Union too. While the Vietnamese tend to settle in Poland and can be considered an established community, Eastern European migrants tend to stay only temporarily in Poland to work in the construction or domestic service sectors. Ukrainians who settle often intermarry with Poles and, owing to linguistic and cultural similarities, they more easily mix with Polish society than Vietnamese residents (Grzyma̅a-Kaz̅owska and Piekut 2007; Kindler and Szulecka forthcoming). However, the second generation of the Vietnamese immigrants is usually fluent in Polish and involved in both Polish and Vietnamese social networks (Halik 2001). Spatial distribution of foreign immigrants in Warsaw Due to a rather low proportion of ethnic minorities among Warsaw residents, the ethnic factor has not played a significant role in the overall socio-spatial portrait of the city as yet (SmRtkowski 2010). Although there do not seem to exist any “ethnic neighborhoods” per se, the distribution of 194 ANETA PIEKUT non-Polish residents in Warsaw is uneven and some patterns emerge (Piekut 2008). Location quotients (LQ) may be used as indicators of spatial concentration. Location quotients measure the degree of concentration of a group in an area relative to its concentration in the whole region.3 Figure 1: Spatial distribution of Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian immigrants in statistical regions in Warsaw (location quotients) (Source: Own elaboration, 2002 census) —————— 3 An LQ above 1 indicates a greater than average concentration of a group in a specific area, while a location quotient below 1 indicates an under-representation of a group. VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE ETHNIC OTHERS IN WARSAW 195 Residences of settled4 immigrants are more dispersed throughout Warsaw than those of short-term or temporary5 inhabitants. While only 13% of statistical regions (the smallest statistical units for which data were collected) show no settled foreign immigrants at all, more than 30% of regions remain “empty” of accommodations for foreigners living in the city only temporarily. The spatial distributions of Vietnamese, Belarusians, Russian and Ukrainians (as one group), North Americans and citizens of “old” European Union countries6 were mapped separately by statistical region using the 2002 census data (Fig. 1–3). Residential patterns of settled Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians are almost identical to Poles’. Those temporarily staying in Warsaw are also dispersed throughout the city area, but they frequently live in lower-standard apartment buildings in the inner city. Research conducted with Ukrainian leaders in Warsaw confirms the pattern emerging from the statistical data, noting that Warsaw concentrates people working in the domestic service sector (as housekeepers or child and elder caregivers), whereas Ukrainians working in the agricultural and construction industries usually rent housing in the outskirts (Biernath et al. 2010). Ukrainian professionals and artists who have settled in Warsaw are spatially spread out in various residential areas. The Vietnamese concentrate in the central districts (Wola, Ochota and ｬródmieｭcie), where some open markets for petty retailers and good locations for sidewalk food vendors are located, and also in the more prestigious areas in the southern Mokotów. The ﾈelazna Brama housing project, situated on the border of Wola and ｬródmieｭcie districts, is still one of the most popular neighborhoods among the Vietnamese. It became attractive for the community in the 1990s due to its accessible rents, centrality and good public transport to the “Bazaar Europe” (Sulima in this volume). The neighborhood features tall apartment buildings of up to 15 storeys from the 1960s and 70s made up of smallish apartments (Górny and Toruwczyk-Ruiz 2011). SzczRｭliwice in the Ochota district of south-western Warsaw is another neighborhood where the Viet- —————— 4 By settled immigrants this paper follows the 2002 census definition and it comprises foreign citizens who de facto live in Poland (foreigners equivalent to permanent residents of Poland). 5 By temporary immigrants this paper follows the 2002 census definition and it means foreign temporary residents who lived in Poland for longer than two months up to one year. 6 So called EU15, i.e. EU prior to the accession of ten candidate countries in 2004. 196 ANETA PIEKUT namese are overrepresented. The area is more mixed in terms of housing quality with some newer and more exclusive developments adjacent to older, even pre-war buildings. The neighborhood has become popular among more affluent Vietnamese in recent years as trading slowly trended away from the “Bazaar Europe” to Wólka Kossowska, a smaller town to the south-west of Warsaw (Górny and Toruwczyk-Ruiz 2011). Figure 2: Spatial distribution of Vietnamese immigrants in statistical regions in Warsaw (location quotients) (Source: Own elaboration, 2002 census) VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE ETHNIC OTHERS IN WARSAW 197 Figure 3: Spatial distribution of North American and EU15 immigrants in statistical regions in Warsaw (location quotients) (Source: Own elaboration, 2002 census) Vietnamese differ from Ukrainians in terms of the economic sectors they are engaged in and in their socio-cultural integration patterns. Ukrainians undertake more diverse employment in Warsaw and more often enter binational marriages. The Vietnamese are more occupationally homogenous, mostly working in trade and gastronomy, they appreciate a higher degree of inter-ethnic support and cooperation and more often marry their coethnics. 198 ANETA PIEKUT Both factors can be conducive for the Vietnamese spatial concentration in Warsaw (Grzyma̅a-Kaz̅owska and Piekut 2007; Grzyma̅a-Kaz̅owska et al. 2008). This tendency was explained by a Vietnamese woman thus: “I think it is because the Vietnamese do not like to assimilate and prefer to stay in their own social circles. I think this sometimes results from some practical [causes]. They very often rent flats together. Or when there are families and one says that it is nice to live in this neighborhood or estate, so later many of them gather there. But it is also based on the [group] unity.” Finally, Western Europeans and North Americans prefer to live south of the city center (Mokotów) and in the Wilanów district, which is considered the most prestigious area in Warsaw where more luxury housing and international schools for children are available (Piekut 2009). They prefer to live in single family houses or within “gated communities”, which are also very popular among affluent Polish Varsovians (GCsior-Niemiec et al. 2009). Highly skilled, temporary migrants do either not speak Polish at all or only poorly, because, as one US-American manager explains, “You might have to speak Polish to buy a newspaper in Warsaw, but to do business it is not necessary.” Hence, unlike the Vietnamese, whose spatial concentration is generated in part by the need to compensate for linguistic deficiencies through closeness to ethnic social networks, highly skilled foreigners are more likely to congregate near institutions that support the needs of their families, in particular children. Moreover, their residential choices are partially shaped by relocation companies that assist the move to Warsaw and act as advisors regarding the attractiveness of particular neighborhoods. Figure 3 shows a relative concentration of immigrants from Western Europe and North America in south and south-central parts of the city. Spaces of encounter and places of exclusion The spatial distribution of foreign residents indicates newcomers’ tendencies to socially mix with or to separate from the indigenous population. However, even people who live in proximity may self-segregate in smallerscale spaces, for instance in social organizations or at a workplace, and they might also keep their distance in everyday relations (Valentine 2008). Spaces are socially constructed in interpersonal interactions and in this sense they are not static, rather they are constantly being created and recre- VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE ETHNIC OTHERS IN WARSAW 199 ated (Kitchin 2009). Within these spaces, people develop different types of interactions, varying in regularity, intimacy and formality. Hunter (1985) uses these factors to divide spaces into three types: public, parochial7 and private. These spaces could be put on a continuum from the most formal ones based impersonally on rights, duties and norms in public spaces, to the most intimate ones based on emotional bonds in private spaces. Parochial spaces are an intermediate category enabling the exchange of goods, service and favors between acquaintances and friends. These intermediate, parochial spaces also include social organizations, hobby clubs, workplaces etc. The subsequent section analyzes how foreigners interact socially in these three types of spaces with other foreigners or/and with Poles. In so doing, I draw on various qualitative studies that were conducted in Warsaw in recent years by the Center of Migration Research of the University of Warsaw8 carried out predominantly among Vietnamese and Ukrainian immigrants. The studies allow the identification of spaces where foreign residents have contact with Polish residents and places that preclude unconstrained interactions between the two groups. Visible ethnic “others” Poland’s ethnic diversification over the past two decades and the continuous inflow of different categories of migrants to Poland has resulted in an increase in frequency of contact between Poles and foreigners. Because of a higher concentration of “new” minority ethnic groups in the capital, the opportunities to encounter people of different ethnic backgrounds are more frequent and the exchange is deeper in Warsaw than in other Polish cities. Although numerous foreigners also reside in Wroc̅aw, Cracow, Žódﾇ, Bytom and Poznaw (Piekut 2010), Warsaw is still unique because its foreign residents are more diverse and their communities more established, —————— 7 Hunter (1985) uses the term “parochial” to describe spaces where equal status relations are formed. He does not use the term pejoratively to mean narrow in scope, condescending, etc. 8 For more information on the Center of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw see: www.migracje.uw.edu.pl. 200 ANETA PIEKUT i.e. they have more ethnic institutions. Studies carried out in Cracow and Wroc̅aw demonstrate that the Ukrainian and Vietnamese populations in these cities are smaller, more hermetic and based on informal relationships and thus less open toward contacts with Poles than foreign immigrants in Warsaw (Grzyma̅a-Kaz̅owska et al. 2008). The body of research relating to encounters of Poles with foreigners in public spaces in Warsaw is underdeveloped. The most recent study on perceptions and attitudes toward non-Polish residents of the city was conducted in Warsaw in 2000 (KRpiwska and Okólski 2004). Almost all Polish residents claimed to have at least some contact with foreigners in Warsaw and two thirds indicated markets, fast food stands and/or restaurants as places of interaction. However, only a few per cent had more informal and intimate relations with foreigners fostered at work or in personal life. Asians and the citizens of the former Soviet Union were the most frequently indicated foreign groups in the study. Economic migrants first appeared in the city as street vendors and traders in the open-air markets that flourished in the 1990s. At the beginning of the transformation process, many bazaars constituted a basic source of otherwise unavailable goods in socialist Poland. Open-air bazaars emerged in the early 1990s in Warsaw too, but after a few years of freemarket economy in Poland their importance diminished, and many were closed by city authorities (Kurczewski et al. 2010). For instance, there used to be a street market (initially just rows of booths outdoors, later it was moved indoors to hangar-like quarters) in the very heart of the capital. Subsequently, as the central area became more organized, planned and deprived of the “folklore of the community” (Kurczewski et al. 2010, 256), “chaotic” street trading activities mostly by foreigners were expelled from public spaces and new urban planning was imposed. The biggest open-air market was situated inside an enormous, disused sports stadium across the river from the city center. Called the “Bazaar Europe” (Sulima in this volume), it was leased to a trading company in 1989 by the city authorities. The bazaar used to be a real melting pot of traders from around the globe. Its golden age was in the late 1990s, when approximately seven thousand economic entities were operating in the market, employing over twenty thousand people (Grzyma̅a-Kaz̅owska 2004). At that time it was the biggest open-air trading place, not just in Poland but all over Europe. VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE ETHNIC OTHERS IN WARSAW 201 According to rough estimates, more than every fifth stall belonged to a Vietnamese national (Grzyma̅a-Kaz̅owska 2004). The market used to serve not only as a workplace, but also as an ethnic community hub where business in the service of the Vietnamese population was concentrated, such as eateries, ethnic grocers, barbers, beauty salons, bookshops, newspapers and video stores. The market area hosted also a Vietnamese association and a Buddhist temple. As one Vietnamese recalls: “Most bars, sports clubs, newspapers […] are located in the proximity of the 10thAnniversary-Stadium. […] There is a translator, a doctor, a dentist, a lady gynecologist. It is all very well organized. Younger people have their own companies, which provide services specifically for the Vietnamese, e.g. administrative or legal advice.” Gradually, its popularity and importance waned and in 2007 the market was closed by the city council in order to erect a new stadium for the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship on the site. Thus, the vibrant community life anchored around the bazaar was disrupted with its closure. However, some of the facilities and ethnic services were relocated to the Banacha bazaar in SzczRｭliwice neighborhood or to Wólka Kossowska, a village outside the south-western city limits, where big warehouses owned by Chinese, Vietnamese and Turkish traders are situated (Mroczek et al. 2008). Nonetheless, the “Bazaar Europe” constituted the first place ever for many Varsovians to meet, interact or work with people from Asia, Africa or Eastern Europe. Eateries are another place where the likelihood of encounters between foreigners and Polish people is high. Immigrants from Asia, including the Vietnamese, Chinese and Turkish population are the most common owners of gastronomy services, such as restaurants and fast food bars, and “oriental food” is now popular among Varsovians. The Vietnamese pho soup has become a favorite dish and Sunday brunches in the Vietnamese restaurants alley at the “Bazaar Europe” used to be a newfound civic tradition among younger residents in Warsaw (Nowak 2010). On the one hand, contacts with foreigners working in fast food outlets and restaurants— where small talk opportunities are likely—could constitute a starting point for more informal relations. However, seller–customer relations are built upon unequal social status relations, so foreigners might be perceived as mere service providers, not as potential equal status relation partners; in this respect these places resemble public rather than parochial spaces. But since foreigners are sometimes obliged to employ Polish workers, gastron- 202 ANETA PIEKUT omy workplaces have enabled inter-ethnic mixing and therefore they also qualify as parochial spaces. Relations in private spaces are more intimate and informal. This is especially true for foreigners married to Poles. Yet there are also non-Poles working in the domestic sector who enter these “private zones”, although their relations with Polish people remain rather distant and formal. Migrant domestic workers usually come from countries of the former Soviet Union, with Ukrainian women predominant (Kindler 2012). Although they stay temporarily in Poland, they regularly circulate between Poland and their countries of origin. Consequently, their presence in Warsaw resembles a semi-permanent stay, because they spend most of their time in Poland and participate in the Polish labor market, although their households are back in the countries of origin. Some foreign domestic workers live-in with Polish families and their relations become more intimate, because they can enter employers’ social networks (Kindler and Szulecka, forthcoming). Demand for domestic help is higher in Warsaw than in other Polish cities due to women’s (traditionally responsible for household duties) higher labor participation rate in the capital, so in-home interactions, even if work-centered, are more frequent in Warsaw than in the rest of Poland (Kordasiewicz 2010). It has become a widespread practice to employ (or informally engage) Ukrainian women for domestic services, so the term “Ukrainian” has come to be a synonym for domestic helper (Kindler 2012). While the Vietnamese meet with their co-ethnics in restaurants to eat their national dishes, listen to Vietnamese music or sing together, Ukrainians do not have any ethnic restaurants in Warsaw. Some immigrants from the former USSR meet at one of the two Orthodox churches (in the Praga and Wola districts) or in the Greek Catholic church close to the Old Town in the city center. These worship places are well established in the consciousness of city residents—dating back to the times when Warsaw was part of the Russian Empire. In the last two decades, due to the increase of the immigration from the East, the parishes gained new members. There are usually meeting places at these churches where people can socialize after mass. As one of the Orthodox parish rectors evokes: “The Orthodox church plays an integrating role for the community. […] We have a room in the basement, a kind of a common room, a coffee place, where after the second mass you can have a coffee, a tea, eat a cake, sit and chat with others.” VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE ETHNIC OTHERS IN WARSAW 203 Apart from their socializing function, the churches represent a place where information on the labor market and community life is exchanged. People post announcements and advertisements regarding such issues as looking for or offering jobs, services etc. However, because the group of foreigners from the former USSR is more fluid and most of them stay only temporarily in Warsaw, the community is not as self-organized and cohesive as the Vietnamese. Thus, church-based activities have only limited scope: “Many Ukrainians stay in Warsaw temporarily and this is typical of Warsaw […] so these people are not so interested in activities addressed to Ukrainians. […] They come to the mass only. Of course there is a core that is more interested, who actively engage in all the activities […] but the group is much smaller.” (Ukrainian association member) Polish residents are clearly aware of the presence of Vietnamese, Ukrainians and other economic migrants in Warsaw’s urban spaces. Their visibility could be partially credited to their physical differences as well as the distinctiveness of their languages or accents. However, immigrants from the former Soviet Union are more broadly spread out in the local labor market than Asians and, due to their cultural proximity, more easily socially with Poles. Contrary to the professional migrants who temporarily work as specialists in Warsaw, the “typical” economic migrants are noticed by Polish residents, since they are present in public spaces, including markets, shopping centers, bars and restaurants, or in their homes, where their cultural dissimilarity can be expressed (e.g. in restaurants with typical Vietnamese decor, or through informal discussions with domestic workers on immigrant culture). Invisible ethnic “others” The 1989 uprisings in Central and Eastern Europe triggered political, economic and societal transformations. These transformations led to foreign direct investment and the expansion of transnational corporations into to the former Socialist Bloc. Particularly in the 1990s, various managers and experts in Warsaw constituted the “visible heads” of the “invisible hand of the market” that structured the transformation of the Polish economy (Rudolph and Hillmann 1998). At that time, Poland was lacking specialists with the appropriate skills and knowledge required by international com- 204 ANETA PIEKUT panies, so the inflow of capital was naturally accompanied with an inflow of brainpower. Contrary to predictions made at the beginning of the systemic transformation (ibid.; Iglicka 2000), inflows of specialists from developed countries have not diminished. Because of its concentration of diplomatic posts, international organizations’ branch offices and foreign capital, Warsaw’s stock of foreign executives and professionals is much higher than in other Polish cities.9 However, the majority only stays temporarily in Poland. Another visible sign of change was the emergence of a commercial district and several office parks in and west of the traditional downtown. The new business district has developed due to both the construction of new and the restoration of old office space in large post-industrial sites that were privatized in the 1990s and 2000s (ｬleszywski 2004; Kowalski and ｬleszywski 2006). The new city center has become the main node of professional occupations with many multinational companies and a concentration of various public and international institutions located in the newlybuilt skyscrapers. The most natural space of encounters between highly skilled foreign workers and entrepreneurs on the one hand and Polish nationals on the other is the work environment. Workplace interactions are characterized by specific power relations and cultural differences stemming from differential work ethics. Regarding the first issue, foreigners and Polish people do not perform roles of equal status in workplaces, since foreign specialists have supervisory positions, such as directors, senior managers, diplomats or senior officials. This divergence of work statuses can encumber rather than foster the improvement of mutual relations. As to the second issue, research conducted in Poland shows highly skilled employees of big corporations perceive their Polish colleagues’ work ethic as different and some practices as unprofessional (Piekut 2009). For example, some pointed out that Polish employees, especially those with a long-standing occupational experience in the former socialist political system, were too dependent on supervisors’ directives: —————— 9 There are no data available on the number of highly skilled foreign workers in Warsaw. European Union citizens are exempted from work permit requirements (and hence absent from the work permit database), and the Office for Foreigners database does not contain any information on the level of education or qualifications of foreign applicants for a residency permit. VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE ETHNIC OTHERS IN WARSAW 205 “The only point that they should improve is learn to be more open and […] not be afraid of proposing things. […] I told them: I’m not a mailbox, you have to talk with your colleagues and try to solve the issue between yourselves, […] don’t come to me and say ‘we have a problem’, come to me and say ‘we have the problem and this is how we propose to solve it.’ […] I had to spend more time than in other countries to teach them how to manage themselves and how to manage people.” (French managing director) The differences were usually attributed to the socialist era’s poor workplace habits, but foreign supervisors feel that the evolution of the work ethos toward a “proper”, professional and “more effective” culture has not yet come to an end. It seems that with the transition from the socialist to the capitalist economy, efficiency has been redefined and new work standards have been introduced by the professionals from “the West”. An USAmerican sales manager explains his perspective: “I had formal sales training in the US, whereas I run into a lot of people here who just do sales informally, never had any formal training. […] You […] have a much shorter history of how to do capitalism. And I don’t say that American capitalism is the best, because there are problems with American capitalism, but generally, there are proper ways to do things.” It could be argued that the differences in status and workplace norms contribute to a wider social distance between foreign workers and their Polish colleagues. Highly skilled foreign managers notice the deficiencies of some Polish workers’ work styles while they also perceive a generational difference—younger Poles are “very hungry for new knowledge and new ways of doing things” (same US-American manager). Highly skilled migrants’ position in the Polish labor market is quite privileged. Because of their higher income they have access to exclusive resources and services, as well as to additional fringe benefits concerning the removal, housing and children’s education. These “elite migrants” usually move to Poland with their entire family. Younger children attend private kindergartens with preschool teachers who are either fluent in the immigrants’ national language or native speakers. Older children are sent to international schools that follow the educational curriculum of a given country. A move to Poland is usually a joint family decision. Apart from the career opportunity for one of spouses, the availability of international services, associations and hobby clubs, and particularly international schools and preschools are decisive factors in choosing Warsaw as a temporary place of residence. 206 ANETA PIEKUT The family life of highly skilled migrants centers around international schools and the hobby or sport activities these schools provide. The most popular in Warsaw are the British, French, American and German schools—generally located in south west Warsaw except the French secondary school, which is situated in east-central Warsaw, and the prestigious American school just outside the city limits but still very accessible from Wilanów. International schools are mostly attended by non-Polish students. Thus, the school environment does not offer many opportunities to meet Polish peers, and relations in this parochial space are rather developed with co-ethnics or other foreigners temporarily staying in Poland (Piekut 2009). Meanwhile, “ordinary” economic migrants either do not bring their families and live transitional lives—with a job in Poland and a family back in their country of origin—or they live with their families in Poland and send their children to public schools in Warsaw. The first migratory behavior is more common for citizens of former Soviet republics who regularly circulate and divide their lives between two countries (Biernath et al. 2010). For the second group, there are several studies reporting on the performance of Vietnamese pupils attending Polish schools. On the one hand, they are successful students and school teachers do not report any tensions with Polish classmates. On the other hand, the Vietnamese culture is not recognized at school and their cultural differences are not acknowledged by teachers, whose perception of Vietnamese students is based on stereotypes (Halik et al. 2006). Nonetheless, children of settled foreign residents do not separate their offspring from Polish children, so more social interactions and inter-cultural exchange are possible—for both children and parents. Opportunities and spaces for social interaction with Varsovians of nonworking spouses of highly skilled migrants are different from their working partners’. The dissimilarity is marked by a gender division throughout the expat community: males are usually the primary or “leading” migrants, while women accompany them as “secondary” migrants (Yeoh and Willis 2005). Whereas men tend to be engaged in gainful employment, women perform non-formal volunteer activities and housework. Facing difficulties or deliberately choosing not to enter the local labor market, women’s social lives revolve around the “management” of family life and children’s education in a new cultural setting. Therefore, international schools are the predominant place where expatriate women make new friends. There are VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE ETHNIC OTHERS IN WARSAW 207 also social organizations established by expatriate females in Warsaw that organize joint activities for mothers and children in smaller groups, depending on the children’s age, such as Varsovie Accueil, Mums and Tots and American Friends of Warsaw. The associations are not usually located in any particular place and women meet in private homes. In this respect the space is mobile and at the same time “hidden” from Polish people: “There is an association called Mums and Tots. It’s for English speaking [people] […] it’s free and it’s an online group. And they meet at everybody’s houses […] each week it’s at a different person’s house. And it’s just a playgroup. Mothers get together, have a coffee and the children play. […] For each group you have a coordinator who organizes whose house it’s going to be at and they are responsible for communicating it by email to the whole association.” (French woman) Given the frequent mobility of highly skilled migrants, their home-life needs to be constantly sustained despite displacement of the household. Non-working spouses are to a great extent responsible for remaking the familial space in a new country. Domestic space is recreated by shopping practices and domestic continuity can be partially reproduced through “nationalized consumption” (Hindman 2008). Thus, shopping places stocked with appropriate foodstuffs—especially the Sadyba shopping mall located in south Mokotów, near the international schools—are highly frequented by expatriate women. Smaller shops are recommended by word of mouth, and their popularity depends on food quality and the English language competencies of sales staff. A British woman enumerates all the places she shops—stores and malls that are spread throughout the city: “I spent most of my time going to school […] and Sadyba shopping quite a lot, […] I will also go to places like… Galeria Mokotów, […] and then sometimes I go to some places like Makro or other shopping places, […] sometimes I go up to Z̅oty Tarasy [the most central shopping mall].” Shopping malls and department stores represent spaces for meeting Polish people, but interactions with Poles are limited to service transactions, as one German woman explains: “In Sadyba Mall […] I am not […] getting in touch with [Poles], apart from ordering coffee or whatever.” More indepth contacts with Polish people could be established through volunteer work which expatriate women very often engage in, e.g. as members of the boards of charity foundations helping orphanages or children’s hospitals. Relations of highly skilled migrants with indigenous populations can be described as “regulated exposure” (Nowicka and Kaweh 2009). The capital 208 ANETA PIEKUT of Poland has been westernized in recent years in terms of architecture, lifestyle and available services, and yet temporary “elite” migrants engage in encounters with Poles only in selected spaces. This attitude is displayed in patterns of everyday encounters in smaller-scale locales, such as local services, consumption and leisure places. Although foreigners have opportunities to establish contact with Polish people there, the people they meet should properly be called “service acquaintances”. The interactions are regular but limited to the services provided. Expats in Warsaw neither selfisolate in “expatriate enclaves” (Leonard 2010) nor avoid the “gaze of the other” (Fechter 2007), as do expats in more culturally divergent societies, and if they live in “gated communities” they often live next door to Polish residents. However, more intimate relations with Polish people are less likely to be developed by them than by economic migrants, who more often frequent various public, parochial and private spaces. Although Western expats come from a variety of countries, they represent a distinctive social group of their own. They differ from other, “new” ethnic groups in post-socialist Warsaw because they represent a subpopulation that is socially excluded, but voluntarily so. They mix with social circles of the international schools and social organizations that embrace their co-nationals and elite business people. The expats only occasionally encounter Polish inhabitants and their integration could be called superficial (SzwCder 2002). Consequently, they differ from “typical” economic migrants by representing the invisible “others” among Warsaw’s residents. Conclusions “Visible” economic migrants originating from the former Soviet Union and Asia are frequently encountered by Polish residents in various spaces. Yet interactions in public spaces are far too insubstantial to become friends or improve inter-group relations and mutual understanding. However, since interactions with Polish people are also possible in smaller-scale spaces, such as public schools or work in the gastronomy sector, more personal or even intimate interactions might develop. In contrast, the perception of expatriate communities is more abstract, since encounters in public or parochial spaces are very limited, if they occur at all. Still, I would argue that both “visible” and “invisible” ethnic “others” have their share in VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE ETHNIC OTHERS IN WARSAW 209 structuring urban space in post-socialist Warsaw. The Vietnamese, representing the biggest immigrant community in Warsaw, have transformed the urban space by rendering it conspicuously multicultural. Their presence is visibly and materially manifested in the central part of the city where their eateries and petty retailing are concentrated. Inside monumental, grey socialist-era buildings, colorful and “exotic” spots have emerged. The old semiotic urban space has not only been “westernized” through modern sky-scrapers erected by multinational companies; Warsaw has gained color with some ethnic locales, which constitute new “contact zones” where intercultural exchange takes place. Although the Vietnamese were present in Warsaw already before 1989, it was only after the transformation process set in that they could mark their presence in the urban structure. Little research has yet been done on highly skilled migrant and expatriate communities in Warsaw. However, studies undertaken in other metropolises demonstrate that “global elites” mentally carve up a city into functional spaces, i.e. business, residential or leisure areas (Leonard 2010). Highly skilled migrants living in Warsaw follow the same kind of mental segmentation of the city, with the city center as a business area, lower Mokotów as an educational area with its concentration of international schools, and Wilanów as a residential zone of luxury family houses. This general pattern varies by nationality, some French people live in the Praga district and some US citizens would prefer the southern outskirts where the American school is located. Although highly skilled migrants are “invisible” in the social fabric of the city, their presence nonetheless affects the city urban structure. Their residential preferences and choices influence the local housing market and construction. In the proximity of international schools more luxurious apartments and houses are being built, which can only be afforded by more affluent residents, including expatriate temporary ones. However, since the number of the highly skilled migrants in Warsaw is rather low in comparison with other Western European metropolises, leisure places specifically targeted at these “elite migrants” are missing in the city. Thus, cosmopolitan workers either meet in local bars or restaurants or in private homes. The socio-spatial cityscape of Warsaw has been transformed and is perceived differently by foreign residents depending on their migration status and visibility. 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Geoforum 36, 211–22. Kiosks with Vodka and Democracy: Civic Cafés between New Urban Movements and Old Social Divisions Joanna Kusiak and Wojciech Kacperski Although April 10, 2010 was for many reasons an exceptional day in the life of Warsaw, and although thousands of pictures exist which document the city several hours after the presidential TU-154 plane crashed in a forest near Smolensk, little has been written about the soundscape of Warsaw’s center on that evening—a soundscape that was certainly one of the strangest in the city’s post-war history. Odd and rare is the experience to stand in a crowd which is as thick and squeezed as it can only be during political coups or rock concerts, and yet almost entirely silent (Fig. 1). Figure 1: The silent crowd on Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street on the day of the plane crash in Smolewsk (Photo: Justyna Piech-Dubis) 214 JOANNA KUSIAK AND WOJCIECH KACPERSKI This crowd did not create a natural human buzz but a murmur ever so slight and yet as eerie as the scent of candles lingering on Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street where people gathered. The catastrophe which caused the death of the president and 96 all-important members of the country’s political life shook Varsovians out of their private weekend agendas. A certain public instinct literally pushed thousands of people onto the streets, leaving them strangely dumbfounded, plainly speechless. And like in a summer storm when you walk out of a dry room into a wall of rain, on that evening you could leave the hushed murmur of the street crowd to enter the lively uproar of tightly packed Warsaw cafés on Nowy ｬwiat, Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie and on the side streets. From silence you would step into a racket in which you could pick out fragments of hypotheses and political scenarios made on the spot, all concerned with the one question that thickened the air over the silent street crowd: what is going to happen next? Apart from its human, tragic dimension, the moment of the catastrophe was strictly political—not in the sense of politicizing grief (which started right on the following day) but as a universal feeling that something important was happening, reaching beyond the sphere of the private. A deep change was taking place in the political sphere, and almost everyone could sense the transition, including those who are usually uninterested in politics on a daily basis, even if they were unable to properly define it. The radical bipolarity of the Warsaw soundscape, where the human-produced silence was separated from the noise only by the glass doors of cafés, revealed the real bipolarity of the Warsaw political sphere. That moment demanded an immediate public reaction and naturally divided Varsovians into two groups. And it was no coincidence that, unlike the silent majority, it was the talkative Warsaw chattering class that sought refuge in cafés. This paper aims at investigating the socio-political history of Warsaw’s cafés focusing on their democratizing role as well as on the social distinction produced in connection with café culture. This should cast light on the phenomenon of the so-called “civic cafés” that emerged in the second decade of post-socialist transformation as the birthplace of a new type of urban activism. KIOSKS WITH WODKA AND DEMOCRACY 215 Urbanites from Squire’s It’s not the hustle and bustle of café discussions but its contrast with the silent yet present crowd that makes the search for specific Varsovian features of this event possible. Numerous theoreticians of public space, especially Richard Sennett (1977) and Jürgen Habermas (1989), described in detail how since the 17th century cafés have contributed to the awakening of political awareness of the larger masses. Since modernity, cafés have functioned as platforms for meetings and political discussions, offering access to the press and the company of others to debate the news. At the same time the neutrality of the café space allowed a temporary suspension of social divisions. As described by Sennett, it was in fact impolite to inquire about someone’s social status, since it could disturb the free flow of the conversation. Upon entering a café, a gentleman had to take into account that he could be approached by a person of inferior status. By abolishing social divisions, cafés became a “hotbed of political unrest”, inspiring e.g. the British government to issue directives against “the dangers bred by the coffee house discussions” (Habermas 1989, 59), the major threat being that “[m]en have assumed to themselves the liberty, not only in coffee houses, but in other places […] to censure and defame the proceedings of the State” (ibid.). Even though Sennett is aware of the fact that the idea of café conversations has been romanticized (Sennett 1977, 81), he has no doubt about their significance in transforming the character of public space. Argumentation, eristic and oratory skills rather than social status or class membership characterize the position of cafés’ customers. Strangers—travelers and guests no one knew anything about—were the most attractive and desired regulars, enlivening the discussions with stories from wherever they were coming from. In Boles̅aw Prus’s “The Doll”, a classic social novel about 19th century Warsaw in the style of Balzac, the protagonist Stanis̅aw Wokulski, a cosmopolitan self-made man, writes on his trip to the capital of France: “In Paris it seems as if all the inhabitants felt the constant need to communicate […] in cafés” (Prus 1996, 352). Wokulski spends a lot of time in Paris talking to scientists and intellectuals in cafés, and is, at the same time, plagued by his unrequited love for a gentlewoman from Warsaw, Izabela ŽRcka. Wokulski’s intellect and worldly wisdom impress her much less than his red hands which reveal his low class status. Prus superbly shows how the impoverished gentry in Warsaw under Russian rule tried to save its ever-diminishing material position 216 JOANNA KUSIAK AND WOJCIECH KACPERSKI by emphasizing class distinction. Wokulski as one particular social type—a committed, educated man who fulfils his patriotic duty through a passion for modernization—gets the better of the declining gentry in the end. Yet a set of specific aspirations built on the historical opposition between the court and the peasantry, which had been the fundament of Polish society, is incorporated into the new intellectual ethos. It is not without symbolic irony that as soon as Warsaw gained a modernizing impetus after the collapse of Poland’s partitioning, the most well-known and most cosmopolitan café in the rapidly developing metropolis was named Ziemiawska (Squire’s). After Poland regained independence in the year 1918, both lifestyles and urban planning gained a metropolitan character. Apart from the prewar cafés and cake shops (Herbaczywski 2005, 36), Warsaw saw the emergence of numerous American-style snack bars (GRba̅a 2011), where the lower-income urbanites could have lunch or dinner. Cafés such as Ziemiawska or Pod Pikadorem (The Picador’s), where people spent their time not so much consuming as discussing, developed into spaces for meetings of the intelligentsia and the artistic bohemia. Only in a free and increasingly cosmopolitan Warsaw could the big-city buoyancy and openness of public social life develop. Here, as in the English coffee houses described by Sennett, “speech was a sign” and an indicator of status. Despite the fact that in cafés in Warsaw and elsewhere in Europe people recited blasphemous futuristic poems, the regulars who declared a break with the national Romanticism, “were quintessential cosmopolitans, polyglots who felt at home in Moscow, Paris, and Berlin—yet who at once felt inextricably bound to Poland, who believed in their role as ‘the conscience of the nation’, who very much felt that Warsaw belonged to them. […] They sat in their café called Ziemiawska and believed, with absolute sincerity, that the world turned on what they said there.” (Shore 2006, 4) Paradoxically, the left-positivist ideals of the Warsaw intelligentsia contributed to creating a brand new form of distinction that replaced previous class divisions. On the one hand it was based on high cultural capital, and on the other hand on the involvement in modernizing activities and a sense of community mission. Both attitudes had an undertone of deliberate bigcity-blasé flair. Thanks to these interwar cafés, Polish culture developed a truly urban character for the first time in history. Warsaw’s intelligentsia of the interwar period glorified the lightness, the pace and the exciting roughness of city life, while jeering at gentry-patriotic sentiments of the con- KIOSKS WITH WODKA AND DEMOCRACY 217 servatives. But the glorification of the city was at the same time linked to a more or less concealed contempt for the bourgeoisie (“horrible dwellers” as Tuwim called them, even though he ranked among the most outstanding “city poets” himself). In the Polish language the word mieszczanin (urbanite) is implicitly equated with the French word bourgeois, denoting a materialistically disposed member of the middle class. Since it felt like it had taken ages for that class to work its way up in Poland, a slightly bigger tension over its assets could be noticed. The sense of superiority exhibited by the café intelligentsia was not only based on differences in education but also on differences in the city habitus. The despised middle-class bourgeoisie lacked lightness and selfmockery, and was too literal in their aims and aspirations. Hence, while textbook narratives present the interbellum as a period of bohemian artists, for people outside the small group of the urban intelligentsia the experience of the city was entirely different. According to urban anthropologist Kacper Pob̅ocki (2010), urban experience was relentlessly controlled by the written and unwritten rules of public behavior for the middle and lower classes. Breaking with conventions, which could achieve the status of artistic provocation in cafés, was treated as “crude” on the street. Unlike the lightness of the cafés, the mass experience of urbanity was characterized by what the historian B̅aﾉej Brzostek called the “solemnity” of public behavior. Brzostek quotes the diary of a Croatian Polish language teacher who, during the 1930s, spent several years in Warsaw: “Here, you don’t sing or whistle on the street, people don’t talk on the tram, […] no one laughs, no one shouts in this city, […] no one is pleased or rejoices, no one smiles; even the hookers walk down the streets as grave as matrons.” (Brzostek 2007, 122) In the “solemn” public space, playful urbanity was performed only in semipublic enclaves. While there were cafés for the upper class, lower classes could relax the rules of public savoir vivre on the markets during the day, and in so-called dive bars, often located at the far end of the city, in the evenings. There, unlike in the cosmopolitan cafés, the aura was very local. Vivid literary and reportorial descriptions by authors such as Wiech (1996) show how on the bazaars—and in the outskirts of the city or suburban areas—a kind of a vernacular metropolitanism could be noticed, played out by native Varsovians lacking gentry or intelligentsia background (this included Jewish traders, although assimilated Jews were also a very important part of intellectual milieus). People spoke loud and in a direct way in their 218 JOANNA KUSIAK AND WOJCIECH KACPERSKI vernacular tongue, and were not averse to crude jokes or even violent conduct. Between the sophisticated “mist of absurdity” of the city dwellers from the café Ziemiawska and the loud roughness of the lower class urbanites, a space opened up for the new urban middle class: tense, solemn “horrible dwellers,” working their way up, watching over morals and good manners. The third places of socialist Warsaw Markets, dive bars and the exquisite cafés of pre-war Warsaw differed in terms of cultural character and exclusivity. Yet in opposition to the relatively controlled street life, they all constituted the city’s “third places”, according to Ray Oldenburg’s definition. Oldenburg describes third places as public sites where people spend time for their own pleasure and for social advantages like meeting friends, acquaintances and strangers in contrast to “first” (home) and “second” (work) places. We like to chat with people in cafés, bars and even in local bakeries or at the greengrocers’. Because of the casual nature of the acquaintance we would not invite these people home, but nonetheless these chats offer pleasure and sometimes even important information. In his definition of third places, Oldenburg implicitly grants cafés a special status as the most typical, virtually textbook examples where the essential features of third places are highlighted. These qualities include the cafés’ neutral, open character, the presence of regulars and sometimes even so-called public figures—both a café poet and a street vendor might represent a “public figure”; what counts is local community recognition (Oldenburg 1991). One crucial function of third places Oldenburg mentions is the leveling of social differences. He explicitly refers to the term “leveler”, which originated in 17th-century England. Later it was used to describe all actions granting people the same status regardless of birth or position in a social hierarchy. The 19th-century and interwar cafés in Warsaw in fact functioned as “levelers”, albeit to a much lesser extent. Yet it was World War II that proved to be the most violent “leveler”. The cafés were destroyed along with 75% of the material fabric of the city. The intelligentsia circles were largely disintegrated. Given the enormous work involved in reconstructing the ruined capital, Warsaw witnessed a mass influx of so-called peasant-workers, i.e. unskilled laborers from the KIOSKS WITH WODKA AND DEMOCRACY 219 countryside who brought peasant lifestyles and politeness norms to the city. The mixing of this new social group with the pre-war urban middle class (shrunk by one half) caused frictions—especially since the historical context of their mixing in the ruined city was much more extreme than in the English pubs and coffee houses described by Sennett and Habermas. Acts of vandalism and hooliganism condemned by the Stalinist press were, according to Pob̅ocki (2010, 153), in fact the side effect of emerging urbanity, the forced integration of social groups and the accelerated urbanization of former peasants’ lifestyles. Moreover, serious housing issues and the lack of accommodation—concerning both apartments and public spaces—led to a situation in which virtually any city space (streets, parks, interiors of devastated tenements, etc.) could, out of necessity, become a potential third place where private and public meetings took place. As Brzostek writes, not only apartments—which due to council-flat regulations could be allocated to several unrelated families—but also streetspace had to be literally fought for. Despite the difficult financial situation, the first cafés began to emerge surprisingly fast, “spontaneously, improvising, according to an anti-scientific theory of spontaneous generation, in one-storey, temporarily renovated rooms, in bombed houses, with ruins of destroyed tenements often serving as a natural decor and background; these cafés were dusty, hectic, cramped, crowded, where you dreamt of a helicopter every time you saw an empty table.” (Tyrmand 2011, 88) The first cafés were created on a “grassroots” level rather than being pushed by the new government. Socialist ideology was ambiguous toward cafés, to put it mildly. They were condemned for being bourgeois spaces of “excess” and imported coffee was considered a luxury. Designers of the new city put stronger emphasis on cafeterias and milk bars catering to “the working masses”. Cafés were built mostly for representative reasons like, for instance the World Festival of Youth in 1955, or when new, elegant districts such as MDM1 emerged. Sitting in cafés was considered a waste of time, and members of socialist organizations could be reprimanded for going there (Brzostek 2007, 436). Both pre-war traditions and government propaganda reinforced the common image of the café as a meeting place for artists and the intelligentsia. The latter were often scornfully called —————— 1 Marsza̅kowska Dzielnica Mieszkaniowa. 220 JOANNA KUSIAK AND WOJCIECH KACPERSKI “café intellectuals” who “form their opinions during group meetings and view the world through the window of the café” (ibid., 434). Ironically, the socialist government’s dislike of the institution of cafés only fueled their exclusiveness. In the summer of 1962 an editor from Polityka weekly magazine published a friend’s opinion on Paris being a far more egalitarian city compared to Warsaw: “Cafés are just one example. Obviously, you find elegant cafés in Paris too, but most of them cater to all social strata. Show me one café in Warsaw where workers hang out. They simply don’t exist. Our cafés are salons frequented by the intelligentsia. You have to be well-dressed and groomed to go there. […] Despite appearances, divisions between different groups of people based on their wealth are far greater in Warsaw than they are in capitalist Paris.” (in Brzostek 2007, 413) Official trade unions and associations linked to professions of the intelligentsia and to publishing houses (PIW, Czytelnik) ran their own cafés, making segregation based on profession and class seem natural. The intelligentsia not only had its own cafés but even tables exclusively “reserved” for them. Key discussions on politics and art took place there, often turning into the fundament of the oppositions’ critique. Almost all biographies of noteworthy Warsaw intellectuals (both loyal to the government and oppositional) from the period of the Polish People’s Republic include café anecdotes. At a time when only few people had telephones, frequent travels by intellectuals and artists between cities allowed the exchange of information—especially of the kind that could not appear in the controlled media—and coffee house tables functioned as important and fixed nodes of communication. At the same time cafés were a stage where critique was not only manufactured but also ostentatiously performed. Completely disillusioned, Leopold Tyrmand, a well-known café regular, described how a critique of the system would be used to legitimize one’s group status: “I dropped in at ‘Lajkonik’, a fashionable café. The wildlife reserve of graphic artists, designers, architects who are doing well […] are well-fed and well-dressed, satisfied with life and with a salary of between ten and twenty thousand zlotys paid for their talent and servility so skillfully linked, coupled and exploited that the complexity of this alliance is a work of art in itself. What is funny is that deep in their hearts every single one of them is bitter and hurt; everyone thinks that he is fighting socialist realism […] and indeed he might be fighting against something in the tiny flames of everyday decisions which he takes for the fire of battle.” (Tyrmand 1989, 34) KIOSKS WITH WODKA AND DEMOCRACY 221 The appropriation of selected cafés by a relatively small yet powerful circle made it possible for them to create a unique enclave in public space within a system which was suspicious of the intelligentsia from the start. While a number of places remained open to the middle and working classes, they tended to display a slightly different, more bar-like character making sitting around for hours impossible (the so-called working masses usually did not have time for that anyway). Non-elite cafés tried to meet the needs of youths and students instead. The model of life according to which one should start a family as soon as possible, was unfavorable to the café lifestyle and strongly linked with housing policies. Finding a separate space was well-nigh impossible for a single individual; marriage was the condition under which you could move to your own place. Once people started a family and got an apartment, social life almost automatically shifted to private homes. As the housing situation improved, escapes to the private sphere increased—a phenomenon linked to the costs of living as well as to the state’s extensive control over the public sphere. Whereas the elites had their tables in cafés, “ordinary” Varsovians met at home in their “table rooms” (in Polish a living room is a “table room” (sto̅owy); this is related to the tradition of meeting with friends at the table at home rather than in a restaurant, see Crowley 2003). Because of their bad reputation, cafés “for the people” were mostly closed down. Tellingly, one of these cafés, the Niespodzianka (Surprise), later became the polling station of the city’s Solidarity (Solidarnoｭ6) committee. It was there where Warsaw’s oppositional forces—both from a café and working-class background—celebrated their victory in 1989. Ch̅odna 25: latte-izing into a cultural revolution The year 1989, another break in the historical continuity of the city’s development, re-established rather than abolished social hierarchies. Even though old elites still held on to their “tables”, the radical economic and social opening-up made them less important (a “table” at Czytelnik, which has survived until this day, rather resembles a museum-like transmitter of urban legends than a source of any real influence). The liberal enthusiasm of the first decade of the transformation was based on the belief that an opening-up toward the West would propel the classic “American dream”, 222 JOANNA KUSIAK AND WOJCIECH KACPERSKI and that the economic success of resourceful individuals would cover up the differences in education or class background. The excitement with the West was quickly translated into gastronomical trends in the capital city. The first McDonald’s in Warsaw counted 45,000 exuberant guests on its opening day in June 1992, breaking a world record in the number of transactions. Yet if the 1990s were the decade of fast-food restaurants, the 2000s were a period of chain cafés establishing themselves, starting with the chain Coffee Heaven inspired by the US-American company Starbucks. Latte coffee, previously virtually unknown among Warsaw’s middle class, became the symbol of big-city success. Success was crucial here, because the prices in chain cafés were much higher than the prices of a regular coffee in ordinary cafés. For the new capitalist elites and aspiring students from well-to-do homes, chains turned into enclaves where the café’s “rootless cosmopolitanism” (Wurgaft 2003, 75) paradoxically conveyed a sense of securing one’s place in the world of Western capitalism. A paper cup with frothy latte and a uniform café decor symbolized the inclusion in the new times and geographies. The first years of the transformation were governed by a belief that Warsaw could “catch up” with the Western metropolises and become one of them. Thus chain cafés allowed—literally and metaphorically—“catching up with” the West on an individual level, rushing to your office in a brand new skyscraper with a paper cup of coffee in your hand. Likewise, Elisabeth Dunn (2004) describes a scene observed in an “American-style” restaurant in Warsaw in 1993. Although it was Saturday night, a group of businessmen took out their cellular phones and placed them in a circle at the center of the table, intrinsically motivated by “their desire for membership in the imagined community of the transitional market economy” (ibid., 72). According to Janine P. Holc (1997), in the early 1990s the very word “businessman” evoked the same symbolical power which the word “citizen” used to have in socialist times. Yet the radical opening-up in 1989 not only triggered economic motion but all kinds of cultural activities. The relaxation of government control, the sudden access to music cassettes (mostly pirated), films, printing and stationery products as well as the burst of social energy caused by the radical system change, all translated into increased cultural activity, including the flourishing of alternative culture in search of third places. Among the most influential venues that opened between 2003 and 2005, two are especially worth mentioning: the leftist-queer, subversive club Le Madame, and the “better-behaved” bookstore-cum-café Czu̅y Barbarzywca, oriented to- KIOSKS WITH WODKA AND DEMOCRACY 223 wards academic-intelligentsia. Even though the places differed widely in their profile and customers, the one thing they had in common was that consumption was intrinsically linked to cultural participation. The program of meetings, discussions and art performances was in fact more important than the various kinds of coffee brews or beer—nonetheless the new cafés obviously adopted the latte and cappuccino culture. Partly inspired by these new places, the café-club Ch̅odna 25 opened in the Wola district (nearby but not within the city center) in 2005. Unlike Czu̅y Barbarzywca and Le Madame, this café—its address being its name—was low on pretense. From the beginning Ch̅odna 25 lacked a specific “profile” (leftist, alternative, intelligentsia- or reader-oriented). What set it apart from the rest was the motivation of its founders: the café opened because its owners clearly identified (in colloquial, not sociological terms) the lack of third places in the space of Warsaw—especially “levelers” with no particular profile and openness toward various social groups and people with different opinions. The structuring principle of this twolevel café (ground floor and basement) is unusually simple: while coffee and liquor are served on the ground floor, the basement is available for free to anyone who wants to organize a public meeting or event. In its first year, Ch̅odna 25 hosted numerous events including independent music concerts, “catechism on theater” led by a Catholic priest, photographic presentations by geography students, Oxford debates with rightist, leftist and liberal politicians, events organized by the Jewish community, as well as discussions with the residents of Ch̅odna street about the street’s revitalization plans. According to the founder, Grzegorz Lewandowski, “[…] this is a model of open space where different things are quite welcome but it is always the people who matter most, because all these initiatives […] are not so important, it’s the people who are really important […] and all the fun is in creating a space for them.” (Lewandowski 2010) Ch̅odna 25 was the first café to create a model of open yet committed neutrality in a public space that had nothing to do with the corporate neutrality of chain cafés. A sign with a quote by Tadeusz Kantor, an avantgarde Polish artist, graced the counter: “All artistic revolutions have started in cafés” (Fig. 2). The clearest value provided by Ch̅odna 25 has been the involvement in social and cultural life, regardless of art trends or political status. In its profile the café-club strongly emphasized not only culture, but also social activism: 224 JOANNA KUSIAK AND WOJCIECH KACPERSKI “We put a lot of care into making this place not just a nice café but we want to encourage people to think. […] Let people share opinions, make comments on reality, and they won’t be indifferent. Coming here talking to others is better than spending another evening in front of the TV.” (Sawczuk 2005, 59) Figure 2: The counter at the café Ch̅odna 25. Above the bar a quote from the Polish artist Tadeusz Kantor: “All artistic revolutions have started in cafés” (Photo: Wojciech Kacperski) Within a few months Ch̅odna 25 had become one of the most well-known cafés in Warsaw; a year after its opening it received “Wdecha,” a prestigious award by the Warsaw edition of Gazeta Wyborcza, the biggest Polish daily newspaper. The rapid and remarkable success of this café’s model cannot only be explained with regard to cultural categories, it must be seen from the wider perspective of the city’s urban specificity. An open, public and welcoming space had turned out to be the missing link in the transforming metropolis Warsaw with its huge social capital. Other big Polish cities such as Cracow or Wroc̅aw traditionally located cultural activities in large spaces of unrenovated and therefore inexpensive pre-war tenements. The rebuilt capital did not have such spaces at its disposal; furthermore, KIOSKS WITH WODKA AND DEMOCRACY 225 since after World War II Warsaw never had a clearly defined center (like a market square or main street). The metropolis with its huge cultural and social capital that even increased by the post-1989 mass influx of the most driven and, on average, best-educated individuals in the country, was incapable of providing a space where creative social energy could flow. By offering the most open model of a roofed public space, Ch̅odna 25 proved to be an exceptionally successful catalyst, enabling and accelerating reactions between the potentially most active individuals, groups and circles. The place defined itself as a “communal day room” (ｭwietlica), but this term—referring to the socialist tradition—gained a new metropolitan dimension. The urban character of Ch̅odna 25 linked with an ethos of social engagement led to even more events focusing on the topic of civic engagement and, specifically, on an engagement to the city’s development. “Reanimator”, a series of debates on public space and independent culture in the city was one such event and even city officials were among the invited guests. The debates problematized issues such as subsidies, space availability, city competition procedures and the state of public space. A manifesto of sorts announced: “We care about making officials responsible for the shape of the city, and about making culture animators and journalists aware that Warsaw and its culture are our common good, and joint work on its future is of vital interest to all of us. Let us not take opposite sides. Let us meet and talk about Warsaw.” (ReAnimator 2008) The “ReAnimator”-series had real political consequences: as a result of the meetings and discussions with officials, the hitherto virtually dead City Hall’s Social Dialogue Commission for Culture was revived. Independent culture activists as well as Grzegorz Lewandowski, the owner of Ch̅odna 25, were appointed as members. In the meantime, Lewandowski gained the informal status of “the man for Warsaw culture” whose activities reached far beyond merely running a café. Moreover, “ReAnimator” was one of the typical events sparking debates on the city between 2008 and 2010, labeled “urban awakening” or the “renaissance of urbanity” (Buczek et al., 2009). Unique for Warsaw was that these debates and discussions did not take place in NGO offices, political and social think tanks (although they were often supported by them), and not in academic centers but in public cafés. The success of Ch̅odna 25 quickly found its followers, and in 2009 the model received a name: “civic café”. A “civic café” is defined by a unique combination of consumption and social and culture-shaping involvement, 226 JOANNA KUSIAK AND WOJCIECH KACPERSKI closely related to the democratic ideal of “civic society”, but with a focus on urban issues. The term is used interchangeably with “café-club”. Warszawa Powiｭle, a small café which opened in a former railway ticket office describes itself creatively as “kiosk with vodka and culture” (Fig. 3). The characteristics of “civic cafés” (kawiarnia obywatelska) (as informal category) presently in operation put special emphasis on local contexts in relation to both block and district, as well as to the city as a whole. Almost all “civic cafés” define themselves as “Warsaw-focused” referring to the city’s modernist architecture (Warszawa Powiｭle), to elements of socialist interior design (the floors at the cafés OSiR and Szczotki i PRdzle), or to local politics (a councilor holds office hours at the café-club Kolonia). In 2010, all major “civic cafés” organized “The Warsaw Celebration” at the grassroots level in cooperation with urban-oriented NGOs, and the festivities comprised numerous events in various cafés. Although each of the (dozen or so) “civic cafés” is run as a separate business, a particular solidarity can be noticed among them. It gives them the appeal of a quasi-network which disregards the principles of business competition—for big events cafés borrow chairs and sound equipment from each other, and they often advertise other cafés’ events on their own social networking sites. As opposed to the “business citizenship” model described by Holc (1997) and the old socialist model of citizenship strongly connected to the state, the “civic cafés” initiated a new type of urban citizenship building on loyalty to neighborhood and city. This model became symbolically very powerful. The significance of “civic cafés” in Warsaw’s public space was apparent enough to be taken into account by the City Hall’s policies. In 2009 two new café-clubs, Nowy Wspania̅y ｬwiat and Ogrody, could open as a result of unusual competitions in which the city—as the owner of spaces for lease in Warsaw’s center—specified that only cafés with a cultural profile can be established there. Offers which met these demands were allocated spaces with preferential rent. The Warsaw Center District Office spokeswoman, Urszula Majewska, commented: “This is an innovation, because we are announcing a competition along with a clear recommendation what should be located in the place. […] The tenant will have to host artistic and cultural activities.” (PochrzRst 2009) “Development and integration of the local community, as well as shaping a positive image of Warsaw and the Center District” (ｬródmieｭcie 2009) were among the objectives of the competition. Cafés became spaces of particular importance in the actions of Warsaw urban movements, organi- KIOSKS WITH WODKA AND DEMOCRACY 227 zations focused on the promotion of the city’s balanced development, as well as on informal centers for discussion regarding the development of contemporary Warsaw. All this was symbolically highlighted at Ch̅odna 25. An old coffer from the Warsaw Central railway station was hung near the counter, dominating the room with the oversized, brightly lit word “CITY”. Figure 3: A bike event at the café Warszawa Powiｭle. The café was opened in an abandoned ticket office of a regional train station. It was part of the agenda to save and promote Warsaw’s modernist architectural heritage. (Photo: Warszawa Powiｭle) Cool Street 25? Gentrification of urban activism As it is often the case with alternative culture, the popularity of the “civic café” rapidly transformed into a particular café-club fashion. Ch̅odna 25, despite its unassuming name, quickly turned into “Cool Street 25” (ch̅odna can be translated as “cool” in English), representing the epitome of “cool” in Warsaw. In addition to the “Wdecha” award, Ch̅odna 25 was voted “café of the year” by the fashion magazine Elle, the weekly newspaper Przekrój and by Gazeta Wyborcza. The café in the Wola district became the meeting place for people from the city center and other neighboring areas. 228 JOANNA KUSIAK AND WOJCIECH KACPERSKI Suddenly the place was frequented by a certain type of people who did not care so much about activism as about “being seen” in a fashionable place. According to one long-time bartender of Ch̅odna 25, the place “was singled out […] as a trendy space, and a certain crowd […] of stylists showed up there. These people looked so trendy that the term became derogatory” (Su̅kowski 2010). Freelancing representatives of the upper-middle class emerged as a particularly visible group in the café-clubs (the cafés have, of course, wireless internet), and transformed them into their informal offices. Montgomery notes: “Cafés […] have arguably become sites for the all-important networking so necessary to transactional life in the post-Fordist, flexible, core-periphery economy.” (1997, 99). Cafés, originally designed as spaces for culture and social engagement, quickly turned into a key cultural element of capitalism’s new forms, especially in a version of capitalism referred to Richard Florida’s idea of the “creative class” (Florida 2002). The development of “civic cafés” coincided with the emergence of a new social class, the so-called new urbanites, described by the Polish sociologist Kubicki (2011, 29–42). He characterizes them as members of a well-to-do middle class who, for the first time in Polish history, identify themselves with the city and urban lifestyles. They comprise contemporary versions of the flaneur, young yuppies and bobos (bourgeois bohemians), hipsters and the creative class: young people who entered adulthood after 1989 and were educated at Polish and foreign universities. They are open to the world, tolerant, liberal, and they like to spend time outside home. “Civic cafés” do not merely attract this group of people; it is quite obvious that this social class brought them to life. Thus, over time “civic cafés” were subjected to a process similar to a kind of small-scale gentrification. Despite their radical openness and relatively low prices (compared to chain cafés, not necessarily to minimum wages or average pensions), the cafés became slowly dominated by a well-educated middle class. At the same time, something exceptional occurred that became emblematic for both Warsaw cafés and Warsaw urban activist circles: as the cafés were increasingly developing into fashionable places, urban activism—which in more than one way originated in these Warsaw cafés—qualified as “fashionable” too. Next to the pioneer group of truly involved activists, a much larger KIOSKS WITH WODKA AND DEMOCRACY 229 group of “followers” emerged; although they did not actively take part in activities supporting the city’s development, this huge and culturally influential group nevertheless partook in promoting the Warsaw fashion for social engagement and Warsaw identity. Like other fashions, it found its expression in an increased consumption of goods, in that case it centered around Warsaw’s visual identity like designer gadgets or beer from local breweries used to promote the city. According to Georg Simmel, individuals who follow fashion feel “inwardly supported by a broad group of persons who are striving for the same thing, and not, as is the case for other social satisfactions, by a group that is doing the same thing” (Simmel 1905, 193). At the same time Simmel stresses the fact that the latest fashion “in all these things affects only the upper strata”. The media career of urban activism in Warsaw surpassed by far the actual range of activities. Moreover, since involvement in urban issues was initially mediated through the context of culture and art, the first actions and political successes (e.g. negotiating profiled competitions for city-owned spaces, establishing the Social Dialogue Commission for Culture) had real significance only for the middle and upper classes, because their members are the most active participants in culture. Thus, in its initial phase the new urban activism mediated and fueled by “civic cafés” was a social phenomenon limited to a particular group. The growing awareness of this state of affairs led to the comeback of the derogatory term “café intelligentsia” in Warsaw’s history; sometimes it was used as a form of criticism in the media and in the caféclubs proper. Nonetheless, Lech Mergler, one of the most prominent Polish urban activists (certainly not café-club-focused) and the chief organizer of the First Polish Congress of Urban Movements, a person who for many years has been actively supporting the Right to the City movements, notices: “I guess the marvel of the last two or three years has been that the café-salon, the academia, the politicians and the media have finally noticed urban activity; they recognized its political potential and meaning, and, in a way, they elevated it. […] Just a couple of years ago the so-called local urban activists, as well as neighborhood and district activists were looked down upon as ‘old weirdos’, bored senior citizens without any ambition. Who cared about something as insignificant as neighborhood councils, which fought every single day with the administration for the rights of the residents? […] The emergence of the ‘urban issue’ outside this daily activity brought out its universal political and existential dimension, which had been almost totally forgotten in post-agrarian Poland. […] The fact that urban 230 JOANNA KUSIAK AND WOJCIECH KACPERSKI activism in its strict sense has become part of the focus and involvement of social elites, including young intelligentsia elites, is certainly priceless.” (Mergler 2012) The popularity of “café activism” (Fig. 4) greatly increased interest in urban issues not only in Warsaw but also in the whole country, because Warsaw is the headquarter of the most important national media and several influential academic institutions. At the same time the café activist discourse failed to really include the representatives of the lower classes and the so-called “ordinary residents” who did not take part in the debates but were the immediate neighbors of the trendy, involved café-clubs. Whose Right to the City? If spending time in cafés and bars was by no means a common phenomenon in the socialist period, the post-socialist transformations brought about a rapid increase in the number of bars and restaurants. Café and bar regulars were joined by the new capitalist middle class, at least by its wellto-do parts. For the less affluent Varsovians frequenting cafés remained an occasional event. While the prices in Warsaw cafés are similar to those in Western Europe (2–3 euros), the minimum monthly wage in Poland is more than three times lower (around 356 euros). Hence, for the less welloff going to a café is more often than not a festive event. The cheap bars frequented by the lower classes are often still derogatively labeled as “dives”, and commonly associated with social problems. Both the relative absence of bars and cafés and their renaissance during the transformation made change in lifestyles remarkable. Although the habit of spending time “in the city” has become increasingly common in Warsaw since 1990, this does not apply to all social groups. The most visible boundary is defined by economic criteria and age, and central to the violent frictions linked with the increasing number of commercial places in Warsaw’s public space. The central district, where most of the new cafés and bars are located, is one of the “oldest” city districts in terms of age of inhabitants. Due to socialist policies on commercial spaces, the city’s central districts have so far remained socially diverse. The same old building in the city center is equally inhabited by members of the rich elite and welfare recipients, and that is still the norm rather than the exception. After 1989, usually single apartments were privatized (i.e. bought by tenants), instead KIOSKS WITH WODKA AND DEMOCRACY 231 of entire buildings. The sharing of buildings and neighborhoods by people with fundamentally different lifestyles seems valuable from the point of view of social policy, yet it is the source of great tensions usually related to problems of excessive noise and alcohol consumption. The same tensions have also been clearly noticeable in the context of “civic cafés”. Figure 4: A public debate on urban issues at the café Warszawa Powiｭle (Photo: Marta ﾈakowska) “Civic cafés” (serving as bars in the evenings) generate considerable noise because of loud music and concerts, and because people often gather in groups in front of the café due to smoking bans or simply good weather. Although a characteristic problem of every big city, this issue became quite intense in Warsaw because of the particular social context, i.e. the large number of elderly people and people with low income who still live in central parts of the city. Their exclusion from night-time city entertainment is related to their being unaccustomed to going-out as a result of the limited number of bars in Warsaw during the Polish People’s Republic. Often they actively protest against the presence of bars and cafés in their immediate neighborhood. In an effort to strengthen local communities, many “civic cafés” tried to negotiate with the residents and created events to en- 232 JOANNA KUSIAK AND WOJCIECH KACPERSKI courage also senior citizens to frequent the places. Ch̅odna 25 has had issues with the housing cooperative in its building from the very start. For years the café has been trying changes to meet the residents’ needs: concerts would end at 10 pm, there were more “quiet” events such as theater plays. After the chair of the housing cooperative died, the owner of Ch̅odna 25, Grzegorz Lewandowski, took over, and for several years it was possible to reach an agreement. Ironically, the issue grew bigger after the smoking ban was enforced in 2010. Smoking customers moved outside to the café’s doorstep next to the stairwell entrance to the building and gathered under the residents’ windows. The regularity of this type of conflict and the heated public debate on “urban issues” (including urban culture, public spaces, revitalization and the vision of urban development in a broader sense) resulted in extensive media discussions in 2011 and 2012 (supported by Gazeta Wyborcza, among others) on noise disturbances and the observation of quiet hours. While the “new urbanites” described by Kubicki see Warsaw as a “European metropolis” and claim that nightlife entertainment should be subject to the same conditions as in Berlin or Paris (meaning at least until 3 am and also during the week), the “old Polish urbanites”—in terms of age and lifestyle—demand the right to quiet hours and see entertainment based on the NIMBY rule (generally yes, but Not In My Back-Yard). Housing cooperatives and residents’ assemblies defending themselves against noise employ two strategies: they either call the police after 10 pm or they try to prevent cafés from obtaining or maintaining a liquor license—Polish law requires the permission of the building’s owner, if a bar wants to sell liquor. This liquor license is vital because profits made from selling alcohol are the main source of income for many “civic cafés”, which do not charge the organizers of events they host and let them use the space for free. Nonetheless, the Warsaw version of conflict over quiet hours, typical for the majority of metropolises, is not only about the city center’s social mix, aging residents and a traditional lack of public nightlife. All these factors play a significant role, but there is much to indicate that the conflict over quiet hours is related to another, sociocultural one related to the uneven development of post-socialist Warsaw. Like in other post-socialist cities, the transformation period in Warsaw was also a time of increased economic polarization. Warsaw became the center of investment and influx of foreign capital. The prices of land and commercial spaces started to increase rapidly, especially in the urban core. Yet Warsaw’s prosperity did not translate into society as a whole. To a KIOSKS WITH WODKA AND DEMOCRACY 233 large extent the uneven development of the city led to its division into different pockets of wealth and poverty. Characteristically, the city center and central districts in Warsaw experienced rapid and successful gentrification. Because the structure of ownership makes it difficult to “drive away” older residents from the center, they gradually find themselves surrounded by the new and alien city infrastructure, unavailable to them for economic reasons and also because it is culturally foreign. An example of the “culture war” hidden beneath the conflict over noise (and over the significant role of Warsaw cafés in the struggle) was described in an article in 2011, tellingly titled “Coffee and Propaganda” published by Nasz Dziennik, an important Catholic conservative daily accused of anti-intellectual populism by liberal circles. The author criticized the café-clubs on an ideological and social level, writing that “Today, Warsaw cafés aspiring to the status of opinion-forming centers often form communities based on anti-values. […] Access to a sense of ‘elitism’ is offered without the need to make any effort, show character, do anything for the community or overcome selfishness in the name of values. A sense of ‘elitism’ is granted by frequenting certain places. The entry ticket to this ‘elite’ circle is to utter the words ‘God, Honor, Fatherland’ with irony.” (ﾈurek 2011) While the author aptly identifies an element of “fashion”, she belittles the civic engagement of the activists connected with these cafés, and reveals the ideological source of the dispute where traditional values of a still predominantly Catholic Poland clash with a secular, liberal or leftist worldview of the “new urbanites”. In large parts this social divide coincides with an economic one (the “new urbanites” have a higher income). Therefore different social groups that live in the city remain, in fact, relatively separate. “Civic cafés” created and frequented mostly by the middle class, got automatically included in this division. Especially from the point of view of older residents, banks and offices and all types of expensive cafés and restaurants have gradually replaced the infrastructure of the district’s “ordinary” residents, like food and convenience stores, greengrocers’ and inexpensive bars including so-called milk bars, i.e. cheap eateries from the socialist period. However, the story of one of these milk bars might be the first sign of the café activism’s evolution to fill the culture gap: One direction in which the current Warsaw debate—led by activists and customers of “civic cafés” (the authors of this article admit being part of this group)—on the Right to the City is developing focuses on the issue of accessibility of the city infrastructure for different social groups. The debate 234 JOANNA KUSIAK AND WOJCIECH KACPERSKI resulted in various events like for example “occupying” the milk bar Bar Prasowy which was hugely popular among the older residents due to its low prices. Young Warsaw activists from different circles initiated a protest against the district mayor’s closing the bar, actively involving the residents. Despite the explicitly neo-liberal approach of the district authorities, the residents literally forced them to hold public consultations and, in a further step, announce a profiled competition for a new milk bar. The prices of meals were capped as one key instrument ensuring that the eatery remained accessible for even the poorest resident in the central district. This example is, of course, only a harbinger of possible changes. It does not guarantee that Warsaw culture activists will maintain their social activities or develop in the direction of struggles for social justice; neither is it guaranteed that their victories will ultimately lead to overcoming social divisions and balancing Warsaw’s development. Figure 5: Old photograph of a cheap eatery or “milk bar” on display at Ch̅odna 25; art project by Karolina Bregu̅a2 (Photo: Karolina Bregu̅a; milk bar photo by Zofia ChomRtowska) —————— 2 In a project titled “Corrective Photographs” artist Karolina Bregula placed ancient photographs of Warsaw in select public places to indicate that there were a lot of things missing in contemporary Warsaw, thus making “corrections” to the cityspace. KIOSKS WITH WODKA AND DEMOCRACY 235 Conclusion: cafés between democracy and distinction There is no doubt that in the recent history of the city’s transformation, cafés, particularly the Warsaw-specific subtype called “civic cafés”, play a unique role containing elements of both historical continuity and change. One characteristic element repeating itself during the city’s historical development is the existence of a particular type of gathering place for the Warsaw intelligentsia. It should be mentioned that the isolation of a social class called “intelligentsia” that is particularly involved in modernizing processes, is seen as a predominantly Russian and Central-European phenomenon. In Poland it is characteristic for Warsaw and Cracow and, in previous times, also for L’viv. Special social-group cafés were an important meeting place already in the 19th century. Ideologies of subsequent generations of the “café intelligentsia” changed with the times, assuming various forms that are reflected in the Warsaw cafés: romantic and positivist in the 19th century (e.g. Honoratka), modernizing and positivist in the interwar period (e.g. Ziemiawska), opposition-centered during the communist period (e.g. Czytelnik), and finally metropolitan and civic during the transformation (e.g. Ch̅odna 25). These ideologies had considerable impact on the city’s developments. However, while the political aims of the 19th century and socialist-period café circles had, for the most part, a negative thrust (eliminating existing state oppression), contemporary cafés bear closer resemblance to the cafés from the interwar period, favoring a positive modernizing program. Until the present day a negative program surfaced only on two occasions: first in 2007 during attempts to dismiss the conservative mayor of Warsaw, Lech Kaczywski (later president of Poland who died in the plane crash mentioned above); and second in 2011, when the café circles voiced their discontent over class oppression by neo-liberal city policies dominating the capital in transformation (viz. the example of the milk bar and the broad media discussion of the “inexpensive city”). Despite the financial crisis approaching Poland, Warsaw’s most recent history allows to predict relative structural and historical stability for the first time in over two hundred years—even though the global character of the radical political changes taking place since 2011 in other parts of the world is undeniable. Unlike in the case of the interwar cafés, the actual role of Warsaw current “café activists” remains to be seen. Unfortunately, recent attempts to overcome social divisions are accompanied by new forms of conflict. The housing cooperative denies permission to renew the liquor 236 JOANNA KUSIAK AND WOJCIECH KACPERSKI license for Ch̅odna 25 (Andrejuk 2012); at the time of writing, the café’s fate is still uncertain. Moreover, the dominant neo-liberal agenda of the city policies call into question the chances of poorer residents to participate in the creation of a “new urbanity”. Meanwhile, as Wurgaft (2003) notes and the example of Bar Prasowy shows, the “new urbanites” need not necessarily be in conflict with the “old urbanites”. On the contrary, they might even form alliances: “We all need cleanliness and decent housing and jobs, but also an arrangement of urban spaces and behaviors that let us actually meet and get to know one another, build familiarity and respect. It is this kind of civilized neighborhood that is threatened by rootless affluence, by the presence of financially empowered people with no sense of belonging.” (Wurgaft 2003) Oosterman (1992) shows that cafés may contribute not only to an increase in noise but also to an increase in security—a feature highly valued by older residents in Warsaw’s city center. While recognizing the significant role played by the so-called “civic cafés” and their related circles in Warsaw’s recent developments, it is hard not to notice that their history—and the history of the socio-cultural conflict linked with them—has been strongly influenced by the local tradition of the “café intelligentsia” (one might even start searching for the city’s intrinsic logic here, see Berking and Löw 2008) and by the uneven development of post-socialist Warsaw. At the same time, the very idea of civic society and the right to the city, both strongly present in the discourse of activists in cafés, include a germ of an idea of urban policy which might allow overcoming the social division. This division was reflected metaphorically in the soundscape on Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street on the day of the catastrophe. The sources of Warsaw’s social division are in large part political and structural, therefore it would be an exaggeration to put the “blame” on the Warsaw café circles. We nonetheless have no doubts that if “kiosks with vodka and culture” want to have also true (urban) democracy on their menus, the Warsaw chattering class has to learn to listen to the silent crowd. (Translated by Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer) KIOSKS WITH WODKA AND DEMOCRACY 237 References Andrejuk, Bartosz (2012). Ch̅odna 25 bez koncesji? “Moﾉe otworzR tu kebab”. TVN Warszawa, 17 March. http://www.tvnwarszawa.pl/informacje,news,chlo dna-25-bez-koncesji-moze-otworze-tu kebab,38757.html (accessed 06.05.2012). Berking, Helmuth, and Martina Löw (eds.) (2008). Die Eigenlogik der Städte. Neue Wege für die Stadtforschung. Frankfurt/Main and New York: Campus. Brzostek, B̅aﾉej (2007). Za progiem. Codziennoｭ6 w przestrzeni publicznej Warszawy w latach 1955–1970. Warszawa: Trio. 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Lokale na kulturR i dzia̅ania spo̅eczne w dzielnicy ｬródmieｭcie. http://www.srodmiescie.warszawa.pl/cms/prt/view/konkursy-profilowane.html (accessed: 20.02.2012). Tyrmand, Leopold (1989). Dziennik 1954. Warszawa: PiW. — (2011 [1955]). Z̅y. Žódﾇ-Kraków: wydawnictwo mg. Wiech, Stefan (1996). PiCte przez dziesiCte: wspomnienia warszawskie. Warszawa: PiW. Wurgaft, Benjamin (2003). Starbucks and rootless cosmopolitanism. Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 3 (4), 71–5. ﾈurek, Agnieszka (2011). Kawa i propaganda. Nasz dziennik 5, 8–9 January. http:// stary.naszdziennik.pl/index.php?dat=20110108&typ=my&id=my13.txt (accessed 16.08.2012). Interviews Lewandowski (2010). Grzegorz Lewandowski, owner of Ch̅odna 25, interviewed at Ch̅odna 25 by Wojciech Kacperski on 13.04.2010. Su̅kowski (2010). Jakub Su̅kowski, bartender of Ch̅odna 25, interviewed at Nowy Wspania̅y ｬwiat by Wojciech Kacperski on 11.05.2010. IV: Metropolitanism The Laboratory of Polish Postmodernity: An Ethnographic Report from the Stadium-Bazaar Roch Sulima The semantic transformation of public space in Warsaw The Stadium and the bazaar—these two old cultural figures of encountering “the Other” are brought together here not in a thought experiment but as a result of spontaneous practices in postmodern societies, which tend to combine the spheres of ludicity and consumption. Thus, the presence of a bazaar on the premises of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium1 should not be seen as something incidental or relict, but rather as a forecast of something new and not yet recognized, something that disturbs our set patterns of thought on the city, “the Other” and the ways of cultural auto-identification. In this text I want to particularly stress the subversive—even anarchical—localization of the bazaar in a stadium. The notion of “StadiumBazaar” is treated here as a cognitive metaphor with significant diagnostic value. In this light, even the nostalgic media coverage of the liquidation of —————— 1 The 10th-Anniversary Stadium (the name refers to the then ten years of existence of the communist People’s Republic of Poland) was an earth stadium in Warsaw designed by Jerzy Hryniewiecki and built 1953–1955. It was located on the right bank of the Vistula river in the Praga district, opposite the city center. Apart from sporting events it also held the communist state ceremonies, but its significance faded in the 1980s. After Poland regained independence in 1989, the crown of the stadium was transformed into a market place, which eventually turned into “Jarmark Europa” (“Bazaar Europe”), one of the largest open-air markets in Europe (100,000 visitors daily). During the peak of its prosperity (at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries) it resounded with 25 ethnic languages and the annual turnover of the company Damis, which ran the market, was estimated at 12 billion zlotys (about 4 billion euros). This made Damis one of the biggest companies in Poland. In 2008 the market was liquidated and the state began building the National Football Stadium on the site, on account of the European Football Championship 2012. The National Stadium was inaugurated in January 2012. 242 ROCH SULIMA the bazaar should be seen as the expression of an emerging rather than a concluding phenomenon. The analysis is set against the backdrop of the semantic transformations of Warsaw’s urban fabric since 1989. The recently revitalized Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street (which is part of Warsaw’s Old Town) and the perishing bazaar at the 10th-Anniversary Stadium could serve as two transitory but nevertheless distinct figures of thinking about the semantics of contemporary Warsaw urban space. Both the renovation of Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street and the liquidation of the bazaar at the Stadium articulate the polymorphic aspects of urban space, its dynamic discontinuity, dispersion and event-like rather than cartographic character. This, in turn, points to the need to study city as a “kinetic” entity, as something which is constantly re-/created in the social experience (Rewers 2005) rather than read and interpreted as a text. The historical semantics of the Warsaw urban space features another significant and frequently mythologized element, the Pa̅ac Kultury i Nauki (Palace of Culture and Science). It was bestowed as a “gift” of the USSR upon the Polish nation, erected at the same time as the 10th-Anniversary Stadium. These two structures also share an ideological and political agenda. The Palace sits in the heart of Warsaw’s city center (it is still the tallest building in the capital), although it was initially planned to locate it near the site of the Stadium. The multiethnic bazaar that spread around the Palace after 1989 was later transferred to the Stadium by the city authorities. The study of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium as a cultural phenomenon must also include a contemporary perspective significantly represented by the conspicuous shopping mall Z̅ote Tarasy (Golden Terraces) situated near the Warsaw Central railway station. The mall and the Palace form a semantic “polygon”, which serves as an explanatory context for the Stadium-Bazaar. Moreover, it testifies to the recent proliferation of the consumer semiosphere at the expense of the martyrological semiosphere in Warsaw, which is quite unique on a European scale. Therefore, it is worth interpreting the semantic transformations of Warsaw’s urban space, and particularly the importance of the Palace of Culture and Science, through the lenses of Richard Shusterman’s “aesthetics of absence” (2000, 96– THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 243 111),2 in order to problematize the central valorization of the Palace and Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street reinforced through the existence of the Stadium-Bazaar and the “empty”, culturally indistinct bank of the Vistula in the last decades. The river has as yet played an insignificant role in the semantics of Warsaw’s urban space, although there are plans aiming at reviving the embankment. A figurative reading of the public space also structures the day-to-day experience of the city, leaving an imprint on cultural biographies, and determining cognitive scripts and behavioral patterns of the inhabitants. Figure 1: Bird’s-eye view of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium in the panorama of Warsaw (Photo: Marek Ostrowski / projektwarszawa.org) —————— 2 This idea emphasizes the importance of present absences in the interpretation of contemporary urban space. It deals with the social impact of certain features of the urban fabric and city life which are materially no longer present (or never were), but nevertheless exert an influence. 244 ROCH SULIMA Transcultural processes modeling the local experience The oppositions between the Stadium-Bazaar and Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street, and between provincial Praga on the right bank of the Vistula river and the historical center of Warsaw on the left bank shape the taxonomies of Warsaw’s urban space (they are not described in detail here, as we still lack an “emotional map” of Warsaw). These dichotomies function as mythological (in Roland Barthes’ sense) valorizations, and the most significant dichotomy, the virtual boundary between East and West (Asia and Europe), ran straight through the 10th-Anniversary Stadium. In this light, the Stadium-Bazaar could even serve as a distinctive example of a merger of global transcultural spaces, not merely as an ethnographic peculiarity or a tourist attraction for Westerners. At this point a brief methodological remark is due. The framework of this interpretive study consists of my own explorative experience and careful attention to the local context. This is why the text does not deal with administrative or architectural projects but rather with urban mythologies distilled from mediatized narrations of popular culture, continually intensifying aesthetic discourses, the commercialization of public space and the cultural interpenetrations of the “global” and the “local”. The lack of a comprehensive methodological framework may prove problematic, because these interpretative notions cannot be systematized in the same way that a community marketplace, supermarket or town fair could be categorized. As an event and a cultural phenomenon the Stadium-Bazaar holds a very different position, because it represents a hybrid tangle of “differences”, following the idea of Wolfgang Welsch’s “transculturalism”, Manuel Castells’ concept of “space of flows” or Arjun Appadurai’s theory of “transnational anthropology”. The Stadium-Bazaar emerged from “another” reality and used to be a characteristic symptom of this “other reality” for nearly two decades. It was always difficult to grasp this singular phenomenon within the context of Polish cultural narrations and it became the laboratory of Polish postmodernity. In a figurative reading of the Warsaw urban space Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street could be defined as an “outstretched”, palimpsest-like spatial structure due to repeated references to Bellotto Canaletto’s (18th-century Italian painter) paintings, replicas of which are located in the street, embedded in large glass cubes. However, the cultural meanings of this space are nevertheless fairly predictable and homogenous. From the perspective THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 245 of the Stadium-Bazaar, this neat area could be perceived as Warsaw’s beautiful “provinces”. The Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street constitutes a permanent stone scene accommodating portable “decorations” (pavement cafés), occasional artistic installations or seasonal events and parades. Living or “inhabiting” this space has become an insignificant aspect. It functions as some sort of “carnival” place in Warsaw, and in this context it may be worth pointing out that the patriotic and martyrological demonstrations taking place at Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street after the crash of the Polish government plane in Smolewsk (10.04.2010) were also subjected to a process of carnivalization. A place manifesting “emptiness”: void as a generator of meanings To give expression to the structural essence of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium attributes like “include”, “rise up”, “sink in” and “penetrate” come to mind; the space of the Stadium was experienced as “axial”, not merely due to the building’s shape of an elevated oval, but also on account of its historical development and ultimate fate—the National Football Stadium and the European Football Championship 2012 are the fundamental perceptual framework with regard to this site. The site (enclosed by the right bank of the Vistula river, the Poniatowski Bridge, the railway embankment and the Skaryszewski Park) is generally perceived as a “cavity” or “hollow”—a void filled with concentrated “peripherality”, starkly contrasting with Saska KRpa (an embassy district), the modernist Skaryszewski Park (established 1906–1922), Praga (the main district of the right-bank Warsaw) and the city center. The Stadium always seemed sunk into rather than blended in with its surroundings, although paradoxically it could have served as an excellent observation point, offering a panoramic view over left-bank Warsaw and the medieval Old Town, which was completely reconstructed after the Second World War. The void-like character of the site was magnified by the stream of commuters passing nearby with an estimated 100,000 people per hour traveling by public transport in this area. The history of the site dates back to 1920, when the boggy overflow area on the right bank of the Vistula was bought by a famous furrier com- 246 ROCH SULIMA pany owned by Andrzej “Arpad” Chowawczak, “the Warsaw king of furs”. The Polish President Ignacy Moｭcicki (1867–1946) later planned on repurchasing the site in order to build a permanent exhibition hall for international fairs. However, it was never realized and the site remained vacant until the Second World War. Contemporary media coverage initiates rather than enhances the semantics of absence or void linked with this site, because this particular reading has only survived in the memory of older locals in this district. The semantics of absence is reinforced by the memories of the generation that rebuilt Warsaw after the Second World War who perceive the site through the figure of a city “of rubble” (which was transported on horse carts across the river to the right bank). The designers of the National Football Stadium took care to preserve the earth basin of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium filled with the rubble (“traces”) of the left-bank districts. Therefore, the construction was an archeologically as well as historically challenging enterprise, a fact that was largely ignored by the media and the loud rhetoric of the Euro 2012 project. This “silence” also shapes the framework of meanings, which will continually be historicized, autonomized and aestheticized, probably beyond its hitherto local horizon. The 10th-Anniversary Stadium (the Stadium-Bazaar) has never achieved a consistent presence in the life of the city. Both official and popular narratives are marked by dispersion and discontinuity. In the public opinion the Stadium is associated with a series of events eagerly reconstructed by the media: 1955—the Second International Youth Festival; 1956—the legendary victory of Stanis̅aw Królak (over the Soviet cyclists) in the Peace Race; 1958—the athletics match between Poland and the USA; 1968—the self-immolation of Ryszard Siwiec as an act of protest against the military intervention of the Warsaw Pact in Czechoslovakia; 1983—the Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II during his second pilgrimage to Poland; 1987—the last football match played at this stadium, a match between Poland and Finland. The semantics of absence and the reading of the place as a “void” have only recently been recognized by some journalists: “Only a few times a year the stadium filled with crowds, usually it sat there as our bad conscience: monumental and empty” (Ko̅odziejczyk and Pytlakowski 2007, 36). It never became part of the living urban fabric and always remained a site and an object without clear-cut characteristics. However, as the Stadium-Bazaar it eventually regained its distinctiveness. One of the reasons THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 247 for the relative ease with which the symptoms of transcultural processes manifested themselves in this space was probably that there was no resistance from local traditions or history. Figure 2: Stalls at the crown of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium (Photo: Marek Ostrowski / projektwarszawa.org) 248 ROCH SULIMA The Stadium has never blended in with the urban fabric of Warsaw, which nowadays is mostly determined by traffic structures (Hannerz 1980, 130), nor was it perceived as a visiting point or characteristic element of the right bank of the Vistula. Instead, it turned into a trade caravan encampment. Moreover, the Stadium-Bazaar diverted the public attention from the river bank and its ecologically fascinating wild beach with elms, poplar trees and growing wicker, and it obscured the beauty of the Skaryszewski Park and the nearby bridges. All this reflects the amorphous character of the place in the perception of the Warsaw urban space and its “excluded”, unstable and transitory status. However, from the perspective of translocal and transborder relations, the stadium became—in the narratives of European popular culture—the synonym of Warsaw. It not only absorbed Praga and its many mythologies, it reconfigured the semantics of the Warsaw public space altogether. What is more, in the first half of the 1990s the StadiumBazaar had, in a way, thwarted the functioning of Warsaw’s city center. The syndrome of borderland in the center of the capital: poverty enterprise The economic relations at the Stadium-Bazaar showed all the characteristics of “the syndrome of borderland”. It was the accumulation of these borderland-like symptoms that imparted dynamics to the Stadium-Bazaar phenomenon, since liminality usually activates specific mental patterns which determine operational strategies. Even the often illegal wholesale transactions at the stadium culminated, metaphorically speaking, “at dawn”—at the borderline between day and night. As a result, a complicated web of mobile boundaries (ethnic, political, cultural, economical and linguistic) existed in the proximity of the administrative and governmental center of the capital. The Stadium-Bazaar had police, customs, national passports, currency exchange bureaus, and also symbolically established frontiers between different “ethnic villages” that mushroomed as a result of spontaneously dividing, annexing or “selling” the stadium’s space. “Borders are economic resources to be consumed like other resources in a variety of ways” and “shopping at the border is part of the process of shopping the border itself” (Donnan and Wilson 1999, 122). THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 249 In this regard it was the Vietnamese community who most evidently “shopped the border” at the Stadium-Bazaar. The border-like nature of the Stadium intensified the multidirectional character of the “flow” of commodities, people, money, experience and skills. Strangers became fellows and fellow countrymen often turned out to be alien in this space, since the borderland always embraces different strategies of encountering “the Other”. It was difficult to find another sphere of such intense chance encounters with foreignness in Poland—apart from international airports. Airports, however, have formal structures and logistics, something which the Stadium-Bazaar lacked. The Stadium was a space of mobile boundaries vanishing and resurfacing in different places, thus either intensifying or neutralizing their own liminality. The global transformational processes symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall altered the character of traditional economic tourism. Particularly in the former Eastern bloc the strictly economic dimension of holiday trips was supplemented by specific explorative rituals that gained considerable social importance. Economic tourism revived innovative strategies from earlier periods and was a logical reaction to the effects of the social and economic transformation (i.e. unemployment, inflation, etc.). However, the most fundamental reaction to the transformation effects was the so-called “poverty enterprise”, a phenomenon that sprang up at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. Around that time, the prestigious streets of Warsaw (mainly Nowy ｬwiat and Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie) were filled with camp beds serving as makeshift market stalls. Street vending is a widespread strategy of coping with the psychosocial consequences of the transformation process, described by Piotr Sztompka (2000) as “the cultural trauma of a great change”. One could even argue that it finds its parallel in a historical phenomenon, which is nowadays only dimly remembered: the Polish “excluded economy” as a form of “pretend life” in the occupied Poland during the Second World War. It was described in 1945 by Kazimierz Wyka, who stated that trading constituted a self-defense mechanism of the Polish people: “The Polish society under German occupation lived off trade and survived on it” (Wyka 1984, 172). Explorative rituals also played an important role in the common experience of the tens of thousands of buyers who roamed the Stadium-Bazaar every day. Here, the syndrome of borderland manifested itself through the category of “opportunity”, which functioned as a quasi-nonsystemic event based on profiteering, smuggling and purchasing second-hand commodi- 250 ROCH SULIMA ties or branded goods at a very low price. “Opportunity buying” has inspired the biographies of the Stadium-Bazaar users for 18 years, not just in terms of consumption. In light of the systematic development of supermarket chains, purchasing goods at the stadium consolidated the social semantics of the term “cheap”, a category which hardly played any role before 1989 under the conditions of a command economy. The Stadium-Bazaar was indeed “very cheap”. Figure 3: Dawn at the bazaar (Photo: Ignacy StrCczek) The borderland subverts dominant systems and turns formal systems into anarchy. It is overly restrictive when exposing activities of the government agencies and at the same time anarchical when testing the power of authority structures, literally: the boundaries of law (Donnan and Wilson, 1999, 121–123). Therefore, the decline of the Stadium-Bazaar and the structurally similar semi-legal forms of transborder commodity exchange have undermined the status of customs officers on the eastern border of Poland, who were no longer needed in such large numbers, and whose discontentment became manifest during a strike in 2008. The Stadium-Bazaar functioned as a parallel, “informal” economy right in the center of the state capital. In the early days of the Polish transformation it also represented a THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 251 type of “subversive” economy, not only with respect to the previous socialist system but also to the emerging Polish market economy. The Warsaw inferno changes place The media discourse always associated the Stadium-Bazaar with the proliferation of a grey area, “depriving” other market places (including the famous 100-year-old Róﾉycki Bazaar localized in the same district) of this characteristic. Sensationalist reports on the various illegal activities at the Stadium-Bazaar were quite common in the Polish media. Suddenly petty crimes and misdemeanors took place in the vicinity of government offices, near the fashionable Skaryszewski Park and close to the exclusive residential area Saska KRpa. Asian “strange foreigners” operated business three tram stops away from the heart of the capital. Neighboring properties were hastily secured by steel fences, and the assortment of local shops changed substantially. The “infamous” Praga district extended its frontiers toward the Vistula river and the semantics of the once prestigious and exclusive area of the Washington Roundabout became blurred. In a field report, one of my students remarked that, when going to Praga, she would start to carefully mind her handbag already on the Poniatowski Bridge for fear of the pickpockets from the Stadium. However, the nearly 20-year presence of the Stadium-Bazaar close to the heart of the capital did not intensify the division between the center (the Old Town, the Palace of Culture and Science) and the outskirts (Praga). On the contrary, it foreshadowed the polymorphic processes that were to take place in the Warsaw urban space, which gradually gained a kaleidoscope-like character due to the autonomization of various areas (Rewers 2005, 204). The National Football Stadium today aims at harmonizing this polymorphism. A meticulous reconstruction of the media coverage of the grey zone would be a tedious task; but by and large, the lack of formal rules in the Stadium’s economy (the anonymity of transactions, unregistered vending stalls, tax evasion strategies) has to be highlighted, along with multiethnicity and multilingualism (about 25 languages were spoken at the StadiumBazaar), the presence of “force” (security guards, police, thugs and gangsters), the unofficial presence of intelligence officers, smuggled commodi- 252 ROCH SULIMA ties, mass trading of fake goods—particularly well-known brands—, counterfeit alcohol, arms trafficking, drug dealing, contract killing, illegal currency exchange, prostitution and various other crimes, frauds and misdemeanors. The suspension of formal regulations also altered the principles of encountering “the Other”, emphasizing somatic and kinetic aspects of interaction rituals. Economic transactions were entangled in the specific circumstances of transcultural contacts and the permanent context of human relations. However, if we are to analyze the transborder character of the Stadium-Bazaar and its parallel economy, we must also consider the local dimensions of the phenomenon, which implies the significance of the bazaar for the city dwellers. Neo-tribal encampment and multiethnic village At the beginning of the 1990s the Stadium resembled a multiethnic encampment of trade caravans. The transactions carried out at the bazaar involved cultural patterns and habitus that could well be analyzed with the categories of the social exchange theories of M. Mauss, R. Firth, C. LéviStrauss, M. Sahlins and A. W. Gouldner (Kempny and Szmatka 1992). Although money retained its status as a universal carrier of value in acts of direct exchange, trade at the Stadium-Bazaar ultimately consisted in barter. The vending of foreign commodities was inseparably linked with buying other goods that were then transferred back across the border. During the early days of the bazaar one could exchange a handful of metal drill bits made in the USSR for a minimal sum of money, which then could be used to buy imprinted cotton T-shirts. As a participant in such transactions—undertaken mainly as cognitive experiments—, I was struck by the candid conversations readily initiated by the Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and Caucasians. They happily shared their life stories and talked about their families and children. Apart from goods, these “merchants from the East” exchanged their biographies, and their tales invested the purest form of “reciprocity” (monetary exchange) with surplus meaning. The vendors possessed alternative capital in the form of biographies as “ordinary people” whose original occupation was not selling and whose goods sometimes came from their own home. THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 253 The transactions were embedded in an additional context, indicating that a commodity exchange took place between distant and foreign lands. Therefore, mythologies about gift exchange and hospitality (but also robbery and racketeering) played an important part in the transactions. Figure 4: Street vending around the 10th-Anniversary Stadium (Photo: Stanis̅aw Barawski) Initially, transactions at the Stadium-Bazaar were evocative of tribal economy, where commercial exchange is a complicated social ritual. Certain goods were attributed to certain nations and commodities needed to have an easily identifiable source. People bought different things from Russians, Georgians or Armenians; sometimes even Polish vendors pretended to be Ukrainian or Belarusian in order to be able to sell specific goods. The “merchants from the East” thus demonstrated their cultural distinctiveness and paid homage to their own culture. In the interactions of the Stadium’s microsociety they played the role of “vendors” in possession of precious goods to trade. Various forms of “nomadic” behavior could be identified at the Stadium-Bazaar, although it should be noted that this concept was originally introduced in a different social context. At the beginning of the 1990s, nomadic groups located business around the Palace of Culture and Sci- 254 ROCH SULIMA ence, but subsequently relocated to the Stadium-Bazaar. Ethnic communities negotiated their basic relations among themselves—this process was visible for instance in the mutual exchange of small services (“keep an eye on my wares”, “act on my behalf”, “guard me”, etc.). The nomadic character of the encampment was highlighted by the several dozen buses parked permanently outside the stadium serving as makeshift night shelters for the vendors. The primitive metal stalls with their cardboard beds, handcarts, specific work wear and food reinforced the nomadic impression. The basic unit of mobility of the contemporary nomads (apart from the bus) was a compartment on the Kiev–Warsaw train which arrived at Warsaw central station between 5 and 6 am. In the context of a train compartment, however, the term “nomadic” only applies with reference to a metaphor, due to the lack of a better terminological framework: according to Felix Gross (1936), a train compartment, metaphorically speaking, can accommodate the occupants of one yurt (4–5 people), and a bus has room for the occupants of 4–5 yurts. During the initial phase of existence of the Stadium-Bazaar, it were household commodities that dominated the trade, not bulk goods, which only arrived with the second wave of Vietnamese immigrants in the mid1990s. The textile bulk goods from the Far East disintegrated the Polish clothing industry, especially in the Warsaw region. The foreigners did not assimilate with the social environment and generally refused to learn the Polish language, or social norms and patterns of behavior. However, this should be understood as a strategy of emphasizing the temporary character of their presence and role. They rarely visited Polish families, never read Polish newspapers and would not go to local cinemas, restaurants and theaters. If they went out, they would frequent cheap eating places in Praga in ethnic groups. Despite all this, it should be mentioned that during the existence of the Stadium-Bazaar, the image of “the Other” in the Polish collective imagination underwent a significant metamorphosis; particularly the stereotype of the Russian changed for the better among the inhabitants of Warsaw and neighboring areas,—a shift in perception which could not be achieved during the communist period despite the so-called “friendship trains”, which were used as popular vehicles of economic tourism and smuggling as well. Smugglers function as a cultural rather than administrative or legal figure (Pliwska 2007). Although smuggling played an important part in the “informal economy” of the Stadium-Bazaar, its context was a different THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 255 one. It was no longer the traditional, porous border that fuelled this phenomenon, but rather the flow of people and goods in the transborder and transnational (transcultural) areas of contemporary society in its nomadic character (including nomadism in the virtual space of the Internet). For instance, in 2002 one newspaper reported that a Polish police officer detained a Bulgarian citizen who mugged a Czech on a Vietnamese bazaar. This type of media coverage is characteristic of the current Polish ethnolandscapes. The effects of global migration have been frequently discussed in the humanities and they are most systematically analyzed with reference to the concept of “transnational anthropology” developed by Arjun Appadurai. The fact that the Stadium-Bazaar existed for nearly 20 years is evidence of the disjunctive character of global social processes that include the separation of the once interconnected economical, cultural, technological and political spheres. Paradoxically, Warsaw faces a widespread orientalization of the post-socialist society in the age of global Westernization and Americanization of consumption patterns. The contemporary trans-processes manifest in Warsaw’s center particularly in formal structures of global corporations were palpable in the form of direct contacts at the Stadium-Bazaar, that is to say, in the coexistence of globalized subjects creating “neighborhoods” (i.e. factually existing social forms capable of reproduction) and “localness”.3 Although the Stadium-Bazaar has now been liquidated, it does not mean that the various forms and dimensions of “neighborhoods” and “localness” have ceased to exist in Warsaw. On the contrary, the contextualization of different aspects of the Stadium community’s everyday life would merit future research, because these “ethno-landscapes”, which were administratively confined to one place for 18 years, are now dispersing and deterritorializing and will establish new versions of “neighborhood” and “localness” in the long run. —————— 3 Appadurai does not link these notions to “place” but treats them as relational and contextual phenomena, as “aspects of social life” fueled by local worldviews (1996, 262– 264). 256 ROCH SULIMA Space made of cardboard boxes: modules of temporary identity With the site presenting itself as lacking both history and future, the provisional character of the Stadium-Bazaar was always openly manifest. No other public space in Warsaw comprised such an intense experience of temporariness and, at the same time, a lack of any consolidated proxemic pattern. The oval shape of this open-air space disrupted the behavior of roaming buyers, who could not rely on their habitual cognitive scripts connected with familiar urban spaces (market place, street, square, crossroads, etc.). People got easily lost between the stalls, because—unlike in shopping malls—there was no map of the premises. The temporariness and provisional character of this space determined the rules of behavior. A framed white tent with blue or green stripes was the basic module of commercial “architecture” of the Stadium-Bazaar, along with a metal stall comparable to a portable car garage. The rows of tents or stalls formed a specific arcade that intensified the chaotic autonomy of each vending stall rather than organized the space of trade. Although one would find short stretches of uniform assortment (e.g. areas of slippers or bras), the Stadium-Bazaar comprised a chaotically organized space, which could only be explored in following the old cultural pattern of wandering around. On a micro-level, the space of the Stadium was created and organized around cardboard boxes originally used for packing goods, which got “recycled” and utilized in various other ways, e.g. as building material for stalls, tables, shelters, etc. The omnipresence of these boxes underlined the provisional character of the place that was always meant to be just temporarily “assembled”. Cardboard waste was a distinctive feature of the Stadium-Bazaar, and although I cannot offer a broader analysis of this particular phenomenon, I am convinced that waste cardboard boxes could prove a useful category for uncovering deeper meaning structures not only from the perspective of an anthropology of waste (Pessel 2010). A further important element of the creation of space was a bundle tied to a handcart with an attached metal frame covered with a mat, used for displaying goods. It imitated the structure of a stall and seemed to play a more significant role than the van, which was of lesser importance and meaning for the daily progression of the trade interactions. The bundle—a jute bag of several hundred liters’ capacity—was a universal module of THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 257 street vending in Warsaw, and an object and multifunctional device at the same time. Together with the train compartment and the transborder bus it represented the material dimension of the trans- processes, but it was also a recognizable artifact that acquired cult status in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. The cardboard box as well as the jute bag nowadays serves as material for artworks referring to the Stadium-Bazaar. The distinctive proxemic features of the Stadium-Bazaar were revealed in 2007 after the trading infrastructure was removed. The material and spatial skeleton of the site at that time consisted of openwork tents stripped of roofs and walls. The Stadium-Bazaar bared its “ground” then, an instance which is archetypal for our human existence and social interactions. The floor/ground, the bundle and the cardboard box determined the fundamental participation patterns of the Stadium-Bazaar’s reality. The bazaar reproduced old cultural patterns of situational interactions, the “here and now” of collaborations between people without a formal, permanent address. The eternal need to come “from somewhere” triggered a perpetual crisis of identity. Therefore the bazaar could be seen as a cognitive metaphor for postmodernity. Stadium-Bazaar—between social conventions and rules of fashion Was there a particular “lifestyle” associated with the Stadium-Bazaar? What did it mean to “attend” the bazaar? These questions can only be answered with reference to the basic structures of contemporary popular culture in which the meanings generated by the Stadium-Bazaar were deeply entrenched. According to Mary Douglas (1997), shopping is a kind of a cultural declaration rather than a testimony to the market pressure and its strategies. The culturalist critique of contemporary theories of consumerism leads the British anthropologist to the radical conclusion that shopping is in conflict with other lifestyles or even cultures. However, the theses of Mary Douglas are difficult to verify in the Polish context, as the free market economy is still young and has been reinforced by the “parallel economy” of the bazaar over the past twenty years. 258 ROCH SULIMA So far, no studies have been conducted on the social, generational or gender diversity of the customers of the Stadium-Bazaar. However, the social characteristics of this clientele were probably different from a shopping mall’s clientele. Even if there was a constant flow of people between these two places, both environments shape distinct patterns of behavior that are easily identifiable in the context of Polish popular culture. The Stadium-Bazaar might be associated with one of the central practices of popular culture manifest in the sphere of consumption through making choices, an activity that requires assertiveness and self-confidence. The supermarket functions differently in the Polish context, in a more systematic, formal, yet captivating way. The shopping mall and the supermarket must be seen as continuations of media texts—advertisements, leaflets and glossy magazines—transforming the customer into a “modular man”. In contrast, shopping at the Stadium-Bazaar inscribed traces of their origin into the purchased items. Additionally, it exposed social conventions and implicit cultural codes bearing the hallmarks of their social origin. Transactions had to be negotiated between the participants and the initiative was shifted onto the buyer and his or her prejudices, aversions, caprices and traditional ideas about open-air trading (market, fair, etc.). In this respect, the Stadium-Bazaar was unique, since it comprised a multiethnic environment that reinforced the influence of cultural stereotypes. Thus, the deals were also always made between cultures. Consumption in supermarkets or shopping malls is modeled on the pattern of the periodic table (it contains “everything in its proper place”) and resembles the ticking of boxes in a questionnaire. Buying at the Stadium-Bazaar, in contrast, evoked hunter-gathering metaphors, depended on coincidence and was comparable with roaming the “meadows of abundance”. To find a specific stall at the Stadium-Bazaar was difficult, because, although they were numbered, they had neither names nor symbols on display; any attempt at introducing professional advertising in this space failed miserably. The supermarket also contains an excess of goods, but our steps are carefully guided by the compelling lure of commercial brands. We walk around in the shop with a leaflet in our hands, without relying on chance or hoping for anything unexpected to happen between the rows of shelves. In these places, everything out of the ordinary is usually advertised in advance and serves aesthetic purposes. In urban space, social roles are not assigned to an individual; they are achieved (Hannerz 1980, 132). In terms of social prestige, frequenting the THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 259 Stadium was not comparable to going to a pub, club, shopping mall or entertainment center, as bazaar-shopping is shaped by social conventions, contrary to a mall, where shopping is ruled by fashion (Lipovetsky 1994, Szlendak and Pietrowicz 2007). The Stadium-Bazaar evoked social patterns that referred to a highly valued trait in the Polish mentality, namely “cunningness”, which is associated with entrepreneurship, initiative and resourcefulness. The supermarket, by contrast, does not offer this opportunity, because it forces people to parade past the goods. Going to a supermarket in the mid-1990s in Poland, even on a weekday, always involved dressing up. The trendsetting aspect of “attending” is usually reserved for other places, such as fashionable cafés or pubs, but one may also “attend” supermarkets or shopping malls—the non-economic functions of these spaces have already been thoroughly analyzed. However, one could not “attend” the Stadium-Bazaar in the same way. Going to the Stadium-Bazaar was a seasonal expedition, because it mirrored the changes in season rather than fashion trends. It clearly functioned as a market—a place usually visited with a clearly defined purpose. In our culture today things increasingly lose their materiality (Barawski 2007) and become vehicles of lifestyles, aura (in Walter Benjamin’s sense), happy moments and desired circumstances. Usually the symbolic value of an object is emphasized obscuring its use value. The everyday articles (e.g. household items) offered at the Stadium-Bazaar did not substantially differ from the usual assortment available in small-town shops, and in both cases the “orientalism” of the goods of Chinese origin was quite evident. Although these items also have a stylistic appeal which is primary to their practical use, their symbolic potential is inferior to clothes’ because garments are the essential semiotic material of fashion. It was the kind of clothing that determined the recognizable style of the Stadium and its numerous mutations in the Polish popular culture. Obviously, the StadiumBazaar did not generate this particular style but only offered a “delayed” repetition of it. Characterized by aggressive ostentation, this style was originally created by the media and the new expansionist “elite”, which included “actors, show-business stars and some journalists” (Szlendak and Pietrowicz 2007, 12). This new elite “manifests its superiority over the ‘people’, […] who closely observe them, waiting for the next move of the fashion designers, ready to buy counterfeit goods produced in Chinese factories. Fake items are often exaggerated copies, but their similarity to the original is unquestionable. After that the need to introduce new fash- 260 ROCH SULIMA ion arises again, as its function is to differentiate between the elite and the nonelite.” (ibid.) This circulation of fashion is characteristic of popular culture, and mostly defined by “D-Squared, Versace or Dolce&Gabbana designs, with colors and ornaments that are excessively sweet, sharp and aggressive towards the senses” (ibid.). Typical hallmarks of this style in Poland at the beginning of the 21st century were white knee-high boots, clothes with golden and silver imprints and garish tops. By the time the wave of fashion promoted by the “new elite” arrived at the Stadium-Bazaar by means of popular media circulation, it had already reached its climax and would disperse and blend in with more durable structures of social conventions preparing the ground for the next wave. The spectacle of postmodernity: site without history The provisional character of the Stadium-Bazaar triggered a specific media discourse revolving around various versions of its history and future development. The category of “planning” shaped the Polish public discourse on the Stadium in the last few years of its existence. This fact was closely monitored by thousands of vendors and tens of thousands of customers. The “spectacle of agony” of the Stadium-Bazaar was an exceptional phenomenon, on which the Polish media focused in a surprisingly intense process of visualization, aestheticization and theatralization of the site. The spectacle took place between the eviction of traders from the Stadium-Bazaar and the public presentation of the design of the future National Football Stadium (between October 2007 and September 2008). My description of this unstable provisional setting deliberately utilizes the clichés of postmodernity—visualization, aestheticization, theatralization—for they suddenly proved quite useful for spectators and artists who desired to articulate postmodern positions. Artistic performances and installations referred to a poetics of “repetition”, which is faintly reminiscent of “destructive-founding” rituals accentuating the border-like character of a situation. The performances and installations included religious, sport and ludic rituals—the symbolic reenactment of the Pope’s Mass from 1983; the participation of the cyclist Stanis̅aw Królak, the winner of the Peace Race in 1956; the appearance of THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 261 dancers who performed at harvest festivals in communist times. The location of the National Football Stadium on the site of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium later also contributed to this poetics of “repetition”. However, the most famous artistic project pertaining to the 10th-Anniversy Stadium was its Finissage organized by the Laura Palmer Foundation and the BRc Zmiana Foundation. This “artistic farewell” to the Stadium-Bazaar, as it was dubbed by the press, took off in October 2007 and consisted of the following events: “Boniek!”, “Radio Stadium Broadcast”, “Site Inspection”, “Pile Driving” and “Schengen—Control Observation Point”. Some happenings were held even before the official liquidation of the Stadium, e.g. “A Trip to Asia” (June 2006) or the “Bazaar of Tales” organized by the group Studnia O.4 The Stadium-Bazaar became the terrain of ethnographic explorations and the site of filmmaking or photographic sessions, the results of which were displayed in various art galleries. Around the time of its closing, the Stadium attracted both social researchers and artists. Thus, for a short while the Stadium functioned as a site of provisional excess of meaning unique in Europe—a fact confirmed by another event, organized in September 2008: the Red Bull X-Fighters freestyle motocross stunt competition. On this occasion Wojciech Pawczyk from Red Bull Poland told Gazeta Wyborcza that “the company has been making efforts to host this competition in Poland for the last few years. However, we were required to provide a unique venue. In the past, this event took place at a bullfighting arena in Madrid, in an abandoned coal mine in Wuppertal or at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro. The legendary 10th-Anniversary Stadium proved ideal for this purpose, especially on the eve of its destructtion.” (Wojtczuk 2008, 3) The contemporary artistic activities readily evoked lost or abandoned meanings that suddenly reappeared in the public space. The postmodern multitude of meanings and styles reinforced this phenomenon. Modern aesthetics thrived on the rubbles of ideologies, formalized poetics (e.g. socialist realism) and prevalent doctrines that referred to the project of Enlightenment. —————— 4 A more detailed description of most of these artistic events can be found on the following website in English: http://stadion-x-en.blogspot.com/ (accessed: 04.03.2012) 262 ROCH SULIMA These artistic practices aestheticizing the agony of the Stadium-Bazaar were defined by an aesthetics of the “in-between” with dispersion and absence as their basic forms. The ruined Warsaw, the finishing line of the Peace Race, the communist harvest festivals with their collectivist pathos and apotheosis of social engineering—they were all absent. The significance of the site as the main destination of the Pope’s second pilgrimage to Poland diminished, and the spatial and emotional structure of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium sank into oblivion. These multiple absences and voids shed light on each other and expanded the meaning potential of the place. The partial demolition of the Stadium and the spectacular foundation tests carried out prior to the construction of the National Football Stadium (the so-called “pile driving”) also became a source of aesthetic activities. The gaping space that opened up between the absence of the Stadium-Bazaar and the absence of the National Football Stadium attracted various meanings generated from the disintegrating nomad encampment and the carefully structured space of carnivalized sporting and consumer spectacles. The concepts of street art, situational art and so on exploited the threshold-like character of this particular time and place. The artistic activities at the Stadium proved that Warsaw—unlike Berlin—had never before been interpreted from the perspective of “aesthetics of absence”, although the preconditions of such an interpretation are not dissimilar with regard to the two cities. According to Richard Shusterman the aesthetics of absence is perceptible on the level of embodied personal experience of a city, combining the symbolic/imaginary with the real. Following this argument, it is precisely the absence of the Berlin Wall that generates new meanings in Berlin’s urban space (Shusterman 2000). The symbolic economy of “absence” in contemporary Warsaw does not directly refer to the destructions of the Second World War during which 80% of buildings, monuments and technical infrastructure were completely destroyed. The absence of the torn-down quarters in the center of Warsaw is indirectly manifest in the emptiness of the large Parade Square (Plac Defilad), which is symbolically marked with the names of the streets that no longer exist. This void-like character is intensified by the monumental Palace of Culture and Science sitting on the square. Nowadays the perspective of the passer-by seems to represent the dominant mode of experiencing the city, which is especially true for the generations who have no personal memory of the Second World War. THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 263 Therefore, inhabitants need to be secondarily exposed to the memory of the ruined city. The abundant martyrological semiosphere and sacrosphere (together with the communist rhetoric of rebuilding and modernizing) appropriated, officialized and ossified personal or individual ways of experiencing the city. An example of this tendency is the memory of the Warsaw Uprising (1944), which still serves as an important element of the city’s identity evidenced in the immense popularity of the Warsaw Uprising Museum. However, at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries the symbolic economy of “absence” combines the recently developed discourse of “small homelands” with politics, aesthetics and consumption. Identity-building strategies of Warsaw’s inhabitants are therefore constructed on the basis of “localness” (e.g. street festivals or exhibitions of pre-war photographs). Moreover, the “absence” of Jewish districts and culture annihilated during the Second World War has recently turned into a powerful generator of symbolic meaning. The festival of Jewish culture entitled “Warsaw of Singer” is a model example of this tendency. All of these phenomena are just examples of what could be regarded as the Warsaw version of the aesthetics of absence that defines the semiosphere of the city. Nostalgia as aesthetic material Nostalgia seems to be one of the most mediatized phenomena of our times. The incessant creation of nostalgic imageries replacing historical memory and ideological legitimizations of behavior invests the common experience with meaning and facilitates the trajectories of life. The structuring of the daily chaos is nowadays mediated through nostalgia rather than ideology, and historical structures are dispersing in the ecstatic experience of the here and now. The shock of the present replaces Alvin Toffler’s “future shock”. Today, the world is perceived “from here to there”, no longer “from there to here”. It is nostalgia that generates the rhythms of fashion and determines patterns of consumption. One of the characteristic features of contemporary culture is a blurred boundary between museal activity (collecting souvenirs from the StadiumBazaar, which consolidates nostalgia) and parodic activity (distance and a 264 ROCH SULIMA carnival-like character into the imagery of the Stadium-Bazaar). Carnivalized forms were sought after at the Stadium-Bazaar by tourists, gawkers, passers-by, researchers, students and artists, to some extent even by customers who were looking for alternatives, opportunities or even exciting shopping experiences. At that time, also the social myth of Praga underwent a significant change, and the district is now inhabited by both bohemians and “authentic bums”. However, the real carnivalesque forms of social interaction—in the sense that Mikhail Bakhtin ascribed to this notion—have long since vanished, only older generations might remember them from traditional fairs or markets. Carnivalization was thus only mentally inscribed in the bazaar. It merely functioned as another commodity in the form of exotic circumstances of exchange, too alien to be appropriated by the advertising discourse, which usually seems to act as a demiurge creator of reality. A Coco Chanel handbag purchased “someplace else”, not in a retail outlet or shopping mall but on the bazaar sheds new light on the magical and mythical cult of brands. The sense of suspension, provisionality and the threshold-like character of the situation evident in the narratives of the vendors and in the media discourse manifested itself also in the commemorative events and carnivalesque performances aiming at aestheticizing the Stadium. The last Sunday in September 2007 (the last trading day at the bazaar) abounded with happenings which the media recounted as a wake or funeral reception with ludic undertones. People gathered around stalls, listened to pop music, drank alcohol, sang and danced to bid farewell to the Stadium-Bazaar. Solemn speeches were delivered, epitaphs recited, cardboard tombstones erected and candles were lit.5 Also, the unwritten prohibition on photographing was lifted on that special day. The aesthetic, carnivalesque performances of artists and the “funeral” rituals initiated by the vendors heralded a change of status of the StadiumBazaar. Transcultural processes were mediated through local rituals and ceremonies, and through a somatic experience of space. —————— 5 It could be worthwhile to do research on cemetery candles as favored gadgets in contemporary Polish popular culture. THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 265 Stadium-Bazaar as a place that absorbs history Any analysis of the phenomenon of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium must take into account the significant transformations in the social perception and experience of space. These are described as the so-called “spatial turn” and interpreted as processes of cultural “deterritorialization” or treated as performatization of the social space from the perspective of anthropological aesthetics or anthropology of tourism. These transformations have, for instance, been identified in the changing conceptions of contemporary tourist guides. Figure 5: The new National Football Stadium built for the European Football Championship 2012 on the site of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium (Photo: Stanis̅aw Barawski) Nowadays space is created rather than inherited. The processes mentioned above have caused a steadily intensifying narrativization and performativization of actual places now perceived as “mobile” or “in motion”. This was specifically evident in the case of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium in Warsaw. The gap between the administrative liquidation of the Stadium-Bazaar and the public visualization of the design of the future National Football 266 ROCH SULIMA Stadium allowed “inscribing” various creative forms into this site in an attempt to perform postmodernity on the rubbles of the old system that was “the archaic post-communist capitalism” (Schöny 2008, 12). Therefore, it was not a place entirely devoid of qualities, since it had its own political history, the episodes of which were recreated during the Finissage festival and other artistic performances. The rule of “repetition” is one of the earliest generators of memory and often leads to a scarification of reality. Although repetition may not be able to revive reality, it can nevertheless serve as a spectacle of history and its aesthetic transformation, appropriation or interception with carnivalesque, ironic or sanctifying purposes. It seems that Guy Debord’s diagnosis that the function of “spectacle” in the “society of spectacle” is “to make history forgotten within culture” (Debord 1977, 191) still holds true. The void after the 10th-Anniversary Stadium escaped history understood as social “obligation”, and became a “playground” for “practicing” and “staging” history as a spectacle, thereby creating many different memories of urban space. Roland Schöny comments on this fact with regard to the Finissage: “At the very moment when irreversible measures of restructuring affecting entire districts of the city of Warsaw were commencing, this raised the question of which patterns of recollection would determine the inscription of the consequences of this urban renewal into our consciousness.” (2008, 12) The author warns against the interpretation of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium as a site of memory (in the sense that Pierre Nora ascribed to this notion). The possible manifestations of real memories have been subjected to processes of suppression and dispersion during the last few years. They were dominated by the powerful media discourse of the Euro 2012 project and the construction of the National Football Stadium. “For in the process of permanent absorption of events by the media, our mode of perception seems to be radically changing. All perception of historical processes is on the verge of dissolving into the orbit of media representation; in the process of increasing acceleration every event immediately turns into a media event.” (ibid.) The symbiosis of media, sports, politics and aesthetics is perhaps most distinctly expressed in the figure of the stadium (Rancière 2004), which represents a powerful influential social machinery. The National Football Stadium functions as a recognizable figure of thinking about contemporary Warsaw, a “generator of changes”, even if THE LABORATORY OF POLISH POSTMODERNITY 267 only called for rather than realized. It is an architectural and administrative challenge and it models the processes of managing the public space in Warsaw. As such it does not offer opportunities to cultivate, create or stabilize memory; it is directed toward the future, the “frame” of which is probably going to be socially and discursively abundant, albeit short-lived. (Translated by Pawe̅ Dobrosielski) References Appadurai, Arjun (1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Barawski, Janusz (2007). ｬwiat rzeczy. Zarys antropologiczny. Kraków: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Jagiellowskiego. Debord, Guy (1977). The Society of the Spectacle. Translated from French by Fredy Perlman and John Supak. Detroit: Black & Red. Donnan, Hastings, and Thomas M. Wilson (1999). Borders: Frontiers of Identity, Nation and State. New York: Berg. Douglas, Mary (1997). In defence of shopping. In Pasi Falk and Collin Campbell (eds.). The Shopping Experience, 15–30. London: Sage. Gross, Feliks (1936). Nomadism. Studies on Nomadism and its Influence on Society, Organisation and Law. With a Preface by Bronis̅aw Malinowski. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Kasy im. Mianowskiego—Instytutu Popierania Nauki. Hannerz, Ulf (1980). Exploring the City. Inquiries Toward an Urban Archeology. New York: Columbia University Press. Kempny, Marian, and Jacek Szmatka (1992). Wspó̅czesne teorie wymiany spo̅ecznej. Zbiór tekstów. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. Ko̅odziejczyk, Marcin, and Piotr Pytlakowski (2007). Stadion PiRciolecia. Polityka 19, 12 May. Lipovetsky, Gilles (1994). The Empire of Fashion. Dressing Modern Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pessel, W̅odzimierz Karol (2010). Antropologia nieczystoｭci. Studia z kultury sanitarnej Warszawy. Warszawa: Trio and Collegium Civitas. Pliwska, Weronika (2007). Przemytnicy—studium terenowe. Warszawa: [Manuscript]. Rancière, Jacques (2004). Malaise dans l’Esthétique. Paris: Éditions Galilée. Rewers, Ewa (2005). Post-polis. WstRp do filozofii ponowoczesnego miasta. Kraków: Universitas. Schöny, Roland (2008). On the playground of fragmentary reconstruction. In Joanna Warsza (ed.). Stadium X: A Place that Never Was. A Reader, 8f. Kraków: Ha!Art. 268 ROCH SULIMA Shusterman, Richard (2000). Performing Live: Aesthetic Alternatives for the Ends of Art. Ithaca (N.Y.): Cornell University Press. Szlendak, Tomasz, and Krzysztof Pietrowicz (2007). Moda, wolnoｭ6 i kultura konsumpcji. In Tomasz Szlendak and Krzysztof Pietrowicz (eds.). Rozkoszna zaraza. O rzCdach mody w kulturze konsumpcji, 7–26. Wroc̅aw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wroc̅awskiego. Sztompka, Piotr (2000). Trauma wielkiej zmiany. Spo̅eczne koszty transformacji. Warszawa: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk. Wojtczuk, Micha̅ (2008). Ostatnia próba stadionu. Gazeta Sto̅eczna, 24 June. Wyka, Kazimierz (1984). ﾈycie na niby. PamiRtnik po klRsce. Kraków–Wroc̅aw: Wydawnictwo Literackie. Space, Class and the Geography of Poland’s Champagne (Post-)Socialism Kacper Pob̅ocki One of the most perceptive analyses of how class and leftist politics have been inexorably intertwined in the 20th century can be found in George Orwell’s magnificent The Road to Wigan Pier. The issue tackled by Orwell is the stark difficulty, if not impossibility, of middle class intellectuals and the working classes forging a genuine and enduring class alliance. The main impediment seemed to be the “ugly fact that most middle-class Socialists, while theoretically pining for a classless society, cling like glue to their miserable fragments of social prestige” (Orwell 2001, 162). Although they easily muster sympathy for the imputed proletariat, had they been confronted by an actual worker “they would have been embarrassed, angry, and disgusted; some, I should think, would have fled holding their noses” (ibid., 163). This enmity, to be sure, was mutual. “One sometimes gets the impression,” Orwell explained, “that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist and feminist” (ibid., 161). Many working-class people told Orwell they did not object to socialism per se, but that they did object to socialists on personal grounds, and often perceived them as cranks. Orwell concluded that overcoming these prejudices is exceedingly hard—even unmanageably so—because “to abolish class distinction means abolishing a part of yourself” (ibid., 149). Beyond the “placial turn” Although Orwell’s analysis is firmly anchored in the social and political realities of pre-war Britain, this conundrum of class, to borrow Martin Burke’s (1995) phrase, soon became a global phenomenon. Communism 270 KACPER POBŽOCKI did the same (Priestland 2010) and consequently the question of the relation between leftist elites and the rank-and-file, or the phenomenon of “champagne socialism”, as it is often described, spread globally. There are many variations on this theme, including “parlor pink”, “limousine liberal”, “gauche caviar”, or “Bollinger Bolshevik”. This concept has also been applied outside of strictly leftist politics—for example Jonathan Friedman (2004) has written extensively on global neo-liberalism in this vein. Since Orwell’s times, this problem, as well as going global, also gained a peculiar urban, or spatial, twist. The two are, of course, related. Suketu Mehta (2005), for example, compellingly described the rift between the old cosmopolitan elites in Mumbai and the “new barbarians”, swarming to, and slowly overtaking, the city, even altering its name in the process. Although as James Ferguson (1999) compellingly showed, “cosmopolitanism” is not necessarily an exclusively high-brow endeavor, just as “localism” can be espoused by the elites, the two strategies, or urban styles as he called them, are usually contrasted. In the Polish case, however, they are not. The most intriguing Polish equivalent of “champagne socialism” is Warszawka—i.e. diminutive or petty Warsaw and one of the derogatory terms used today (as well as in the past) to criticize Polish elites. It encapsulates the idea of detachment, cosmopolitanism and lifestyle revolving around consumption which remains thoroughly local, or even parochial, at the same time. Unlike gauche caviar and the like, Warszawka has a very tangible geographical dimension; and it this aspect of Poland’s champagne (post-) socialism to which I wish to turn my attention. Warszawka is a vernacular term, and of course it is multi-layered in its meaning.1 It can be used to denote a vast array of social groups, themselves often barely related, beginning with Poland’s political and cultural elite, and including the nouveau riche and even the mafia (Kusiak 2012). But, as I wish to argue in this chapter, although it explicitly identifies Warsaw as the city that both produces and hosts those alienated elites, to fully understand this phenomenon we need to analyze it not in terms of a “place” but in terms of “space”. The so-called “spatial turn” in the social sciences has been by and large superficial and, as Edward Soja recently noted, has been confined to proliferation of “a few pertinent spatial metaphors such as mapping this or that or using such words like cartography, region or landscape” so as to —————— 1 It is not a term that one can find in a dictionary, and hence it can be spelled in a number of ways, including Warszafka, or Warszaffka. POLAND’S CHAMPAGNE (POST-)SOCIALISM 271 create the appearance that these authors are “moving with the times” (Soja 2010, 14). The so-called “spatial turn” has in many ways been, in fact, a “placial” turn, if I may be forgiven for using such a maladroit neologism. As David Harvey (2009, 2010, 2012) argued, space as a political problem and as a research agenda is much more difficult to grapple. Unlike the alienating, distant, and anonymous space, place often manifests itself as authentic, intimate, and meaningful. Even if treated with all the usual caveats (see Keith and Pile 1993, Gupta and Ferguson 1997 or Burawoy 2009 for classical approaches in this vein) place remains a rather static concept (see Chu 2010). One can easily be “in” place while space remains a fugitive research object since it is characterized by processes of “becoming” and not those of “being”. Writing about space remains to be a methodological challenge. What is interesting about Warszawka is precisely that it has shifted from a “placial” to a “spatial” phenomenon. Seen as a problem of space and not of place, Warszawka is not as much about the city of Warsaw as it is about the relationship between Warsaw and the outside world. Cities are bounded entities only in the narrow, administrative sense; it would be a fatal mistake to accept these boundaries on the intellectual level. The relational reading of Warsaw’s “structured urban coherence” (Harvey 1989) that I undertake in this chapter has to transcend Warsaw’s territory. Only as an integral part of a larger, spatial whole can we begin to “make sense” of Warsaw as a distinct phenomenon in the spatial, cultural, social and other senses. Warsaw is not only a city in its own right but is also, perhaps primarily, the national capital. Thus, I argue that one cannot understand contemporary Warsaw without understanding both the “rolling back of the nation-state”, the accelerating centralization of spatial regimes, and the phenomenon Jonathan Friedman (2004) called the “double polarization” between the metropolitan and cosmopolitan elites and the increasingly parochial and “localized” rank-and-file citizens. This is compounded by the uneven development (Smith 2011) between rapidly developing and rapidly deteriorating urban regions, global urbanization and neo-liberalization, class-formation processes and withering away of the urban–rural divide. All these processes come together in the concept of Warszawka and this is why I unravel it in this chapter. 272 KACPER POBŽOCKI Consumption and class formation Most people assume that Warszawka is a new post-socialist phenomenon. In many ways, the heyday of Warszawka, i.e. the period when it served as one of the “key symbols” (Ortner 1973) of Poland’s transition to capitalism, spanned the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Fin de millénaire Warsaw was in many ways the pinnacle of Poland’s aspirations. While many small towns and especially the countryside plunged into dire straits, Warsaw was dynamically developing and was becoming the crucible of Polish-style capitalism (Dunn 2004). The very first crisis that immediately followed the “shock therapy” of 1989 was largely narrated and understood in the language that germinated during the 1980s. Much of the public debate throughout the 1990s revolved around the ongoing struggle, with all its corollaries, between the former communists and the erstwhile Solidarnoｭ6 movement. The second crisis that unfolded between 1998 and 2003 was, as David Ost put it, “the first crisis of capitalism itself rather than of the transition to capitalism” (Ost 2004, 166; original emphasis), and paved the way for a new reality. While most other Polish cities actually reindustrialized in the 2000s (see Kalb 2009), Warsaw followed the “Spanish model” of late semi-peripheral capitalism (López and Rodríguez 2011). It was based on the influx of foreign-based, highly financialized investments, large infrastructural projects, high levels of residential construction, the ideology of home-ownership, low-paid migrant labor and conspicuous consumption (see also Drahokoupil 2008). All this ushered in a new language in which Polish capitalism was talked about. Although 1989 is usually seen as the starting point of Poland’s road to capitalism, in many ways, and especially from the urban perspective, the real watershed moment occurred around the year 2004. The financialized, metropolitan, corporate and cosmopolitan capitalism of the 2000s differed quite radically from the small-scale, entrepreneurial and “car-boot sale” capitalism of the 1990s. The return to the urban is particularly pertinent. Most of Poland’s urban built environment was formed during a period I have described elsewhere (Pob̅ocki 2012) as the “long Sixties” (1956– 1979), in which Poland changed from a rural to an urban society, or, to be more precise, when Poland became a suburban society by way of the socialist building boom, which predominantly manifested itself in the construction of public housing coronas surrounding the historic inner cities. The “long Sixties” were followed by a period of protracted urban crisis, POLAND’S CHAMPAGNE (POST-)SOCIALISM 273 roughly lasting between 1980 and 2003, when the number of new constructions plummeted, at its nadir matching the construction levels of the early 1950s, and the existing urban infrastructure became increasingly under-financed and under-maintained. After the long hiatus, the project of urban expansion picked up during the 2000s building boom and Polish cities, Warsaw included, again became an object of interest and public debate. The return to urbanization was a return to employing consumption, both individual and collective, in the redrawing of social boundaries. Usually “classes” are seen as a static and descriptive phenomenon. Yet, as E.P. Thompson once put it, “classes do not exist as separate entities, look around, find an enemy class, and then start to struggle” (in Joyce 1995, 136). Instead, class struggle and class formation always resurface when there is social mobility, both upward and downward, at work, and when we see “transitional” moments between various socio-economic regimes—like in Poland at the turn of the millennium. Concepts like Warszawka are among critical elements of contemporary class struggles—Warszawka does not denote a single class, or even social group, but instead expresses the highly complex, dynamic and conflictual aspect of the class phenomenon. It is so because class struggles on the urban turf have a peculiar, consumption-centered nature. As a response to the under-consumption of the 1930s, post-war cities turned increasingly “Keynesian”, and, as David Harvey insisted, their “social, economic and political life [was] organized around the theme of state-backed, debt-financed consumption” (Harvey 1989, 37). Thus in both East and West “the urban question”, as Manuel Castells once argued, referred “to the organization of the means of collective consumption at the basis of the daily life of all social groups: housing, education, health, culture, commerce, transport” (Castells 1982, 3). Thus, Warszawka swiftly captures the fact that metropolitan life is a class phenomenon: although consumption, the linchpin of financial capitalism, is universally desired it can be accessible only to the limited few. There is a poignant scene in the documentary Warsaw Up For Grabs (Warszawa do wziRcia, 2009) where a girl from one of the most derelict postsocialist rural areas tries to “make it or break it” in Warsaw, looks at the city’s landscape and sights “Warszawka”—and the uncanny combination of hope and disappointment is captured in this single word. The title of this documentary is a reference to a feature film Homemakers Up for Grabs (Dziewczyny do wziRcia, 1972) which became one of the most popular films 274 KACPER POBŽOCKI around the turn of the millennium when “nostalgia” for socialism germinated (Sarkisova and Apor 2007). Although most commentators understood the revived interest in the socialist cultural heritage as mainly a political phenomenon (often as a misguided form of resistance toward the harsh realities of the post-socialist transition), it seems that nostalgia for the socialist past was also, or even especially, about reviving the somehow forlorn heritage of Poland’s “urban way of life”. The film tells the story of three teenage girls going to Warsaw in search of romance. They are picked up by two working-class boys who pose as successful professionals. They take the girls first to a coffeehouse and then to an apartment which they borrowed from a friend. There is a compelling moment in which the group drinks cognac taken from the apartment’s bar, which turns out to be colored water. This scene captures the idea that the brave new world of urban consumption is there only to be looked at but not to be had—a neat parallel with Warsaw itself. Warsaw is the pinnacle of Poland’s metropolitan ambitions, the springboard for upward class mobility and the only city where one can rub shoulders with celebrities and steal a glimpse of that make-believe world of urban consumption. Another scene from the film that became very popular in the early 2000s is where one of the girls eats an extravagantly large and obviously very sweet dessert. As she goes along, enjoying the treat becomes increasingly difficult, and we see how she struggles to keep up the appearances. Eventually she bursts out in tears, and finally throws up. It is no accident that this feature became popular in the early 2000s; the three untoward girls, incapable of being truly urban and making all sorts of cultural faux pas in 1972, struggling to be metropolitan but being ridiculous in the process, returned with a vengeance thirty years later as an object of mockery. At this exact time Warsaw was experiencing another urban boom and was being swarmed by such “culturally incompetent” young migrants, just as was shown in the 2009 documentary. Space and vertical encompassment It is hardly surprising that in 2003, Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s leading newspaper, published a series of interviews with a number of Warsaw’s influential figures on the topic of Warszawka. This material helps in explaining POLAND’S CHAMPAGNE (POST-)SOCIALISM 275 why “petty Warsaw” became the nickname for Poland’s post-socialist elites. The diminutive aspect of Warszawka alludes to the cronyism of Poland’s elites. The idea is that “they” are on familiar terms with one another, but distant, aloof or even hostile to those who are outside their circle of friends or acquaintances. Warszawka, in the most narrow sense, referred to a group of friends who would meet regularly in one of Warsaw’s posh bars, cafés or restaurants, many of which were private members-only clubs. Sometimes Warszawka was used to describe the children of Poland’s elites from the communist period who in the 1990s made spectacular careers in show business, mass media, advertising, and so on (see Zmarz-Koczanowicz 2002 for their collective portrait). They often knew each other from prestigious Warsaw high schools and therefore had a competitive advantage in terms of their “social capital” over people living in Warsaw but growing up elsewhere. At the same time, however, because Warsaw is a migrant city par excellence, and because the “transition” years are those of both upward and downward social mobility, Warszawka can also be rather porous. It has a strong nouveau riche connotation—Warszawka is often employed to describe the emergent power nexus between business, large corporations and politics. A graduate of a prestigious Warsaw high school described Warszawka thus: “It’s a group of snobs, vain people, those who do not want to have fun, but instead show off” (Sadowska 2003). The phenomenon of Warszawka, she argued, “is actually most visible outside of Warsaw. I remember when I attended an advertising festival in Cracow. I was sitting in a bar, and suddenly there they were: money and showing-off. Laughing loud, being totally boorish. They were trying to pick up girls by saying they were from Warsaw. Awful!” (ibid.) Dorota Mas̅owska, then a teenage writer from a small town whose debut became a literary sensation, described Warszawka in a similar vein: “When I was a kid, we saw cars with Warsaw number plates passing through our towns. They had their windows open and were playing loud music. They ran over small animals and left us covered in dust. They behaved like noblemen amongst the peasantry.” (Mas̅owska 2003) Both Sadowska and Mas̅owska show that Warszawka, apart from being a question of “place” (that is, one describing the tensions between older and newer elites within Warsaw), it is also a problem of “space” and of what Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (2002) have described as the “vertical 276 KACPER POBŽOCKI encompassment” of spatialized state structures. This concept describes the popular notion that the state is both “up there”, i.e. far away, distant and alienating, and that it is simultaneously “everywhere” in the sense that it somehow permeates people’s everyday lives and routines. Although it is unlikely that people from Warsaw are the only ones who display “rude” behavior while on holidays, the fact that encounters between them and people from the “hinterland” have found a cultural expression in the idea of Warszawka is quite telling. These unexpected encounters with distant “elites” demonstrate the realness and truthfulness of the idea that Warsaw exists as a space, or extends to the whole country as a spatialized state. In other words, when rank-and-file citizens are confronted with Warszawka, they experience for themselves the “vertical encompassment” of the spatialized state; they realize that a “concrete abstraction” such as the state actually exists and is sufficiently real. Warszawka, to put it another way, is the “human face” that Poles attribute to the alienating, exploitative, and currently shrinking, post-socialist state structures, and it is the way they narrate the changing geography of centrality and marginality in contemporary Poland. Urbanization without cities One of the problems with the “placial turn” in the social sciences is that the formerly rigid distinction between the country and the city, between the rural and urban ways of life, has recently become obsolete. The “global 1968” (Horn and Kenney 2004) was in many ways the watershed moment that paved the way for what David Harvey (2012) described as the third critical moment in the modern history of cities when urbanization reached a new level. The first one was the remaking of Paris by Baron Haussmann in the middle of the 19th century. The second one was the rebuilding of the New York metropolitan region by Robert Moses after 1945. The third one has been associated with global neo-liberalization. As a consequence, the city is no longer a “central place,” surrounded by and opposed to a rural world, but rather a space, or a continuous sprawl. “The clear distinction,” wrote Harvey, “that once existed between the urban and the rural was gradually fading into a set of porous spaces of uneven geographical development under the hegemonic command of capital and state” (2012, 19). POLAND’S CHAMPAGNE (POST-)SOCIALISM 277 Hence, the “urban revolution” that Henri Lefebvre (2003) once wrote about, and his “hypothesis” that the world will one day be one hundred per cent urbanized, materialized. “Urban society can only be described as global” (Lefebvre 2003, 167) not because everybody lives in a place defined as a city in the administrative sense, but because the reach of urbanization as a cultural and social phenomenon is today entirely universal. Thus we should no longer treat the city as a “placial” phenomenon, and instead talk about spatial regimes and the various forms of emergent “cityness” (Simone 2010) they engender. The bellwether of the globalization of urbanization has been, as Harvey (2012) mentioned, communist China. But for a long time researchers have not recognized the fact that, in Lefebvre’s words, “socialist countries have shown as much initiative (more or less successful) in urbanization as they have in industrialization” (2003, 138; see Kotkin 1996 and Collier 2011 for notable exceptions). On both sides of the Iron Curtain there was a trend to move from “supply-side” (production-driven) to “demand-side” (consumption-based) urbanization (Pob̅ocki 2012). As a consequence, “the locus of urban politics shifted from away from alliances of classes” forged in the workplace toward “more diffuse coalitions of interests around themes of consumption, distribution, and the production and control of space. The ‘urban crisis’ of the 1960s bore all the marks of that transition” (Harvey 1989, 37f.). In the West, as Alain Touraine noted, the social movements of 1968 manifested themselves as “a new form of the class struggle. More than any other collective action of the last decades, this movement revealed and thus constituted the fundamental conflict of our society” (in Tilly 1975, 23). 1968 in Poland also revealed the emergent new fundamental social cleavage, or one of the key class divisions in the new, urban society, but it did so in a very different way. The critical transition of the “long Sixties” can also be understood as a move away from a “place-centered” regime to a “space-centered” way of exercising power. It was also around the Polish 1968 that the contemporary meaning of Warszawka germinated. The very idea of Warszawka harks back to at least the interwar period and was initially a very local phenomenon—it denoted the group of literati that frequented Warsaw’s most important literary coffeehouse, the Ziemiawska (Kusiak and Kacperski this volume). This whole echelon of left-leaning intellectuals was brilliantly portrayed by Marci Shore (2006) in her generational biography. The very first use of the word Warszawka I came across was in a somewhat gleeful 278 KACPER POBŽOCKI passage on the passing away of the pre-war bourgeois culture published in 1946: “Warszawka—pink and glittering with dancing halls’ neons, vulgarized in jazz staccatos, driving around in furious taxis and gorging on Wiener schnitzels—has been charred to ashes” (in Brzostek 2007, 173). This line of critique, however, was already quite old. In 1923, a Polish poet, Mieczys̅aw Braun, described his recent visit to “that terrible city” thus: “Ziemiawska breathes poison on me with its badly disguised distaste and ill will” (in Shore 2006, 30f.). The “light” and playful aesthetic of the Skamander poetry group that constituted the core of the Ziemiawska regulars was, according to him, unfitted for the modern world. He was particularly scornful of: “[…] those whitened sepulchers, those insipid mediocrities, heads without talent, for whom everything is easy, who have an answer for everything, who sniff out and go after ‘catchy words’ and ‘sayings’, not knowing that it’s necessary to mature into every poem, to reach the poem by hard, internal labor, who finally in the fact of the matter are equally distant from poetry as they are from ethics.” (ibid.) I surveyed a number of literary works from the pre-war period that were both based in Warsaw and dealt with the issue of elite life, but none of them contained the term “Warszawka”. It seems that it was most probably a colloquial word used only among the very narrow circle of the Warsaw literati and it gained broader purchase only after the Second World War. In fact, in 1959, a budding literary magazine Wspó̅czesnoｭ6 that became the trumpet for a new generation of leftist poets—those who had no roots in pre-war Polish Marxism and were too young to have colluded with Stalinism—employed the idea of Warszawka to critique an older generation of Polish writers. Although the Skamander poetry “drew upon the spoken language and in this sense reflected the more general impulse of leftist intellectuals to liberate themselves from bourgeoisie elitism,” their young post-war critics emphasized that Skamander’s playful and cabaret-like aesthetic was gullible, elitist and inadequate for the modern world (Wspó̅czesnoｭ6 1959, 5). This debate resonated across the country, and even local dailies referred to it. Soon, Warszawka was used to denote all of Warsaw’s leftist intellectuals, including the younger generation from Wspó̅czesnoｭ6. This idea was quickly picked up by the local media in other cities and in 1966, for example, Odg̅osy, a weekly magazine from Žódﾇ published an editorial which spitefully described Warsaw intellectuals: POLAND’S CHAMPAGNE (POST-)SOCIALISM 279 “Just take a look at photographs published in the latest Kultura, […] these refined gentlemen are our top pundits debating pornography. Please look carefully at these ties, at this wonderful play of countenances and hands, at Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz holding a wine glass. What a truly European grace, what a refined nonchalance and self-assertion!” (Jaﾉdﾉywski 1966) Their style was, Odg̅osy commented, a blend of feigned modesty and cryptic language, “unintelligible to a common citizen from the cultural hinterland” (ibid.). Teoplitz argued that sexual revolution was far more advanced in Poland than in, say, Sweden. For Swedes, he claimed, sexual intercourse was merely a hygienic affair, whereas Poles engaged in their love life more emotionally. This was summed up by Odg̅osy sarcastically: “A Warsaw-like discussion always unfolds thus: first readers find out that they are completely incompetent in what is being talked about and then they receive in compensation some lousy compliment—that, for example, their conduct is more edifying than that of the Swedes. No wonder then the Swedes raided us in the 17th century, and not the other way around!” (ibid.) Thus we see a shift from Warszawka being a local, Varsovian notion to being a notion that described the relationship between Polish elites, based in Warsaw, to the rest of the country. What is also important to bear in mind is that there was a touch of what could easily be interpreted as antiSemitism in that critique. Many of the Skamander poets who frequented the Ziemiawska café were of Jewish descent, and despite the fact that most of them abjured Jewish culture as overly traditional and embraced Polish culture, the critique of their “light-hearted” and playful register was sometimes couched in racial terms. For example in his reply to Braun quoted above, a leading poet W̅adys̅aw Broniewski confessed: “I’m fed up with those Jewish literati from Ziemiawska.” The Slavs, he argued, have a very different “relationship to truth in life, in creative work, in everything.” The Jews “are masters of outcry, of a noisy-gloomy passion entangled in itself, of boasting,” while the Slavs have “an intellect that is heavier qualitatively and with deeper, farther-flowing current” (in Shore 2006, 30f.). Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz, like many of the towering figures of Polish culture of the 1960s, was of Jewish descent, and together with many other people accused in 1968 of being “hidden Jews” was sacked. Yet, as I argue below, the Polish 1968 was much more than only a sudden outburst of virulent anti-Semitism. 280 KACPER POBŽOCKI The new geography of centrality Much has been written about both the Polish 1968 and Polish anti-Semitism (Gross 2006; OsRka 2008; Eisler 2006). What interests me here is how these events revealed the ulterior rules underpinning the incipient Polish urban regime and latent class hierarchies embedded in it. It is instructive to realize that in Poland 1968 is remembered, narrated, and encoded in historiography in temporal terms as the “March events” (wydarzenia marcowe). Contrast this to the previous outburst of post-war anti-Semitism—the socalled Kielce pogrom of 1946. The Kielce pogrom was a three-day long, city-wide spree of looting, killing and appropriation of the “former Jewish” and “former German” property (Gross 2006). The “March events” on the other hand were a country-wide exercise in “state capture”. Unlike in 1946, the main dynamo of the anti-Semitic upsurge was not looting but purging state apparatus. The “effluvia of hatred”, as Adam Michnik (1999) described it, erupted in all of Poland’s major cities, and especially at key institutions—such as the military, universities, and factories. The fast pace at which events unfolded, as well as their enormous scope, contributed to the sense of a certain placelessness of the “March events”. While the strikes of 1945–1947and the upheavals of 1956 were rather “place-bound”—because in 1968 taking over the entire state apparatus was at stake (via purging the party of unwanted members)—the “March events” unfolded more in “space” rather than in “a place”. In other words, Poland in 1968 was a very different country from that from two decades earlier. The communist rule, as Kenney (1996) brilliantly described, was being established on the shop floors of Žódﾇ—the city that served as Poland’s de facto capital until circa 1950, when Warsaw was eventually rebuilt. Kenney brilliantly demonstrated the weakness of both state structures and Polish communists—instead of imposing their will onto the people, they had to accommodate to the working-class moral economy and tinker numerous means of swaying and cajoling workers into “amicable co-operation”. By 1948 the communists, mainly by instigating a conflict between the young unskilled rural migrants and shop stewards of the older generation, had established a firm grip over the industry. Yet, they were unable to control the city—the youth was fairly disciplined in the workplace, but proved entirely “unruly” outside the factory gates. This is how “hooliganism” (a high-brow word for spontaneous proletarian urban life) became the bane of Stalinism; the new urban working-class cultures POLAND’S CHAMPAGNE (POST-)SOCIALISM 281 served in turn as the basis for 1956 demands for more direct democracy in the workplace. The solution to the 1956 crisis lay in urbanization. Once the authorities realized that many unruly boys and girls were happy to become fathers and mothers, and move into their own apartment furnished with home appliances and so forth, the urban expansion coupled with socialist consumerism began. As a consequence Poland, for the first time in history, became a majority-urban country (for more see Pob̅ocki 2010). The socialist urbanization, however, was very different from the previous wave of urban growth associated with industrialization (this is also true of the Soviet Union—see Collier 2011). Industrial cities like Žódﾇ (but also Warsaw) grew in the 19th century at the expense of the surrounding countryside and small towns. Most of the urban growth after 1956, however, was channeled not to the largest cities but rather to second or even thirdtier towns. Urbanization thus became the method of extending the communist rule from the largest cities to the country at large. As Poland was becoming an entirely urbanized country (in Lefebvre’s understanding), cities like Warsaw or Cracow ceased being urban islands in a rural ocean, but instead became key nodes in the new urban hierarchy. Many of them, including industrial hubs like Žódﾇ, started deindustrializing and moved factories from the inner cities to the suburban fringe or even to smaller towns. In other words, the largest cities were no longer opposed to the countryside, but instead started competing with one another, and did so also on the cultural turf (Pob̅ocki 2011). Warsaw was the leader of this “metropolitanization”, or, as the phrase of the time had it, “Europeanization” of Polish cities (Brzostek 2007, 136f.). The rebuilding of Warsaw’s historical center was officially completed in 1963. Very quickly it became a site of tourism and consumption. But, together with the no longer existing Ziemiawska café, it also became an uncanny reminder of pre-war Warsaw that had been long gone (ibid., 142). Warsaw’s center turned from a place of elite cultural life to an administrative quarter. When strolling on its main thoroughfare, the Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street, a literati was shocked to discover that he no longer met friends and acquaintances there, but instead was surrounded by an anonymous crowd. In a spirit truly reminiscent of Jane Jacobs, he lamented the passing away of Warsaw as an urban place and its new role as part and parcel of the anonymous space shaped by administrative logic and complained that inner-city streets resemble now “empty office corridors” 282 KACPER POBŽOCKI teeming with “faceless supplicants” instead of sophisticated flaneurs (in ibid., 141). Thus, the new overarching dichotomy in post-war Poland was no longer the urban–rural divide, but instead the cleavage between the largest cities, places that had the most “metropolitan” outlook, and the rest of the country. This is how the urban makeover was often assessed: for example when in 1955 some of the Warsaw cafés set up tables on the streets, one pundit remarked that “they want to turn Warsaw into Paris, but they forget that we cannot even afford the Koluszki standards” (in Brzostek 2007, 196). Koluszki is a small town, and here it served as the yardstick of a quintessential hicks-ville that in the emergent city–town continuum stood at the opposite end to Warsaw. Figure 1: Banner “The most beautiful Varsovian women are commuters” mounted outside the Žódﾇ Fabryczna train station; a project by local artist Cezary Bodzianowski2 (Photo: Andrzej Grzelak / Galeria Manhattan) —————— 2 The project wittily commented the fact that over 500.000 people commute every day to Warsaw for work. Among them, 150.000 come from the Žódﾇ region, which may be and is often seen as sucking out the most valuable human resources from the city of Žódﾇ. The banner was part of the project “Binary City. Žódﾇ-Warszawa: Utopia and Reality”. POLAND’S CHAMPAGNE (POST-)SOCIALISM 283 All this was hardly a frictionless process. Even within Warsaw conflicts between residents and the new metropolitan consumer class erupted (Brzostek 2007, 196). The changing geography of centrality and marginality produced discontents especially outside of the capital. Just as in the United States 1968 saw an alliance between the impoverished, racially discriminated and disfranchised black inhabitants of the inner cities and white youth rebelling against the callous suburban lifestyles of their parents, the Polish 1968 brought together the various social groups that shared the sentiment of being left behind in the national stampede to “get established materially” (dorobi6 siR)—as the popular phrase of the 1960s had it (Pob̅ocki 2012). Thus, the roots of the Polish 1968 lay at the conflation of urban and class transformations. Zygmunt Bauman, only a few months after he had been expelled from Poland, interpreted the “March events” thus: “Following the post-war revolutionary transformations, the ladder in most of the Polish administration, in the army and amongst the middle rungs of the party apparatus had become overly flat. The problem of professional advancement—the most acute of problems in all bureaucracies—was not solved by the automatic mechanism of seniority [wys̅uga lat]. In the old days, this problem was thus resolved either by mass purges or by artificial multiplication of state jobs [rozdmuchiwanie etatów]. For the past twelve years, none of these methods were in use. It was long enough for increasingly larger swathes of the ambitious and the frustrated to coalesce together.” (in Eisler 2006, 54f.) The 1968 anti-Semitism was unlike the traditional “production-based nationalism” of the Polish workers (Crago 2000). Instead, it was consumption-based, and dealt with state-administered redistribution of goods, privileges and, more generally, with the issue of collective consumption. In 1967 an anonymous letter sent to one of the newspapers read: “After twenty years of austerity, people expect that we can now afford to have free public transit.” Not only were the trams and buses overcrowded, but “it turns out that the price for fares have recently been doubled.” Many actually blamed this on the “automobile-driving Jews” and the “red aristocracy”. The idea was that the Jews could afford to buy and drive cars “thanks to our money” and by appropriating the common property “they exploit the rest of us” (in Brzostek 2007, 319). Such anti-Semitism was often coupled with anti-Warsaw sentiments. Soon after the purges withered away, the Žódﾇ weekly Odg̅osy wrote that now 284 KACPER POBŽOCKI “[…] we will perceive the problem of centralization differently. It has been criticized for decades, but it has only become further aggravated. I think it is time to re-examine Warsaw’s privileged status as the capital city. The ‘other Poland’ [Polska B], i.e. cities and provinces perceived from Warsaw as utter backwaters and places of hopeless exile have demonstrated their political maturity far better than Warsaw—the capital of the ‘privileged Poland’ [Polska A].” (Biliwski 1968, 1) The most important lesson drawn from the March events, they stressed, was “[…] not that the police clashed with protesting students, or that the working class showed its loyalty to the Party at the critical moment. At last we ceased feeling disempowered by the conviction that everything was being decided upon somewhere in Warsaw, or, to be more precise, in some highly clandestine Varsovian circles. We realized that Poland’s affairs can be settled in Poland. Let’s hope that this will become the decisive element for the positive evaluation of the March events in the longer run.” (ibid.) Although the March events have been coded in historiography as one of the murkiest and most shameful events in Poland’s recent history, 1968 is in many ways the founding moment for contemporary and even post-socialist Poland. In 1971, another turbulence at the commanding heights of the Polish state brought a new, “technocratic” echelon to power. The “consumer” 1970s are usually contrasted to the “coarse” 1960s, and the 1970s leader Edward Gierek is described as the “generous father” as opposed to the previous leader running the country like a “stingy mother”. Yet it is often forgotten that in 1968 Gierek was in the front line of antiSemitic rallies, and that many of his policies were actually a continuation of either blueprints or intentions drafted in the 1960s. One of the most enduring effects of the 1968 campaign against nascent “centralization” was the administrative reform completed by 1975. The former three-tier system was replaced with a two-tier one, and 17 large regions with 49 smaller ones. It was the final step in the ensuing policy of urbanization of the countryside and bringing “power” closer to the people. Its effects were exactly the opposite—the communists lost their grip over local administration which was one of the reasons for the 1979–1980 debacle (Poznanski 1996, 61f.). One of the consequences of Poland’s new spatial division was a relative empowerment of second-tier cities which managed to offset the emergence of the new centralities. Still in the 1980s moving to a small town from a city like Warsaw was not seen as a suicidal move to one’s career and life— it was actually a viable option considered by many. Yet this decade also saw POLAND’S CHAMPAGNE (POST-)SOCIALISM 285 a return to centralization of both resources and the power structure, although this was executed in an informal or even clandestine way (see Grala 2005 for an informed analysis). By the end of the 1980s the sentiments that all the important decisions were again only being taken in Warsaw was paramount again. In 1988, for example, Odg̅osy published another front-page article that sounded the alarm that “the specter of redundancies is haunting Žódﾇ” and it described, in a rather matter-of-factly register, all the cultural institutions that were either being closed down or moved to Warsaw. Only “banging one’s fist on the desks of Warsaw bureaucrats”, it was argued, could mitigate the trend (Koprowski 1988). But that trend was only exacerbated—and soon the idea spread that the “winners” of Poland’s protracted transition to capitalism, as Kazimierz Poznanski (1996) once dubbed it, are to be found in the capital city, while the rest are the “losers” of various kinds. Anti-Warsaw sentiments, as already discussed, returned too. In 1998 the two-tier administrative system was scraped, and Poland, just as between 1957 and 1975, was again divided into a dozen of large regions. In this way too, the 2000s, as I already argued, were actually an uncanny return to the “long Sixties”. Conclusion: the protean nature of class As Orwell put it, the class issue is like a stone wall or rather “the plate-glass pane of an aquarium”, since it is “so easy to pretend it isn’t there, and so impossible to get through it” (2001, 145). Seen as a relational (Tilly 2001) rather than a descriptive phenomenon, the class issue is as elusive as it is fundamental to our society. As Ira Katznelson (1994) demonstrated, the industrial city, with its novel spatial separation between the place of residence and the place of work, ushered in modern classes as distinct status groups. Culturally speaking, these classes (so well described by Orwell) are long gone, however. In fact, the moments when “class” manifests itself as culturally coherent groups are the exception rather than the rule in history. As Eric Hobsbawm argued, for example, the English working class was not “made” during the period it matured politically—as was described by E.P. Thompson (1980) in his classic study—but only as late as between the 1870s and 1914 (Katznelson 1986, 3). It quickly perished too. As Paul Mason (2008, 241) described, “probably the most successful example of con- 286 KACPER POBŽOCKI centrated community organization in the history of the working class” were the Jewish towns in Poland organized by Bund—a left wing union. But, again, this is a rarity. Classes are a very messy business: “the finestmeshed sociological net cannot give us a pure specimen of class, any more than it can give us one of deference or love” (Thompson 1980, 8). Thus we should not treat class as a descriptive concept, as it often is for example in Bourdieu’s tradition—merely an intellectual tool employed for describing the uneven distribution of various forms of capital: social, economic or cultural, and so forth. Class is much more than social or economic stratification. Instead, class should be understood as a relationship, or, to borrow Eric Wolf’s phase, a “bundle of relationships”—an abstract entity that, in order to be properly understood, has to be placed “back into the field from which [it] was abstracted” (Wolf 2010, 3). Such was the aim of this chapter. The “retreat from class” (Wood 1999) stems largely from a static understanding of this concept. It is obvious that “classes” are no longer forged only in the hidden abode of production, as was long maintained in the Marxian tradition wedded to the image and theory of capitalism derived from the industrial era. Of course it needs to be stressed that the last few decades were not only witness to the globalization of urbanization but also to the most spectacular industrial revolution in human history. The Chinese and Indian proletariat is a clear outcome of this—but like its European and American counterparts, it is far from being culturally and socially homogeneous, and it probably never will be (Silver 2003; Lee 2007; Mason 2008). Class is enormously protean, and it always reinvents itself in new social and cultural guises. As a theoretical entity, it is actually independent from its empirical manifestations. David Graeber (2011), for example, recently showed that if we understand class as a relationship, and in this case as a relationship between debtors and creditors, then class transcends the wage labor relationship and industrial capitalism; thus we can begin the history of capitalism and class struggle in the Bronze Age and not in the age of Satanic Mills, as it usually is. We can employ such a relational idea of class for understanding societies as distinct as contemporary Unites States, medieval China and ancient Rome. Social landscapes, cultural systems, political and economic regimes—all these imponderabilia of human life—eventually melt into air. Class, however, seems to persists. Class struggle is not really about a conflict between two social groups with a distinct lebenswelt, such as the proletariat in dirty overalls and with soot-stained faces and the capitalists in top hats and with cigars, but rather POLAND’S CHAMPAGNE (POST-)SOCIALISM 287 it is a struggle over certain key concepts. Warszawka is certainly one of them. To understand why this and no other concept became so crucial, we need to turn to analyze spatial transformations. Since the “long Sixties”, space became the critical factor for the class phenomenon. Not in the banal sense that all human activity inevitably unfolds in space (as well as in time), or that the human experience of reality is somehow “emplaced”, but in the sense that place has been eclipsed by the “production of space” as the main instrument of capitalist uneven development and the class formation process (Smith 2011). It would be foolish, of course, to argue that the division between Warsaw and the rest of Poland is the new fundamental class rift. Instead, I argued that, with the urban–rural division largely obsolete today, the city–town divide is a critical component of the “bundle of relationships” that underpins the class phenomenon in contemporary Poland. Today very few people would voluntarily move from Warsaw to Koluszki and consider this a way of moving up on the social ladder. The very idea of Warszawka serves here as gateway to a better understanding of how class and space are intertwined in this new, post-1968, chapter of Polish history. 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Pokolenie 89 (documentary film). Poland. The Cunning of Chaos and Its Orders: A Taxonomy of Urban Chaos in Post-Socialist Warsaw and Beyond Joanna Kusiak Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized. Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times Chaos as zeitgeist If the interesting times of post-socialist transformation had their zeitgeist, this would be, according to Kiril Stanilov (2007), chaos. Indeed, at some point after 1989 “chaos” had become a notorious word, ever returning in daily conversations, countless press commentaries and in the inexhaustible kvetch of internet fora. It wasn’t born as a theoretical concept, but stood for a straightforward account of lived experience. If in popular understanding “order” means that things are in place (not necessarily in the right place but in a place people got used to), the common feeling of chaos was a widespread reaction to a shift observable in all areas of public and private life. The collapse of the old system was comparable to the sudden suspension of the law of gravity: people and things previously fixed to their places were “floating freely” appearing in ever new, quite surprising spots. The experience of astonishment and shock caused by simple everyday life phenomena is well-captured in the 1989- and 1990-diaries of the journalist Mariusz Szczygie̅ (2011), with a striking number of exclamation marks in the text. Things and people were appearing in places and situations that seemed absolutely random and uncontrolled. Meat, for example, hitherto strictly rationed, could suddenly be found literally on the pavement: “On Powsiwska street a farmer parked a tractor with a trailer. He put some straw on the bottom [of the trailer], plastic film on the straw, and onto the plastic film— sausages. ‘Mister, what about hygiene?’—asks a lady with a purple hat. ‘I do have a hygiene. I also cut a twig to whip the bacteria’, he answers.” (Szczygie̅ 2010, 13) Not only were the sausages and bananas now freely circulating in the urban space; buses changed their routes and schedules multiple times, streets 292 JOANNA KUSIAK changed their names, previously powerful politicians turned overnight into personae non gratae, while an inconspicuous neighbor could become a rich business person within a couple of weeks. Not just things, but also people were being displaced and shifted. The word “chaos” was not only used to describe the material appearance of the provisionally reorganized urban space, where kiosks and stalls were mushrooming. Chaos also stood for the insecurity experienced by many people—and for the fear of being displaced in an arbitrary way: October 1989: “[A] guy from Poznaw, 33 years old, has committed suicide after losing his job. […] I called home. Dad says it’s like Katyw massacre. Poland’s best people will lose their lives due to these changes. But here in Warsaw my neighbor says that these will be rather the worst people. Weaklings will drop out, like in nature.” (ibid., 9f.) July 1990: “When I come back from Z̅otoryja [a town in Poland—J.K.] to Gazeta Wyborcza editor’s office, I feel this fundamental difference. Among the editorial staff, NO ONE has any doubts that the collapse of communism was a good thing. But when I go out, I am haunted by other people’s doubts. The doubts crowd around me like a flock of birds.” (ibid., 14) These conversations eavesdropped by Szczygie̅, juxtaposing the joy over a piece of meat with the trauma of the Katyw massacre, must have seemed inappropriate in the headquarters of a daily newspaper that was established by a group of dissenters on the occasion of the first free elections. Yet, as Janine R. Wedel (1992) argues, such a comparison is actually very well grounded. Her concept of Poland’s “unplanned society” unfolds parallels between war/post-war and socialist/post-socialist circumstances, both bringing “a story of endless intrigue, manipulation, and accommodation in the name of survival” (ibid., 3). Inasmuch as not everyone was similarly successful in this struggle, the experience called “chaos” was comparably stronger but never identical—neither for individuals, nor for urban societies. A significant example is given by the anthropologist Joma Nazpary (2002, 3), who points out that in post-Soviet Kazakhstan the notion of “chaos” (khaos, used by Nazpary himself) was replaced by the stronger term bardak, which in Russian language means both “brothel” and “mess”. Bardak refers to a more extreme version of chaos, amalgamating total disorder with direct moral implications, i.e. the fact that as a consequence of economic dispossession many Kazakh women were forced to become sex workers. But not only is bardak in Almaty different from káosz in Budapest: the selfsame “chaos” in Warsaw has also meant different things for the THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 293 early1 Jeffrey Sachs (who, introducing the so-called “shock therapy” in the 1990s, used the euphemism “momentary dislocations”) and for a dispossessed worker in Z̅otoryja (“It’s like Katyw massacre”). If there really was chaos out there, propelling the changes as zeitgeist, it has had a very protean nature. Growing up in Poland in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the sound of the word “chaos” has become as familiar to me as the shape of a metal kiosk fittingly called “jaws” (szczRki), the latter a hallmark of transformation, but even more just a site of daily shopping. While the “jaws” had gradually disappeared, the word “chaos”, which was part of the Polish public discourse on cities ever since, came back to me years later in a different context. I was doing some research on the cities of the Global South and it struck me how the word “chaos”, although never used as a precise notion, always slipped through in between lines of learned, academic discourse. “Chaos” was a chameleonic word: at one time used to refer to some hidden force that prevented urban systems from functioning (i.e. “chaotically” plaited electricity lines causing power breakdowns), at others used to optimistically praise creative forces. To Westerners in particular, chaos seemed a fascinating condition because despite adverse circumstances things were still functioning (if there was no clean tap water, there were at least enough people around selling bottled water, etc.). To urban dwellers asked on the streets, chaos served as an explanation for their poor situation. However differently the term was used, in all of the contexts the notion seemed quite self-explanatory for the speakers. I remember how in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe chaos was taken for granted and how politically loaded the term was, which we, the residents of various “chaotic” cities, too lightly used as merely descriptive term. “Chaos” seems to be just a “stupid”, imprecise word, but a systematic analysis of its use in Warsaw after 1989 proves both its persistence and its protean nature. If there are reasons to treat Stanilov’s non-philosophical, casual remark on chaos as zeitgeist with Hegelian seriousness, they may be disclosed in an analysis of how the concept works in post-socialist urban history. The aim of this paper is to analyze what Hegel calls “the work of —————— 1 In later books such as The Price of Civilization, Jeffrey Sachs shifted toward a critique of neo-liberalism and economical inequalities. Ironically, his Polish partner in “shock therapy” implementation—Leszek Balcerowicz—has not changed his economic views and still actively proclaims neo-liberalism. 294 JOANNA KUSIAK the concept” regarding the notion of (urban) “chaos”, and to embed it in a theoretical framework. Hence, I will scrutinize the use of the term “chaos” in Poland and single out particular contexts in Warsaw’s public discourse during the years of post-socialist transformation. Within these contexts, I want to show that distinct social phenomena and power relations are hidden beneath the superficial impression of chaos. My claim is that, empirically, urban chaos is never mere randomness but rather a conglomerate of multiple pockets of order, regulated by non-transparent power relations that only appear to be arbitrary. Last but not least, I argue that—to stick to Hegelian language—chaos has its cunning. The key to understanding this cunning is the difference between “chaos” as a term used in public discourse and chaos as a structural condition of power relations between distinct pockets of order. As Hegel explains, the cunning of reason means that “it is not the universal idea which enters into opposition, conflict, and danger; it keeps itself in the background untouched and unharmed, and sends forth the particular interests of passion to fight and wear themselves out in its stead.” (Hegel 1975, 89) In my argumentation, the cunning of chaos gets a more materialist twist. It is precisely not “chaos” as an idea or term that has kept itself safe during post-socialist transformation. On the contrary, the idea of chaos was being sent to the front line. Whereas chaos had been under fire in the public discourse, “anti-chaotic” passions were used to maintain the very same organization of the city that had led to disempowered citizens sensing chaos everywhere. Chaos—or in Nazpary’s parlance a “chaotic mode of domination” (Nazpary 2002, 5) was often sought in the name of a new order. Having observed this type of cunning of chaos in Warsaw, I hope to show that in the broader context of global urban studies the notion of “chaos” should be approached with more caution and suspicion. Although I agree with researchers pointing toward non-Western “chaotic” cities as valuable sources of new theoretical concepts and models of urbanity (Comaroff and Comaroff 2011; Roy 2009), it is dangerous to romanticize the chaos of non-Western urbanism without any solid empirical account of the kind of orders hidden behind it. Chaos should be analyzed in a structured and systematic way. Hence, I will start with a brief outline of the theoretical status of this quasi-notion. THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 295 Chaos as a chaotic conception? There a three main problems with the use of the term “chaos” in an academic context. First, while we are taught that a scientific notion should be an abstraction, “chaos” rather functions as a generalization. It does not isolate a specific aspect of reality; on the contrary, it fuses many different phenomena into a single one. It is also commonly associated with amorphous anarchy. Second, chaos is relative: it immediately evokes the idea of some kind of order, if only because it can be identified as dis-order. The implicit order either remains unspecified or, thirdly: adds a normative tinge to the term, defining chaos as malfunction. All these characteristics make the term “chaos” a perfect example of what Sayer (1982, 70f.) in his epistemological comment on notions as theoretical tools of economic geography aptly called “a chaotic conception”. As opposed to a rational abstraction, a chaotic conception fails to distinguish between aspects of reality that are unrelated and those which are inseparable—and therefore does not rise to its theoretical task. Paradoxically, the three shortcomings of the term “chaos” just mentioned make it quite attractive for some contemporary urban thinkers—if not as a theoretical concept, then at least as a guiding idea. Already Henri Lefebvre has pointed out how the idea of a city as a secluded order becomes blurred in the progress of urban revolution:2 “The urban reality today looks more like chaos and disorder—albeit one that conceals a hidden order—than an object” (Lefebvre 2003, 57). As urban reality becomes more complex on the global level, it is extremely hard to legitimately isolate any specific phenomenon. For instance, even a by now established notion like “gentrification” has had to be defended against the accusation of “chaotically” mixing up economical and cultural phenomena (see Rose 1984; Smith 1996). As the branches of urban studies become more specialized and fragmentary, the “urban phenomenon” as a whole resembles a shattered mirror: “These analytical divisions do not lack rigour, but […] rigour is uninhabitable” (Lefebvre 1996, 94f.). Although the term “chaos” fails to abstract any particular aspect of urban reality, its non-abstract, generalizing character helps to gather the fragments together again and analyze all of them as a whole. Thus, for some urban theorists with Lefebvreian holistic —————— 2 Lefebvre understands ”urban revolution” as a long historical shift toward a completely urbanized global society. 296 JOANNA KUSIAK ambitions (like Rem Koolhaas 2002 or Mike Davis 2006), chaos is a good departure point in their search of the hidden orders transcending the fragmentary perspective: “Koolhaas […] emphasizes the seemingly chaotic aspects of Lagos’s development, but does so in order to highlight the homeostatic complexity of newly evolving socioeconomic structures, with the city conceived as a series of self-regulatory systems.” (Gandy 2005, 14) Koolhaas’s fascination with Lagos’s chaos merges with the widespread conviction that the Western model of urbanism has exhausted itself and that we are in dire need of an alternative urbanism, if only to prove that a different city, and a different city life, are possible. If the Western paradigm was founded on the idea of a specified urban order, it is no wonder that the shift in perspective toward non-Western patterns of urban development (especially in the Global South) spots urban chaos everywhere. Here the relativity and normativity of the word “chaos” prove effective. The chaos of the Global South relates to (and is to be distinguished from) old Western order, and therefore becomes attractive in the search of new geographies of theory (Roy 2009). The “registers of improvisation” (Mbembe and Roitman 2003, 114), various creative ways of “operating more resourcefully in underresourced cities” (Simone 2006, 357), and various forms of what we might call virtue-out-of-necessity-urbanism are expected to pave the way toward a new paradigm tailored for the times of crisis. When the old order ceases to function, chaos may become the desired condition—ironically serving as inspiration for a brand new order. However, although treating non-Western “chaotic” cities as the avantgarde of a new urbanism seems well reasoned, precisely here the bleary meanings of the term “chaos” turn out to be dangerously misleading. Koolhaas has been criticized for romanticizing Lagos’s chaos while omitting the fact that informal strategies of dealing with poverty resulted from the decimation of the city’s economy during Nigeria’s military dictatorship as well as from IMF and World Bank policies (Gandy 2005). Furthermore, what the Dutch architect actually celebrates are the pockets of order that emerged from chaos (such as a fluid, self-organizing market between the highway and the railway in Lagos). Chaos in its wider structural sense is much more ambiguous. In many cases it is straightforwardly oppressive, especially for those who are not well-networked, structurally disabled or simply less fluent in an approach that in Polish historical context has become well known as kombinowa6. Kombinowa6 means to scheme up an in- THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 297 genious, creative, often semi-legal or illegal solution which might even involve “what outsiders might define as theft” (Pawlik 1992, 79). Since feudal times in Poland it has been considered a skill which one should be proud of, as it allows the underprivileged to access otherwise inaccessible resources and trick the oppressor. It was the exceptional ability to kombinowa6 that helped the majority of Poles to survive the Nazi occupation, the socialist shortages and the shock of post-1989 inflation. Mbembe and Roitman (2003, 114) describe an analogous competence for African cities where “every law enacted is submerged by an ensemble of techniques of avoidance, circumvention, and envelopment.” Figure 1: An informal bazaar at Plac Defilad which emerged shortly after 1989 and functioned in the heart of the city until the end of the 1990s (Photo: family archive) The overall sum of individual and group strategies for urban survival often materializes in the city as self-emergent or “amorphous” urbanism. An informal open-air market around the Stalinist-iconic Palace of Culture in Warsaw in the early 1990s, back then the biggest in Europe (Fig. 1), in many respects resembled the one in Lagos. But as seductive as their quasiorganic functionality and aesthetics may be, they turn the attention away from those failing to cope with the situation: for instance, a boy in Kool- 298 JOANNA KUSIAK haas’s documentary on Lagos (van der Haak 2003) who went to sell water in the night and never came back, an unemployed committing suicide in Poznaw described in Szczygie̅’s reportage or a sex worker from Almaty. “What the dispossessed describe as chaos”, so Nazpary (2002, 2), “are the circumstances of their plunder.” Chaos is far from meaningless anarchy where cheerful spontaneity is booming. On the contrary, it means hegemony achieved through a non-transparent network of power relations instead of ideological influence or leadership (ibid., 5). The orders of chaos Chaos, as explained above, should be understood neither as the diametrical opposite of order nor as featureless, horizontal anarchy. “Chaos is rather a chaotic order, an arbitrariness resulting from the random tensions between and chaotic articulation of smaller pockets of order” (Nazpary 2002, 4). Obviously, it is impossible to describe or even to enumerate all of these pockets of order. However, if we strive for an analysis of chaos as a structural urban condition of Warsaw, again the normativity of the term “chaos” comes to our assistance. Amidst the complexity of urban life, the use of the word “chaos” always points to these contexts which produce the most compelling tensions and the feeling of overwhelming randomness. A survey of Warsaw’s leading local newspapers since 1989 (Gazeta Sto̅eczna, ﾈycie Warszawy) as well as various internet discussion fora concerned with urban issues3 shows that the word “chaos” has been in use after 1989 in the following (urban) contexts: First, to describe the incoherence of Warsaw’s urban form stemming both from its turbulent history and the insufficient regulation of urban development after 1989 (Staniszkis in this volume). In another context concerning an important issue resulting from the city’s history, the term is used, second, to describe the often muddled property status for both land and real estates. Thirdly, the malfunctions of the political and administrative organization of the city are commonly referred to as chaos. Fourthly, chaos is a synonym of the so-called “wild —————— 3 For example comments beneath online articles in Gazeta Sto̅eczna and ﾈycie Warszawy informing about urban issues or the forum SkyscraperCity Warszawa, see http:// www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=708 THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 299 capitalism” (dziki kapitalizm), namely a set of strategies subordinating urban space under the logic of profit. Last but not least,4 in Warsaw the word “chaos” is used to name what was roughly described in the preceding chapter as “emergent” or “DIY” urbanism—the unplanned, bottom-up creation of provisional infrastructure. In this context, the term “chaos” is occasionally given a more affirmative twist. Nevertheless, the more detailed unfolding of the above taxonomy thereinafter should make it clear how interconnected the particular modes of Warsaw’s chaos remain. The patchwork of failed modernizations If a typical European city has contributed to a lofty metaphor of an urban palimpsest, Warsaw qualifies for a more mundane notion of an urban patchwork, one not yet entirely stitched together. Unlike the mysterious traces of history having to be deciphered, sizable leftovers are immediately visible in Warsaw’s cityscape. From almost any spot in the city it is possible to take a panoramic photograph depicting at least four or five historically and stylistically different architectural styles (Fig. 2).5 Not only different buildings, but also incompatible urbanist paradigms clash to produce a sense of aesthetic and spatial confusion commonly perceived as chaos. The modern urban history of Warsaw is the history of unfinished modernization projects. The post-socialist building boom and the recent upsurge of large-scale urban projects (a stadium, a bridge, a sewage treatment —————— 4 There is a further obviously urban context in which the term “chaos” has been used in Warsaw: temporary traffic disturbances caused by accidents or construction works. I decided to skip this context as it is neither Warsaw-specific nor does the character of the traffic press notes provide enough material for a more thorough analysis. However, the immense quantity of such notes is surely not disconnected from the large number of construction works going on in Warsaw, or from the administrative malfunction of the city apparatus. A city-specific detail is that misfires are still being regularly found during any type of underground construction works. 5 I invented this as a didactic game for my students: make a random panoramic photo in Warsaw and find as many different architectural and urban layers as possible. The results exceeded all our expectations with regard to the variety of architectural styles and what students called “random objects”. What is interesting from the perspective of this paper is that students from the University of Warsaw have naturally referred to the term “urban chaos” when playing this game, although I did not mention it myself neither before nor during the game. 300 JOANNA KUSIAK plan, a Vistula boulevard, a Museum of the History of Polish Jews) can be seen as the fourth attempt to reshape the metropolitan form of Warsaw. The first one occurred in the 19th century under the aegis of the Russian Empire that Warsaw became a part of in 1815. Russia’s modernization projects ushered Warsaw—previously designed in a Saxon-style comparable to the one of Dresden—in an era of industrialization and urbanization. The metropolitan character, acknowledged by the rapid emergence of Warsaw–Vienna and St. Petersburg–Warsaw railroads, was yet spatially restrained by two rings of forts and a citadel. Classical revivalism, typical for late Tsarist urban planning (Collier 2011), resulted in the erection of monumental public buildings. Such metropolitan ambitions outlived the Russian rule. Warsaw’s interwar elites, actively participating in European modernist movements, prepared a complex urban development strategy dubbed “Warszawa Funkcjonalna” (“Functional Warsaw”; see Bittner in this volume) and by 1929 nearly 24,000 new housing units as well as large infrastructural networks were built. Figure 2: Several layers of Warsaw’s urban structure with 19th-century tenement houses, the socialist realist Palace of Culture, socialist prefabricated housing blocks and the latest generation of neo-modernist office towers with steel and glass facades (Photo: Joanna Kusiak) THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 301 Yet by 1945, three-quarters of the city and the entire Old Town with the exception of one building, were pulverized and burned to ashes. Unlike in densely built-up Budapest or Prague that survived the war relatively unscathed, socialist planners in Warsaw had at their disposal a veritable urban tabula rasa. Warsaw’s destruction was so enormous that the old street network was only recognizable by the surviving sewage system. In 1945 all land in Warsaw was nationalized. Except for the meticulous reconstruction of the historical Old Town and alongside its old Saxon axis, Warsaw allowed for the realization of an extraordinarily vast array of socialist urban projects, from Stalinist neo-classicism to functional modernism including the establishment of the large housing estates of prefabricated buildings (both relatively upscale and more shabby). Typically for socialist urban planning, the city expanded in size without increasing in density, leaving lots of empty spaces in the central areas as well as numerous green spares to allow air circulation. The uneven spatial expansion of Warsaw has remained one of its persistently unique features also after 1989. Although the term “urban sprawl” borrowed from Western urban studies is often used (Staniszkis in this volume), the “chaotic principle” of spatial spread of Warsaw makes it resemble more cities like Kinshasa (conceding all the differences) than West European cities. As Filip de Boeck (2011, 266f.) described, Kinshasa is both “scattered over a vast distance” and simultaneously contains “many […] empty pockets of land […] not yet fully densified in terms of housing and construction” in its very center. Also the gentrification and capitalist investments in Warsaw have not been proceeding due to the typical principle described by Neil Smith (1996) as “urban frontier”, after which the city is becoming gentrified literally block after block.6 If we were to stick to the military metaphors of neo-liberalism, gentrification in Warsaw has rather resembled targeted artillery shelling aimed precisely at particular buildings, lots and various empty pockets of land. None of the three paradigms of urban modernization—Tsarist, modernist or socialist—could be fully implemented; the socialist one, even if it lasted longest, has had to be compromised on multiple levels above all due to financial reasons. The fourth, ongoing wave of urbanization that started —————— 6 Which is true not only for New York’s Manhattan but also for European cities. A good example here is the gentrification of Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg, even if it was to some extent mitigated by various social programs. 302 JOANNA KUSIAK after 1989 wasn’t in turn driven by any consciously chosen urban planning system but rather by an implicit expectation that Warsaw would naturally switch to Western order. Based on a mixture of ignorance and Cold War propaganda, the assumption that the Western paradigm of urbanization is “natural” (ergo: self-emerging when not blocked) and that the socialist paradigm is based on the oppression of this presumed naturalness led to the proverbial throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Rejected were even the rules and objectives common to both these paradigms. At the same time the political opening and economical shock therapy triggered a very intense process of neo-liberal urbanization. Not limited within the boundaries of any real plan, it has become a powerful force rather than a consciously guided process, “a chaotic pattern of development” in which selected Western urban patterns were only “frivolously applied” (Stanilov 2007, 8), adding to the oddments of all the previous systems. Since 1989 hundreds of new buildings were erected, more often than not contributing to the genre which the architect Sharon Rotbard (2009) calls “parachute architecture”, i.e. structures built without any consideration to their immediate surroundings, as if they were randomly “thrown down” onto the city by alien forces. To provide a comparative background to the scale of Warsaw’s urban redevelopment: the number of new constructions projects in Warsaw was in 2008 the same as in the four times bigger city of London. Sewing together the old and the new into a patchwork city meant not only adding new architectural styles, but also messing with the former spatial planning, for example by adding some smaller edifices in between the monumental blocks of the Corbusierian Za ﾈelaznC BramC estate as well as building over the green spares designed for ventilation. Additionally, the aesthetic and spatial confusion was increased by different forms of renovation, insulation and “creative embellishment” of the facades of the previously existing buildings, which in most of the cases was not submitted to any regulations.7 Hence, the press articles on urban issues may be full of statements like the one by the urbanist Zbigniew Ba6, who recently told Gazeta Wyborcza that “when he walks through the housing es- —————— 7 Unless the building officially has the status of heritage. Most buildings in Warsaw are simply not old enough to be automatically awarded this status. The process of recognizing historical and aesthetic value of some great modernist or socialist-realist buildings has been slowed down due to the neglect of any heritage of socialist origin by a significant part of the post-socialist elites. THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 303 tates, he looks away not to see this chaos that is offensive to all urban dwellers” (Maciejewska 2012). Fuzzy property and wild capitalism As the “shock therapy” has given a considerable latitude to neo-liberal practices, it is justified to wonder why the densification of the city center wasn’t as radical as it could have been considering the increasing market value of the lots in a capital city that was first in Eastern Europe to have its own stock exchange. A glance onto the map of Warsaw or a short stroll in the city center expose numerous gaps, vacant lots and vast empty spaces, with the most spectacular one around Warsaw’s Stalinist axis mundi—the Palace of Culture. So why wasn’t capitalism effective enough to fully capitalize on the favorable legacy of socialist urban planning which, not having to care about the land prices at all, has left vast areas of potentially most expensive land free? One of the explanations in Warsaw’s case is the muddled property status of many plots of land. Still today there are over 10,000 unresolved property claims pending in Warsaw’s municipal offices. As shown on the map (Fig. 3), these claims are mostly located in the central areas of the city. The origins of this situation can be attributed to the post-war reconstruction which, due to the scale of ruination, was a mixture of developing a new socialist city from scratch, redressing historical trauma with partial reconstructions and managing the needs of citizens massively returning to the city devoid of vital infrastructure. If Warsaw were to exist again, a quick and complex reconstruction plan was urgent. While half of Warsaw’s 1,3 million pre-war population had not survived the war (and many of the survivors did so by escaping the country), complying with private property regulations was neither a realistic option8 nor a priority of socialist ideology. Hence, in 1945 the president of the State National Council Boles̅aw Bierut issued a decree nationalizing the properties constituting 93% of Warsaw’s area back then. Although the decree has formally allowed reclaiming property unless the reclaimed land was planned for necessary public uses, several claims were rejected due to purely political reasons. —————— 8 This fact is explicitly admitted even by an established Warsaw counselor, Jan Stachura, who lawfully represents many of the owners claiming property rights. 304 JOANNA KUSIAK Hence, many owners renewed their claims after 1989 and even more so after 1995 when the then president of Warsaw, Marcin ｬwiRcicki, had officially announced the start of the re-privatization of Warsaw’s properties. Remarkably, although Poland’s ruling party has promised to pass a re-privatization law that would clarify the most contentious issues, in 2011 the Ministry of Treasury announced that this law cannot be passed as the potential restitutions could increase Poland’s public debt beyond the limit allowed by the European Union. Nevertheless, with the old decree still at work, the payments seem unavoidable. Figure 3: Map of restitution claims in Warsaw: since 1989 over 2,000 buildings have been returned (6,000 apartments), over 10,000 property return applications are still awaiting consideration (Source: Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie) The sheer number and spatial impact of the claims make Warsaw an extreme albeit paradigmatic example of what Katherine Verdery described as THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 305 “fuzzy” and David Stark as “recombinant” property regime in neo-liberal Eastern Europe. Both terms are closely related, covering all forms of “indistinct, ambiguous, and partial property rights” (Verdery 1999, 55) and of “organizational hedging in which actors respond to uncertainty by diversifying assets, redefining and recombining resources” (Stark 1996, 993). Not only do they put into question the whole ideology of “shock therapy” as a simple switch from socialism to capitalism, they also show how the systemic relations and quasi-objective phenomena like “property” were at the same time being imposed and renegotiated in a non-transparent way (Marcuse 1996). Already in the early 1990s the Polish sociologist and anticommunist dissenter Jadwiga Staniszkis (1991), has argued that “political capitalism” in Poland is rather a hybrid form in which the old nomenclatura is the first to benefit from the market transformation. Commenting on the UN reports, Mike Davis (2004, 12) puts it even more bluntly, calling “privatization of public utilities and social property […] just a euphemism for plunder and piracy on a scale not seen since the Nazi conquest of Europe.”9 The spatial concentration of privatization and re-privatization issues in Warsaw gives to these problematics a special, urban twist. The map (Fig. 4) posted recently on one of the internet fora on urban issues shows the difference between the structure and the density of prewar and contemporary Warsaw and therefore explains the spatial aspect of this complication. If, let’s say, a person X was a pre-war owner of a tenant house in the city center, the most extreme version of “fuzziness” may include all or most of the following problems: (i) the house that belonged to X was destroyed during the war, (ii) the house survived the war but was destroyed by the communist government to build something else, (iii) as the street network partially changed, X’s old lot is now divided between three other lots, and therefore contains now parts of: a public school, a green square and a tenant house, (iv) some of the tenants in the house got their apartments from the municipality as a reward for their work during Warsaw’ reconstruction, (v) X her- or himself is dead, (vi) the claims to X’s —————— 9 Davis refers to the UN report according to which “the creation of a score of billionaires in the ex-Comecon bloc has been paid for by a rise in deep poverty, from under 3 million in 1988 to almost 170 million today” (Davis 2004, 12). See also: UN Human Settlements Program, “The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003”, London: Earthscan Publications and UN-Habitat, 2003. 306 JOANNA KUSIAK tenement were bought by a profiteer for the price of 50 zlotys (12 euros),10 (vii) many others, as every story includes a lot of individual details. Figure 4: A photo collage circulating on the internet, comparing the pre- and post-war density of Warsaw’s urban structure; title: “Why in Warsaw property claims limit the development of the city center?” (Palace of Culture marked red) (Maps: Google, www.warszawa1939.pl; Collage: Zygzak / Skyscraper City) —————— 10 This has really happened. As most of the pre-war owners are indeed dead, really old or unaware of their rights, this leaves room for a lot of speculation. THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 307 To a large extent Warsaw really is a city different from itself in pre-war times: the plots of land have shifted (even the river bed of the Vistula has moved, swallowing some of them), the population was exchanged not only in terms of generational shifts but also in terms of influx and exodus. Yet the “new” Warsaw is dependent on the “old” in a series of what I wish to call “jagged continuities”, not strong enough to firmly hold or to revive the old urban form but still strong enough to disrupt the urban present.11 The “fuzzy property”, being a manifestation of these “jagged continuities”, has also several urban effects, some of which will be briefly described below: it occasionally blocks the densification of the city center; it favors the proliferation of temporary constructions of so-called “wild capitalism” and—last but most important—it influences the lives of thousands of citizens, leading to numerous evictions and raising anew the question of the Right to the City (Lefebvre 1996, Harvey 2008 and 2012, Mitchell 2003). Firstly, many of the empty pockets of land remain empty because it is not clear who they will finally belong to. This makes any cost-intensive development overly risky. The city authorities for the most part wash their hands of the problem, scared with the perspective of payments. A recent, spectacular case of such a “fuzzy failure” was the new Museum of Modern Art, planned to be built on Plac Defilad since 2005 (in 2007 the architectural project of the Swiss Christian Kerez was officially chosen in the contest). Yet, after a lot of turbulence in April 2012 it became clear that the Museum will not be built any time soon. The municipality sues the architect for breaching the contract, the architect blames the city for many organizational failures, including not solving “the problems of property rights for the lot, nor the problems of underground installations, nor all the other contentious questions” (Kerez 2012). While it is impossible to personally appoint who is “guilty”, the popular opinion univocally blames chaos. Magda, an architect, comments in the web forum under the interview with Kerez: “What a shame […] logistic and administrative chaos, infinite adjusting the project just because the plan or property issues were ill thought through […] these are, unfortunately, the daily problems of any architect working in Poland.” —————— 11 Traditionally much attention was given to the symbolical, traumatic dimensions of such disruptions, while neglecting their material and social consequences. Hitherto Warsaw studies have been strongly dominated by memory studies. 308 JOANNA KUSIAK Particularly the Plac Defilad is affected by such kind of chaos. Out of multiple urban plans designed after 1989 not even a single building was built there. This may be rightly regretted in the case of the museum. But it might as well produce a justified relief, considering the proliferation of the “parachute architecture”, a good example of which is a cheap looking skyscraper near Plac Defilad, maliciously called “shower cabinet” (“Orco Tower” is the official name). Figure 5: The collage “Warsaw ready for Euro 2012” created by a local artist after the decision to build a temporary McDonald’s on the lot originally designated for the Museum of Modern Art (Collage: Robert Danieluk) Yet, secondly, it would be naive to hope that the otherwise problematic issues of property would contribute to “saving” Warsaw from the poor quality densification of the center. Alas, these are mostly the big-scale complexly planned projects like Kerez’s that get stuck because of the “fuzziness” of property issues and general urban planning in Warsaw. They are too big and too complex to successfully omit the knots and slither into the empty pockets like the smaller constructions of so-called “wild capitalism” do: billboards, inflated 3D advertisements, kiosks, fast foods or brass halls with chain supermarkets and minor retail. One famous example was a lot THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 309 on the corner of Marsza̅kowska and ｬwiRtokrzyska (just by Plac Defilad), regained by the owner in 2008. As building on the lot is forbidden due to the zoning ordinances and as the city authorities rejected his offer of repurchasing the land, the owner finally rented it out for a humongous advertising construction.12 Among different spatial formations of “wild capitalism”, the advertisements have become most immediately connoted with the word “chaos” (the wording “chaos reklamowy” is somewhat of a settled phrase), making the “wildness” of neo-liberal city development garishly visible and palpably intrusive, especially when the big-format billboards on the apartment buildings are blocking tenants’ access to daylight and the view outside. But also chain stores and fast food restaurants prove to have the enormous ability to omit any barriers of urban planning, like a truly wild weed winning over any cultivation. A collage by a local artist (Fig. 5) represents a bottom-up, bitter reaction to the latest development of Plac Defilad: although according to blurred property status it supposedly was not possible to build the museum, it turned out that on the selfsame “fuzzy” lot, McDonald’s could open its biggest Polish branch in June 2012. Even if this should be a temporary construction for the Euro Championship in soccer, Warsaw (and especially Plac Defilad) has some tradition in maintaining such temporary constructions serving private profit for even a dozen of years. Thirdly, the chaos of “fuzzy property” and the recent wave of privatization affect many municipal tenements, part of which were used for years as low-income housing. Also, in communist times numerous tenants were given the apartment as part of their remuneration and after 1989 they legally bought the apartments out from the city. As the city has neither enough social housing units at its disposal nor any complex plan of creating more of them, the consequence of a successful claim is often that the owner receives the house together with the tenants. This has led to numerous evictions in recent years, many of them very brutal. The actions of many of the new owners are driven solely by the logic of profit. As the rightful inheritors are usually very old, a veritable grey zone of buying and re-selling the claims has developed. With no sufficient regulations protecting tenants’ rights, in many cases the basic human rights were violated while forcing the low-income tenants to leave, using such tactics as brick- —————— 12 After a dozen of months of administrative proceedings, he was made to remove it. 310 JOANNA KUSIAK ing up the entrance, removing the entrance door to the apartment, disconnecting water, electricity and heating during the winter or pulling down the stairs. Hence, the use of the term “chaos” in the context of re-privatization of tenements has a moralistic dimension and draws near the Russian term “bardak” mentioned in the first part of the text. The tenants’ organization claim to have no doubt that the mysterious death of one of the major activist of the tenants’ rights movement—Jola Brzeska—is a direct result of her long-lasting resistance to move out of the apartment. Brzeska’s body was found burnt in the woods in March 2011. Although the family rejects the police’s doubtful hypothesis of self-immolation, and although Brzeska’s landlord has been well known to be one of the most active claims speculators not shying away from brutal practices of forced eviction, he never was even a suspect in the investigation that was to be dropped soon (ZSP 2011). State and administration of chaos One of the paradoxes of Warsaw’s urban transformation after 1989—a paradox recognized also in other cities labeled as “chaotic”—is that the ordering instances of the city are commonly rated among the main sources of chaos. The centralized order of socialism was very stable in its authoritarian way of functioning; both because of its official rules and because of customary ways of bypassing them by individuals. Designing the institutions of the new system during the accelerated urban change was indeed like “rebuilding the ship at sea” (Elster et al., 1998), but—to further develop this metaphor—the multiple captains of the ship have been regularly changing their minds on which port they want to navigate toward, and the wind was blowing from various directions. This can be best seen from the example of the multiple administrative reforms of Warsaw’s municipality. The first one was carried out right away in the 1990s, aiming at decentralizing the old system called “democratic centralism”. As a result Warsaw was divided into seven autonomous municipalities (gmina) with their own budgets which together constituted a union (ZwiCzek Gmin), also having its own budget. ZwiCzek Gmin was responsible for the affairs concerning the whole city, especially those connected to its functions as capital city, and was supervised by Warsaw Council (Rada Warszawy). Yet due to conflicts, soon an informal coalition of some district authorities emerged, THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 311 aiming to limit the power of the mayor of Warsaw. This created an atmosphere of mutual suspicion (Wyganowski 2006, 377). Hence in 1994, in the aftermath of another reform, the core part of Warsaw (more or less included in the pre-war city borders) was turned into one mega-municipality (Gmina Centrum) bounded by ten others suburban municipalities. Alas, the new system was in many aspects even less productive and in a way unjust, as Gmina Centrum had at its disposal the majority of the city’s budget. In fact, even the mayor of Warsaw himself had to find creative ways of getting round the system to complete major investments. As Pawe̅ Piskorski, the mayor of Warsaw from 1999 until 2002, said during an interview: “To build Siekierkowski bridge we first had to come to a special agreement between four political bodies: the governor of the province (wojewoda), Gmina Centrum, the city of Warsaw and Gmina Wawer (the municipality where the bridge was built). So we formed a consortium. Then we had to convince Gmina Centrum that the bridge is a governmental task, or that it would just do to say it is a task important for the functions of Warsaw as a capital city, and that Gmina Centrum has to pay for it. At the end 95% of the money for Siekierkowski bridge and highway (Trasa Siekierkowska) was money from Gmina Centrum. So we had to convince the councilors that they should agree to finance something that was not really their task.”13 (Piskorski 2011) The general evaluation of this administrative system was again very negative, as it led to the dispersion of the city budget and overlapping of competences on multiple levels of the city council. Hence in 2002 as a result of a third reform Warsaw returned to a centralized system, similar to the socialist one. The whole Warsaw was turned into a mega-municipality, the power was again centralized. However, whereas in the socialist system Warsaw was at the same time a municipality and a province (like Berlin or Paris), in the meantime the country-wide administrative reform of 1999 liquidated Warsaw-province and integrated the city of Warsaw into a bigger and mostly rural Masovian province. As some commentators pointed out (Wyganowski 2006), the new administrative system turned out to be even more insufficient. Hitherto no other reform has been planned. —————— 13 It remains unclear how many more “creative” ways were actually used. In 2003 Piskorski was accused of corruption in the context of the Siekierkowski bridge investment (socalled Bridgegate, afera mostowa). In 2008 the investigation was dropped due to lack of evidence. 312 JOANNA KUSIAK As passengers on a ship that was constantly being rebuilt, city dwellers became aware that although they depended on city authorities, at the same time they could not rely on them. Even if foreign investors and several third parties could not rely on the system either, their financial power gave them much more independence. What was perceived as chaos in city institutions—constantly changing municipal systems, political animosities between consecutively ruling authorities, susceptibility to corruption as well as the belief that foreign investors would solve all the urban problems—soon found its materialization in urban space. The amount of commercial buildings in random locations, “artillery shelling” of gentrification or “parachute architecture” also have institutional sources. A glimpse at the current state of zoning ordinances and the practice of issuing building permits may explain how the administrative malfunction translates into what is perceived as material chaos in urban space. Although already before functioning very selectively, the old socialist zoning ordinances were fully abolished only in 2003. The plan was that soon the whole surface of the city should be covered with new zoning ordinances and hence a new “order” would be sought dealing with the chaos of the 1990s. The official procedure of getting a building permit was designed in the following way: in a first phase called (i) elicitation (wywo̅anie), the City Council calls for preparing zoning ordinances for a given area. Then, in a process of (ii) public discussion citizens may put forward their proposals. The city’s Urbanist Office prepares (iii) a project of zoning ordinances, which again is subjected to (iv) a public discussion in which citizens may express their reservations. Finally, the City Council (v) legislates it. Obtaining a building permit is thus fully dependent on the zoning ordinances. As good as it may sound, not even the fact that the public hearings have been usually set in the most inconvenient times of the day constitutes the problem with the system. As the Union of Polish Metropolises (Unia Metropolii Polskich) states, in 2010 only 27,5% of the city was covered with zoning ordinances. However, under no account this has stopped building and investing in Warsaw. On the contrary, it has become much easier to build anything using an exceptional procedure that gave the investors much more of a free hand. This exceptional procedure is simpler and practically excludes the public. First, an investor must put forward a proposal. Then there is an administrative procedure in which only legal subjects can participate (this means no citizens, unless they form a legal THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 313 association). Subsequently a decision is made about land development conditions (warunki zabudowy), based on the “good neighbor rule” (zasada dobrego sCsiedztwa). This rule is vague enough to make any interpretation dependent on the particular decision of one particular clerk. If decisions are to a significant extent dependent on personal will, this practice, in most cases, privileges the wealthiest or most well-connected actors. This lays the ground for corruption, which may well be defined as an act of exchanging personal connections for wealth. Even if this was not always the case, the division and multiplication of the decisive bodies and the vagueness of rules have on the one hand led to much abuse, on the other hand they have left citizens with the feeling of arbitrariness. None of the “democratic” reforms of the system, not even the decentralizing one, has succeeded in bringing the authority closer to the people, which was once their apparent objective. What is more, it destabilized the old established ways of negotiating with the system without removing the feeling of arbitrariness: “From now on the chaotic mode of dominance was characterized by the intertwined over-centralized arbitrariness of the state officials on the one hand and the centrifugal and anarchic arbitrariness of the members of different informal networks of influence on the other. The way these two levels of arbitrariness are imposed on the population, articulated and adjusted to each other, and also the tensions between them, are significant elements of what people call chaos.” (Nazpary 2002, 7) Bottom-up urbanism and top-down cleanups It is not exactly clear when and how, but at some point during the transformation years an impromptu bazaar emerged in an underground corridor of one of Warsaw’s public hospitals (Szpital Banacha). Shrouded in the smell of medicines and cleaning products, patients in bathrobes and slippers bargained with the sellers, picking between wallets and handbags, trying on jumpers or comparing the fragrances of body lotions. The products were displayed on cots, hung on radiators and secured with plastic clips. The bazaar grew into an informal public space. This messy space in the midst of a clean and stringently organized institution allowed patients to strike up a chat with the nurses (as both are now customers, and hence on equal footing) or even secretly smoke a cigarette. Despite being repeatedly shut down, the market has always reemerged. Hidden in the vaults of a 314 JOANNA KUSIAK clinic, it serves as a substitute of the outside world. Evicted several times, the persistently reemerging bazaar has been eventually accepted and it still operates today. As the spokesman of the institution explained to the media, it offers patients a form of psychotherapy, endowing a dead (or ailing) space with the true élan of urban life. Despite the bad opinion given later to chaos, the ancient Greeks weren’t fully wrong to identify it as the creative beginning of things because of its potentiality. The creative powers of chaos lay in creating juxtapositions that would not emerge if things were framed in an established order. Also, chaos—understood as “chaotic mode of dominance”—can be to a certain extent turned against its administrators. “If the empire can deploy Orwellian technologies of repression”, writes Mike Davies (2004, 15) about control and resistance in slums, “its outcasts have the gods of chaos on their side.” When systemic rules are shaky, even if they allow formal and informal power relations to exert control over things, they also leave a margin of freedom for the insurgency of citizens. This margin of freedom can be used for direct resistance or for creating enclaves within the system that function beyond its control. The latter, as for instance Holloway (2002) argues, can also have a long-term revolutionary potential. Many of these enclaves become a material part of urban space. The bazaar in a hospital is only one example of Warsaw’s rich contribution to what is known under the names of “insurgent”, “emergent”, ‘“amorphous’, “DIY” (do-it-yourself), “guerilla” or “grassroots” urbanism. The value of such self-emergent experiments lies for Hou (2010, 2) in the fact that within a city they reveal alternative cities, injecting urban space with new functions and meanings. Iveson (2012) points out that they should also be read politically. By appropriating the space for their own self-designed use, citizens not only claim their Right to the City, but more importantly, they thereby manifest that they already have it. However, many contributions praising “DIY” urbanism concentrate mostly on playful projects by people with relative high social and cultural status, but the fact that these guerrilla actions have become very much en vogue must not blur basic differences and their geographical dimensions. To put it roughly, “art projects” in Manhattan are not identical with “necessity projects” in Kinshasa, Warsaw or even New York’s Queens. Not only the urban form, but first and foremost the social context of the emergence of such projects makes a political, functional and ontological difference. THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 315 The true eruption of Warsaw’s self-emergent urbanism happened in the early 1990s, commonly regarded as the most chaotic time of Warsaw’s transformation. These were the times of turning a stadium into a bazaar (Sulima in this volume), establishing ad hoc private bus companies that supplemented insufficient public transport, or selling and buying tenderloin on a plastic bag on the squares like Plac Konstytucji. The times of galloping inflation in the 1990s were not only times of opportunities, but above all times of crisis. That the urban society kept functioning despite the brutality of shock therapy is to be owed to people and their creative do-ityourself strategies of dealing with the situation, not relying on the shaky system and insecure infrastructure. In fact, as AbduMaliq Simone puts it, in times of urban crisis people themselves turn into the most efficient infrastructure: “I wish to extend the notion of infrastructure directly to people’s activities in the city […] incessantly flexible, mobile, and provisional intersections of residents that operate without clearly delineated notions of how the city is to be inhabited and used. These intersections […] have depended on the ability of residents to engage complex combinations of objects, spaces, persons, and practices. These conjunctions become an infrastructure—a platform providing for and reproducing life in the city.” (Simone 2004, 407f.) This was also finally recognized by the authorities of the Warsaw hospital who decided not to evict the bazaar anymore even if its messy appearance disrupts the model of a sterile clinic. However, besides some cases in which the DIY-structures developed and successfully grew into the city, there were even more cases of an eviction that used “chaos” as a pretext and capitalist big-scale investments as synonym of urban cleanup. The Stadium-Bazaar with its popular Vietnam food alley was turned into a National Stadium built for Euro 2012 games and despite initial promises the green area around the new Stadium was fenced. Evicting “Elba”, a squat using a vacant private building and offering free leisure infrastructure (skate park, climbing wall, music venue) and work shops for youth, the current mayor of Warsaw Hanna GronkiewiczWaltz called for “order”, arguing that people drinking and smoking there cause a fire hazard. The normative aspect of the concept of “chaos” is used here to generate a discourse in which building a shopping mall seems like a huge relief. Indeed, from an aesthetic point of view any kind of relief was urgently needed. By the time Poland was about to enter the European Union, urban 316 JOANNA KUSIAK space became very user-unfriendly even in comparison to socialist times. Chaos was suddenly perceived as a problem. “DIY” initiatives were regarded as both a result and an element of chaos. Many of them would not have been possible (or at least visible) if the system were dense, coherent and well-established; but once they emerged, they contributed to the impression of chaos with their messy aesthetics, usually fully subordinated to function. Subsequently, the word “chaos” started to be broadly used to justify and promote new commercial investments, including two large-scale shopping malls: Z̅ote Tarasy and Arkadia. The word “chaos” was regularly juxtaposed with another one, “urban drawing room” (miejski salon), suggesting cleanness and luxury, even at the cost of limited availability. Similarly, the multiple gated communities in Warsaw (GCdecki in this volume) owe their success to the marketing that condemned the “horrible chaos” of Warsaw, offering instead a gated refuge. Developers, investors and neo-liberal politicians presented themselves as doctors curing Warsaw from the disease of chaos for a price that—even if high—was well worth paying. As the mayor of Central district, Wojciech Bartelski, said in the context of evicting an old and very popular socialist milk bar eatery: “The real choice is: either Warsaw will be provincial and cheap or it will become metropolitan and expensive. Varsovians have European aspirations and deserve the latter.” (Gazeta Wyborcza 2011) It is not exaggerated to claim that among the social groups who definitely had a lot to loose in the process of transformation were the “architects” of DIY-urbanism during the stormy 1990s. Their small businesses soon lost out to huge malls, chains and concerns that came with neo-liberal reforms. The point here is not to deny the necessity of any type of cleanup, but to show how deceptive it may be to celebrate DIY-urbanism as the fulfillment of the Right to the City (Iveson 2012 himself consents to that). As much as it is true that chaos is a creative potentiality, there are always power relations deciding upon their actualization, to put it in Aristotelian terms. Neither should we forget that what we celebrate as “emergent urbanism” is not chaos but the pockets of order that emerged from chaos. These may look messy, but as Simone or Koolhaas have described it, they are both highly organized and yet very vulnerable. As the case of the bazaar in a hospital basement makes plain, the pockets ultimately need to be recognized and protected by a higher order. And indeed, it takes really good, progressive doctors to recognize their true therapeutic value for the urban society. THE CUNNING OF CHAOS AND ITS ORDERS 317 Conclusion The use of the term “chaos” in post-socialist Warsaw points toward different areas of urban life, both in its material and socio-political dimensions. At first sight these areas may appear disconnected and the reasons why that which people termed as “chaos” emerged in the first place are of different historical, political and economical origins. What they have in common, however, is the feeling of confusion and arbitrariness experienced by citizens. This might also hypothetically explain the mass appeal of the term. Whereas the experience of everyday life during post-socialist urban transformation was fragmented, the word “chaos” allowed describing multiple problems and difficulties as one overriding condition of urban life. In this paper I have sought to show how chaos has its cunning, making “certain violences appear accidental to a social system rather than generated by it”, to borrow Povinelli’s (2002, 7) explanation. The period after 1989 does not just stand for people’s fears and feelings of insecurity, but also for their enthusiasm and hopes they invested into the new system. These passions, the dreams of freedom and Western order, were partly used to feed the material conditions of what people later described as chaos—the construction of urban fabric without any urban planning, covering the city with billboards, the privatization of public assets, and the arbitrary decision-making regarding urban space. The cunning also means that chaos—as paradoxical as it may sound— has in fact been better organized than the “democratic order” that has apparently been sought in Poland. This is the message of Terry Pratchett’s quote opening this paper. The enormous popularity of his (and other) fantasy novels in transforming Poland may be explained with the fact that they provided an alternative language to the uncritical language of postsocialist modernization. Pratchett depicts a world where everything is exactly like most disillusioned people would usually think it is. Nothing is beautified by grand ideals and pompous concepts: the earth is flat, the politicians are corrupted power addicts, capitalism is ubiquitous and the gods are selflessly malicious. In this world, chaos is a highly organized force that has to defeat order in the same way as McDonald’s on Plac Defilad has obviously defeated the Museum of Modern Art—many were outraged but few could say they were really surprised. Chaos, as it influences common people in their urban environment, is as flat as Terry Pratchett’s DiscWorld. There is no mysterious emergence of chaos, but 318 JOANNA KUSIAK only power relations triggering it. 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Stanis̅aw Wyganowski, the mayor of Warsaw in the years 1990–1994, interviewed at his home by Joanna Kusiak on 08.07.2011. List of Figures Continuity of Change vs. Change of Continuity: A Diagnosis and Evaluation of Warsaw’s Urban Transformation Magdalena Staniszkis Fig. 1: Urban sprawl and a shopping mall in the suburbs of Warsaw Photo: Marek Ostrowski / projektwarszawa.org .................................................. 89 Fig. 2: Built-up areas on the ground of open spaces in Warsaw plans Drawing: Magdalena Staniszkis................................................................................ 91 Fig. 3: Office buildings by JEMS Architects in S̅uﾉewiec Przemys̅owy Photo: Magdalena Staniszkis .................................................................................... 96 Fig. 4: Gate-guarded communities located at the edge of SzczRｭliwice Park Photo: Marek Ostrowski / projektwarszawa.org .................................................. 98 Fig. 5: The skyscrapers in the skyline of Warsaw Photo: Tomasz Gamdzyk ....................................................................................... 100 Fig. 6: The view from the Palace of Culture towards Marsza̅kowska and Aleje Jerozolimskie intersection with the empty Parade Square on the first plan Photo: Tomasz Gamdzyk ....................................................................................... 101 Fig. 7: Marsza̅kowska and Aleje Jerozolimskie Streets intersection, according to the awarded competition design in 2004 by architect Magdalena Staniszkis Drawing: Marek Ziarkowski ................................................................................... 102 Fig. 8: Warsaw Center according to the Warsaw Center Plan adopted in 2010 Drawing: Grupa GSZ Szmyd & Zaborowski Architekci ................................... 104 Gating Warsaw: Enclosed Housing Estates and the Aesthetics of Luxury Jacek GCdecki Fig. 1: Entrance to Laguna Estate, Ursynów Photo: Magdalena Staniszkis .................................................................................. 110 322 LIST OF FIGURES Urban Space: Cultural Determinants of Waste Management W̅odzimierz Karol Pessel Fig. 1: Impurities at the described gateway, Warsaw, Marsza̅kowska Street Photo: W̅odzimierz Pessel .................................................................................... 167 Fig. 2: Car wreck in the yard Photo: W̅odzimierz Pessel .................................................................................... 168 Fig. 3: Installing the sewage system at Koszyki district in Warsaw Photo: Archive of Warsaw’s Waterworks ............................................................ 171 Visible and Invisible Ethnic Others in Warsaw: Spaces of Encounter and Places of Exclusion Aneta Piekut Fig. 1: Spatial distribution of Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian immigrants in Warsaw Source: Own elaboration, 2002 census ................................................................. 194 Fig. 2: Spatial distribution of Vietnamese immigrants in Warsaw Source: Own elaboration, 2002 census ................................................................. 196 Fig. 3: Spatial distribution of North American and EU15 immigrants in Warsaw Source: Own elaboration, 2002 census ................................................................. 197 Kiosks with Vodka and Democracy: Civic Cafés between New Urban Movements and Old Social Divisions Joanna Kusiak and Wojciech Kacperski Fig. 1: Crowd on Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street Photo: Justyna Piech-Dubis ................................................................................... 213 Fig. 2: The counter at the café Ch̅odna 25 Photo: Wojciech Kacperski .................................................................................... 224 Fig. 3: A bike event at the café Warszawa Powiｭle Photo: Warszawa Powiｭle ....................................................................................... 227 Fig. 4: A public debate on urban issues at the café Warszawa Powiｭle Photo: Marta ﾈakowska .......................................................................................... 231 Fig. 5: Art project by Karolina Bregu̅a Photo: Karolina Bregu̅a; milk bar photo by Zofia ChomRtowska .................. 234 The Laboratory of Polish Postmodernity: An Ethnographic Report from the Stadium-Bazaar Roch Sulima Fig. 1: Bird’s-eye view of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium Photo: Marek Ostrowski / projektwarszawa.org ................................................ 243 LIST OF FIGURES 323 Fig. 2: Stalls at the crown of the 10th-Anniversary Stadium Photo: Marek Ostrowski / projektwarszawa.org ................................................ 247 Fig. 3: Dawn at the bazaar Photo: Ignacy StrCczek ............................................................................................ 250 Fig. 4: Street vending around the 10th-Anniversary Stadium Photo: Stanis̅aw Barawski ...................................................................................... 253 Fig. 5: The new National Football Stadium built for the Euro 2012 Photo: Stanis̅aw Barawski ...................................................................................... 265 Space, Class and the Geography of Poland’s Champagne (Post-)Socialism Kacper Pob̅ocki Fig. 1: Art project by Cezary Bodzianowski Photo: Andrzej Grzelak / Galeria Manhattan ..................................................... 282 The Cunning of Chaos and Its Orders: A Taxonomy of Urban Chaos in Post-Socialist Warsaw and Beyond Joanna Kusiak Fig. 1: Informal bazaar at Plac Defilad Photo: family archive............................................................................................... 297 Fig. 2: Several layers of Warsaw’s urban structure Photo: Joanna Kusiak.............................................................................................. 300 Fig. 3: Map of restitution claims in Warsaw Source: Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie.......................................... 304 Fig. 4: Warsaw’s pre- and post-war urban structure Maps: Google, www.warszawa1939.pl; Collage: Zygzak / Skyscraper City .... 306 Fig. 5: Collage “Warsaw ready for Euro 2012” Collage: Robert Danieluk........................................................................................ 308 Table Table 1: Regions of origin of foreigners in Warsaw and Poland Source: Office of Foreigners 2004 ........................................................................ 192 Contributors Dominik Bartmawski earned his Ph.D. in Sociology at Yale University. He currently teaches urban sociology and cultural theory at Darmstadt University of Technology. His interests include material culture, social theory, public design and sociology of knowledge. Among his journal publications are: “The word/image dualism revisited: Towards an iconic conception of visual culture” (Journal of Sociology), “How to become an iconic social thinker: The intellectual pursuits of Malinowski and Foucault” (European Journal of Social Theory) and “Successful icons of failed time: Rethinking post-communist nostalgia” (Acta Sociologica). He is a co-editor with Jeffrey Alexander and Bernhard Giesen, and a contributor to the volume Iconic Power: Materiality and Meaning in Social Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Contact: [email protected]. Regina Bittner (Ph.D.) is a cultural theorist and curator. She graduated in Cultural Theory and Art History from the University of Leipzig and received her Ph.D. from Humboldt University in Berlin. Currently she is the head of the Bauhaus Kolleg and has been holding the position of associate director of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation since 2009. Her research focuses on urban ethnography, transnational modernism, global urban culture as well as heritage studies. Publications include: Die Stadt als Event. Zur Konstruktion urbaner Erlebnisräume (ed.) (2002), Transit Spaces Berlin Moscow (co-editor with Kai Vöckler and Wilfried Hackenbroich) (2006), Bauhausstadt Dessau: Identitätssuche auf den Spuren der Moderne (2010), UN Urbanism. Post-Conflict Cities Mostar Kabul (co-editor with Kai Vöckler and Wilfried Hackenbroich 2010). Contact: www.bauhaus-dessau.de. Jacek GCdecki received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the Institute of Sociology at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruw. He is currently working as researcher and academic teacher in the Department of Sociol- 326 CONTRIBUTORS ogy and Social Anthropology at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Cracow. His research interests include the anthropology of architecture (the monograph Architektura i toﾉsamoｭ6. Rzecz o antropologii architektury), urban anthropology and urban sociology. He participated in research programs at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and the City University of New York. He currently works on pioneers of gentrification in the Nowa Huta district in Cracow. Contact: [email protected]. Monika Grubbauer (Ph.D.) is an architect and urban researcher. She received her Ph.D. in Social and Economic Sciences from Vienna Technical University in 2009. Since 2009 she has been working as lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Architecture and the LOEWE Research Area “Intrinsic Logic of Cities” at Darmstadt University of Technology. Her fields of interest are architectural and urban theory, urban political economy, city marketing and the globalization of architectural practice. Publications include a monograph on the urban political economy of Vienna (Die vorgestellte Stadt. Globale Büroarchitektur, Stadtmarketing und politischer Wandel in Wien, Transcript 2011) and articles on architecture, image politics and globalization. Contact: [email protected]. Wojciech Kacperski is a graduate student in Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Warsaw. He is a Warsaw city guide and urban activist. His areas of interest include urban sociology, urban anthropology and the perception of urban space. Current work focuses on urban social movements, and he has contributed articles to various Polish academic journals (PrzeglCd Filozoficzny, Kultura Liberalna). Contact: [email protected]. Joanna Kusiak (M.A.) is a sociologist, urban activist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Warsaw and Darmstadt University of Technology. In 2011–2012 she was Advanced Visiting Researcher at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She researches on the notion of chaos and disorder in the context of urban transformation processes with a focus on non-Western patterns of urbanization. She was awarded scholarships of the Fulbright Foundation, the DAAD and the German Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung) and lives in Warsaw and Berlin. Contact: jkkusiak@ gmail.com. CONTRIBUTORS 327 W̅odzimierz Karol Pessel (Ph.D.) is assistant professor at the Institute of Polish Culture at the University of Warsaw. He received his Ph.D. in Cultural History from the University of Warsaw in 2008. Since 2009 he is General Secretary of The Polish Association of Cultural Studies. His research topics include sewers and rubbish in Warsaw, issues of the Danish affluent society and theories of contemporary culture. He is the author of the award-winning Antropologia nieczystoｭci. Studia z Kultury sanitarnej Warszawy and co-editor of Islandia. Wprowadzenie do wiedzy o spo̅eczewstwie i kulturze. He has contributed articles to Acta Sueco-Polonica, Anthropology Matters, PrzeglCd Humanistyczny and Kultura Wspó̅czesna. Contact: wlodzimierz@ pnet.pl. Aneta Piekut (Ph.D.) is a sociologist, currently working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield. She is a member of the Centre of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw. Her research interests include ethnic minorities’ integration, socio-spatial segregation, urban sociology and highly skilled migration. Among her publications are: “Multidimensional diversity in two European cities: thinking beyond ethnicity” (Environment and Planning A, with P. Rees, G. Valentine and M. Kupiszewski forthcoming) and “From (many) datasets to (one) integration monitoring system in Poland?”(in R. Bijn and A. Verweij (eds.) Measuring and Monitoring Immigrant Integration in Europe. Integration Policies and Monitoring Efforts in 17 European Countries, with A. Górny and R. Stefawska 2012). Contact: [email protected]. Kacper Pob̅ocki (Ph.D.) is assistant professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies at the University of Poznaw and graduated from the Central European University. In 2009, he was a fellow at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the City University of New York and taught urban studies at Utrecht University in 2010. He is currently writing a book tentatively titled The Cunning of Class: Urbanization of Inequality in Post-War Poland. His areas of interest include urban studies, religion, social studies on science and the theory of uneven development. He received Poland’s Prime Minister’s Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertations. He also is an urban activist and one of the organizers of the First Polish Congress of the Right to the City Movements. Contact: [email protected]. 328 CONTRIBUTORS Karl Schlögel (Ph.D.) is a historian and professor of East European studies at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder. He was awarded several prizes including the Sigmund Freud Prize for Scientific Prose (2004), the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding (2009) and the Samuel Bogumil Linde Award (2010). He wrote more than a dozen books on the urban history of Eastern Europe, i.e. Go East oder die zweite Entdeckung des Ostens (1995), Petersburg: Das Laboratorium der Moderne 1909–1921 (2002), Im Raume lesen wir die Zeit: Über Zivilisationsgeschichte und Geopolitik (2003) and Terror und Traum: Moskau 1937 (2008). His research focuses on theoretical questions of historiography and the importance of the spatial dimension. Magdalena Staniszkis (Ph.D.) is an architect and urban planner, teaching architectural and urban design at the School of Architecture of the Warsaw Technical University; she also runs her own private architectural and urban planning studio. She has authored urban plans (e.g. Functional Centre of Warsaw 1983), urban and architectural projects and publications on the contemporary urban development of Warsaw (e.g. “Les chaos urbans comme manifeste de la transition” in Architecture au-delà du Mur: Berlin-Varsovie-Moscow, Picard 2009). She is a member of several professional advisory boards for municipal and state authorities and a laureate of prizes awarded for architectural and urban competitions projects, urban plans, constructed buildings and various publications. Contact: [email protected]. Roch Sulima (Ph.D.) is a cultural historian, anthropologist and folklorist. He is full professor and the head of the Section of Contemporary Culture at the Institute of Polish Culture at the University of Warsaw as well as lecturer at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw. He is a member of several committees of the Polish Academy of Sciences—the Committee on Cultural Studies, on Literature Studies and on Ethnological Sciences. Areas of research include anthropological interpretations of contemporary culture, cultural history, Polish literature of the 19th and 20th century, anthropology of local cultures and popular worldviews. His major publications are: Folklor i literatura (1976, 1985), Dokument i literatura (1980), Literatura a dialog kultur (1982), S̅owo i etos. Szkice o kulturze (1992), Antropologia codziennoｭci (2000), G̅osy tradycji (2001), Antropologia s̅owa (2003, as coeditor), Antropologija svakodnevice (2005). Contact: [email protected]. Index Activism 13, 146, 223–224, 227– 230, 233–236 Administrative reform 284, 310–313 Advertisements 52, 118, 120, 122, 169, 256; outdoor 101, 102, 106, 308, 309 Aestheticization 117, 168, 260, 262, 264 Aesthetics of absence 242, 262–263, American Dream 221 Anti-Semitism 279, 280, 283 Appadurai, Arjun 111, 244, 255 Architecture 52, 97, 99–102, 105, 114, 118, 125, 134, 138, 302, 308; socialist realist 86, 147 Area studies 13–14, 38 Artists 73, 140, 141, 195, 216, 217, 219, 220, 223, 224, 226, 234, 260–262, 264, 282, 308, 309 Bachmann–Medick, Doris 70 Backwardness 14 Balcerowicz, Leszek 15, 293 Bartoszewicz, Dariusz 112, 122, 124, 125, 143, 148, 149 Bauman, Zygmunt 179, 283 Bazaar 17, 26, 30–32, 46, 51, 52, 200, 201, 217; hospital bazaar 313–314, 316; black market 26, 30; Róﾉycki Bazaar 251; 10thAnniversary Stadium (Bazaar Europe) 22, 52, 195–196, 200, 201, 241–267, 264, 297, 315 BRc Zmiana Foundation 144, 261 Beijing 169 Bendyk, Edwin 64, 72–74 Benveniste, Emile 139 Berking, Helmuth 135, 185, 236 Berlin 9, 10, 12, 21, 65, 74, 111, 124, 140, 145–156, 169, 171, 232, 262, 301; Potsdamer Platz 145, 148 Bicycle 173 Billert, Andreas 116 Black Box 9, 10 Bodnar, Judith 14, 35, 41, 50, 68, 71; and Virag Molnar 42, 111 Bohemians 140, 152, 216–217, 228 Borderland 151, 248–250 Borén, Thomas and Michael Gentile 35, 36, 37, 40, 42, 47, 49 Bourgeoisie 140, 150, 217, 277, 278 Brade, Isolde et al. 36, 41, 42 Bratislava 50, 53 Bregu̅a, Karolina 234 Brenner, Neil 38, 45, 138 Brownfield revitalization 36, 95 Brzostek, B̅aﾉej 217, 219, 220, 278, 281, 282, 283 Budapest 52, 74, 112 Built environment 37, 39, 48, 49, 82, 272 Bytom 199 Cafés 147, 152, 213–236, 245, 275, 282; Blikle 152; Ch̅odna 25, 330 221–230; civic cafés 226–236; Coffee Heaven 222; Czu̅y Barbarzywca 222–223; Czytelnik 220, 221, 235; Honoratka 235; Lajkonik 220; latte macchiato 127, 222, 223; latteization 221; Niespodzianka 221; Nowy Wspania̅y ｬwiat 226; Ogrody 226; Pod Pikadorem 216; Tables 220, 221, 282; Warszawa Powiｭle 226, 227, 231; Ziemiawska 215, 216, 218, 235, 277 278, 279, 281 Canaletto, Bellotto 244 Capitalism 16, 48, 64, 66, 72, 73, 121, 138, 139, 186, 205, 228, 266, 272, 273, 285, 286, 298– 299, 303, 305, 309, 317; foreign investors 150, 312, 316 Carnivalization 245, 264 Castells, Manuel 66, 244, 273 Central railway station (Warszawa Centralna) 149, 227, 242 Central and Eastern Europe 13, 15, 17–18, 27, 38, 65, 75, 139, 203, 257, 293, 305; cities 25, 29, 35, 38, 39, 47–48, 52, 55, 74; metropolises 61, 63, 64; neo-liberal policies 45; urban development 76; urbanization 20, 65, 70 Centrality 35, 280; and marginality 52, 276, 283 Centralization 271, 284–285 Champagne (Post-)Socialism 269– 287 Chaos 12, 28, 47, 74, 93, 102, 106– 107, 114, 126, 127, 148, 151, 166, 181, 183, 186, 263, 291–318 Chaotic mode of domination 294, 313–314 Charter of the New Urbanism 99 Chicago School 67 CIAM 61–63, 65, 75 INDEX City (municipal) authorities 90, 94, 99, 102, 104, 106, 124–125, 165, 169–170, 173, 180, 200, 234, 307, 310–313 City–town divide 282, 287 Civic society 29, 226, 236 Class 28, 121, 127–128, 150, 215, 217–218, 221, 228, 230, 235, 269–287; class struggle 66; distinction 213–216, 220, 234, 269, 277; middle class 119, 121, 123, 127, 149, 150, 217, 218, 219, 222, 228, 230, 233, 269 Cold War 19, 147, 155, 302 Collective representation 133–134 Congress of Urban Movements 229 Conjunction 11, 18 Consumption 40, 49, 51, 127, 179, 182, 207, 223, 225, 270, 272– 274, 277, 283; practices 72, 250, 255, 258 Cosmopolitanism 150, 270; rootless 222 Cracow 50, 53, 150, 163, 199, 200, 224, 235, 275, 281 Creative class 140, 148, 228 Creative destruction 13 Critical discourse analysis 109 Crowley, David 11, 50, 62, 221 Culture 18, 44, 136, 140–141, 229, 236, 266; culture war 233; European Capital of Culture 116; independent (alternative) 222, 225, 227; Jewish 263, 279; material 167; mixing of cultures 253; national 146, 176, 181, 190; political 42; popular 244, 248, 257– 260; urban 29, 163, 216; Social Dialogue Commission for Culture 225 De Certeau, Michel 109, 172 Dead space 12 INDEX Democracy 35, 184, 235–236, 281 Developer 90, 94–95, 98–100, 112, 117–121 125, 127, 129, 143, 170–171, 316 Dialectic 111 Difference 9–10, 14, 18–19, 29, 39, 41–44, 49, 69, 205 Different city 9 Discontinuity 43, 55, 143, 165, 169, 242, 246 Domestication 13, 53 Douglas, Mary 167, 186, 257 Dunn, Elisabeth 224, 274 Dzierﾉywski, Feliks 186 East/West dichotomy 244 Eastern Bloc 27, 249; Socialist Bloc 191, 203 Eastern Europe, see Central and Eastern Europe Economic practices 16, 28, 36, 40, 50, 53 Economic tourism 249, 254 Elites 192, 211, 262, 283 Elﾉanowski, Jerzy 169 Emergent urbanism 23, 315, 316; kiosks and stalls 172; microurbanism 143; poverty enterprise 251 Ethnic minorities 191, 193 Ethos of social engagement 225– 227 Euro 2012 13, 246, 266, 308, 323 European city 11, 62, 84, 116, 149, 299 European Union 17, 49, 174, 175 Everday life 51, 54 Evictions 13, 307, 309 Excluded economy 12, 22, 249 Fairclough, Norman 128 Farrar, Max 111 Feren8uhová, Slavomíra 14, 38 331 Filtry 170–171 Flaneur 228, 282 Florida, Richard 140, 228 Frankfurt/Main 183 Free market 45, 73, 107, 179; competition 90; consumption 144; economy 81, 106, 170, 257 Frigidaire Socialism 72 Future Shock 263 Fuzzy property, see property Garland, David 119 Gated housing estates 36, 43–44, 109–112, 198, 208; aesthetics 121, 125–126; architecture 117– 118; Laguna Estate 110; Marina Mokotów 99, 112, 125, 126, 149 Gentrification 36, 53, 227–228, 233, 295, 301, 312 Gierek, Edward 284 Global South 15, 67, 296 Global urban studies 23, 294, 318 Golden Ages 17 Gomu̅ka, W̅adys̅aw 179 Graeber, David 286 Graffiti 140, 151 Grassroots 219, 226; urbanism 314 Grey zone 251, 309 Habermas, Jürgen 215, 219 Hamburg 183 Hanseatic League 17 Harvey, David 16, 66, 111, 138, 271, 273, 276, 277; structured urban coherence 271 Hastings, Annette 113 Henning, Eike 69 Heritage 155, 171, 274; architectural 147, 227; cultural 81–83, 100, 103, 274; post-socialist 75; presocialist 68, 70 Hipsters 12, 140, 228 Hirt, Sonia 43–44, 46, 48, 52 332 Homeless 178 Hotel Polonia 76 Housing 53–54, 123–125; apartement buildings 195 Humphrey, Caroline 18, 70–71 Hypermarkets 83, 94–96 INDEX Jacobs, Jane 281 Ja̅owiecki, Bohdan 123, 143, 149, 150, 170 Jews 183, 191, 217, 279, 283 Jute bag 256, 257 L’viv 235 Labor market 35, 189–190, 193, 202–203, 205–206 Laura Palmer Foundation 261 Lease competition 226 Lefebvre, Henri 10, 65–66, 74–75, 138, 276–77, 281, 295; critical phase 10, 66 Leipzig 72 Leveler 218, 223 Lewandowski, Grzegorz 223, 225, 232 Lewicka, Maria 123; and Katarzyna Zaborska 115 Liminality 151–152, 154–155, 248– 249 Localism 270 Locality 111 London 10, 152, 169 Long Sixties 272, 277, 285, 287 Löw, Martina 136, 138, 185 Luxury 128–128, 179, 182; luxurious housing 116, 190, 209 Žódﾇ 115, 150, 199, 280, 281, 282n, 285 Žubna 175 Kaneff, Deema 70, 71 Katowice 115 Katz, Peter 95 Keynesianism 273 Kiossev, Alexander 17 Klein, Naomi 15 Kohlrausch, Martin 63 Koolhaas, Rem 134, 137, 138, 296, 316 Kracauer, Siegfried 136, 159 Krakowskie Przedmieｭcie Street 105, 213–214, 242, 244, 245, 249 Krasiwski square 97 Królikowski, Jeremi T. 64 Kurow, Jacek 167–168 Mandel, Ruth 71 March events 280, 283–284 Marxism 65, 66, 138, 278, 286 McDonald’s 222, 308, 309, 317 McQuire, Scott 134, 137, 138 Metro 96–97, 105, 177, 178, 180 Miasteczko Wilanów 99 Middle class see Class Miejskie PrzedsiRbiorstwo Oczyszczania (MPO) 176, 184 Mieszczanin (urbanite) 217 Migrants 71, 189–210, 274, 280; assimilation 198, 254; China 190; economic migrants 189, 190, 193, 200, 203, 206, 208, 209; expatriate communities 190, 208, Immigrants 189–210, 254 Individualism 102, 168 Informal economy 254 Infrastructure 12, 15, 22, 62, 67, 93, 124, 126, 128–129, 138, 164– 165, 176, 186, 262, 273, 299, 303, 315, 318; of daily life 54 Intelligentsia 140, 216–223, 229– 230, 235, 236; café intellectuals 220 International Architecture Biennale Venice 156 Intrinsic logic of cities 185, 236 INDEX 210; highly skilled 190, 193, 198, 204–207, 209; integration 197, 208, 219, 226; spatial distribution 189; 194, 196, 197; Turkey 190, 192; Ukrainian 192, 193, 194, 195, 197, 199, 200, 202, 203, 252, 253; USSR 190, 192, 202, 203, 242; Vietnamese 22, 191, 192, 193, 195–203, 206, 209, 249, 254–255 Milk bars 13, 219, 233–234, 235, 316; Bar Prasowy 234, 236, 316 Minimum monthly wage 230 Minton, Anna 128 Mobility 75, 207, 254; social mobility 273, 275 Modern man 12 Modernism 14, 63, 85–87, 101, 137, 151, 227, 301 Modernization 40, 67–68, 70, 86, 164, 173, 299–301 Moscow 15, 52, 147, 216 Mumbai 270 Mums and Tots 207 Muranów 181 National Football Stadium 17, 201, 241, 245, 246, 251, 261–262, 265–266 Neo-liberalism 23, 38, 45–47, 50, 52–55, 102, 106, 129, 144, 172, 234–236, 270–271, 276, 293, 301, 302, 303, 305, 309; neo-liberalization 16, 18, 35, 39, 42, 276 New geographies 14, 51; of theory 296 New Urbanism 95, 99 New York 140, 169, 276 NIMBY 232 Noise 214, 231–233, 236 Nostalgia 137, 148, 154–155, 186, 263, 264, 274 Nouveau riche 270, 275 333 Occupy Warsaw 13 Odessa 52, 65 Old Town 11, 84, 142, 166, 202, 242, 245, 251, 301 Oldenburg, Ray 218 Orientalization 14, 255 Orwell, Georg 269, 270, 285 OsRka, Andrzej 122 Pabst, Friedrich 85, 86 Palace of Culture (Pa̅ac Kultury) 31, 83, 86, 88, 96, 101, 103–104, 143, 147, 242, 251, 253, 262, 297, 300, 303, 306 Paris 164, 169, 178, 183, 216, 220, 232, 276, 282, 311 Parochial spaces 199, 201, 202, 206 Participation 142, 144, 154 Partition 141, 174, 216 Peasant–workers 70, 218 Peasants 221 Pho soup 10, 201 PiCtek, Grzegorz 74–75, 147, 149 Plac Defilad (Parade Square) 31, 143, 144, 148, 262, 297, 307, 308, 309, 317 Place 22, 271 Placial Turn 269, 271, 276 Polonia Hotel 143 Post-catastrophic city 11 Post-colonial 19; discourse 146–147; theory 49 Post-socialism 13, 17, 19, 20, 37, 42–43, 47–55 Post-socialist city 20, 21, 35–39, 41, 42, 47–55 Postmodernity 241–267 Poznaw 115, 116, 150, 199, 292, 298 Practice-centered approaches 47, 50, 55 Praga 152, 209, 244, 245, 248, 251, 254, 264 Prague 10, 47, 74, 301 334 Prestige 119–121, 126, 258, 269 Privatism 18, 43, 44, 46 Proletariat 269, 286 Propaganda 178–179, 302 Property 40, 45, 64, 69, 98, 143, 181–182, 283; claims 13, 304, 305–309; fuzzy 46, 298, 303– 309; rights 35, 46 Privatization 53, 64, 72, 73, 74, 121, 170, 304, 305, 317 Prus, Boles̅aw 176, 215 Public space 21, 43, 85, 88, 96, 101, 111, 127, 137, 172, 215, 217, 223, 225, 226, 241, 313 Public sphere 43, 123, 137 Rathje, William and Cullen Murphy 173 ReAnimator 225, 238 Reciprocity 52, 252 Recycling 174–175, 179, 184, 185, 186 Regulations 102, 112, 125, 179, 180, 252, 302, 309 Right to the City 13, 230, 233, 236, 307, 314, 316 Rome 147, 286 Roy, Ananya 14, 22, 294, 296 Ruins 177, 219 Rykwert, Joseph 137 Sachs, Jeffrey 15, 293 Safety 119–120 Sanitation – arbor 181; dirt 167; sewers 164, 176; toilets 121, 165–166, 182, 183–184; waste dumps 172 Scale 18, 62, 101 Schlögel, Karl 17, 19, 25, 64 Schulz, Friedrich 141, 145 Secondary economy 71 Secondary urbanization 10 Security 112, 119, 125 INDEX Self immolation of Ryszard Siwiec 246 Semiotics 151, 259 Sennett, Richard 135, 215, 216, 219 Sexual revolution 279 Shock therapy 13, 272, 293, 302, 303, 305, 315 Shopping malls 73, 89, 94–95, 103, 144, 182, 207, 256, 258, 259, 315, 316; Z̅ote Tarasy 242 Shusterman, Richard 242, 262 Simmel, Georg 135, 229 Simone, AbduMaliq 12, 277, 296, 315, 316 Skyscraper 73, 100, 101, 144, 308 Smith, Neil 75, 271, 287, 301 Smoking ban 231–232, 315 Social Dialogue Commission 225, 229 Social division 216–218 Social life 39, 49, 95, 139 Social networks 49, 193, 198, 202 Socialist – city 10, 40–41, 47, 65, 68, 69; everyday life 70; housing estates 53; planning 72; urbanization 14 Sofia 43, 44, 46, 52 Soja, Edward 138, 270, 271 Solemnity 217 Solidarnoｭ6 221, 272 Soundscape 213, 214, 236 Spatial Turn 66, 265, 270, 271 Stanilov, Kiril 37, 41, 42, 291, 293, 302 Stark, David 45, 305 Starynkiewicz, Sokrates 183, 184 Stasiuk, Andrzej 150 Stenning, Alison and Kathrin Hörschelmann 18, 19, 49, 50 Stenning, Alison et al. 13, 18, 37, 42, 46, 50, 52, 53 Street art 262 Suburbanization 36, 42, 43, 68, 121 INDEX Suburbs 52, 90, 98, 115, 121 Subversive economy 251 Supersam 101 Sustainable development 92, 93, 97, 105 ｬwietlica (communal day room) 225 Sýkora, LudTk and Stefan Bouzarovski 38, 40, 41, 46, 50, 51 Symbols 141, 164 Szelenyi, Ivan 20, 67–69 Table room (sto̅owy) 221 Teatralny square 97 Third places 218, 222, 223 To̅wiwski plan 83, 84 Tourism 283, 254, 265, 281 Traffic 62, 75, 248; jams 90, 96 Transculturalism 244 Transformation 10, 17, 20, 21, 32, 36, 39, 81, 83, 191, 195, 196, 205–206; urban 12 Transition 14, 17, 18, 25, 51, 139, 156, 180, 186; narrative 18 Transnational anthropology 244, 255 Tribal economy 253 Trójmiasto 115, 116 Trybuｭ, Jaros̅aw 147, 149 Turner, Brian 127 Tyrmand, Leopold 219, 220 UFO: Unexpected Fountain Occupation 11–13 Underurbanization 20, 67–68 Uneven development 232, 232, 236, 271, 287 Urban–rural – arrangements 74; divide 271, 282; division 23, 287; relationship 68 Urban Awakening 225 Urban change 11–13, 15, 19, 20, 35, 42, 51, 53–54, 310 Urban ethnography 70 335 Urban fashion 22, 117, 227–233, 257, 259, 260; housing 118–119 Urban forms 25, 36, 47–48, 52 Urban legends 221 Urban movements 213, 226, 229 Urban planning 46, 61, 63, 64, 81, 83, 124, 134, 142 Urban revolution 66, 74–75, 276, 295 Urban sociology 65, 136, 138 Urban sprawl 21, 83, 85, 89, 90, 92, 93, 106, 182 Ursynów 86, 99, 110, 122 Vagrants 178 Varsovie Accueil 206 Verdery, Katherine 18, 19, 46, 71, 304–305 vernacular metropolitanism 217 Vertical encompassment 274–276 Vistula 84, 173, 243, 244; boulevard 300; river bed 307; river front 97, 105 Void 145, 245–246, 266; voids 11, 262; urban voids 142, 149 Warsaw – café culture 152; cityscape 164; collective imaginaries 145, 148; historical development 84; iconosphere 143, 151; identity 9, 83–84, 86, 87, 103, 144, 151, 154, 156, 165, 182, 229, 263; labor market 189–190; material form and representation 134; neo-liberal planning 129, 302, 309; neo-liberal policy 106, 234– 235, 236, 316; neo-liberal values 144; open spaces 92–94; public spaces 87–88, 94, 97–99, 168, 173, 190, 200, 203, 208–209, 219; reconstruction 86; socalist planning 86; urban form 142; urban imaginary 154–156; urban 336 spaces 163–165; urbanization 10; visual identity 101; waste management 172–178; 181 Warsaw Uprising 12, 163, 176–177, 178, 263; Museum 263 Warszawa Funkcjonalna 20, 61–64, 72, 75, 76, 85, 106, 300 Warszawa Powiｭle 11, 147, 226; see also Cafés Warszawka 270–279, 287 Waste 163, 167, 256; dumps 172 Webster, Chris 109–110 Welsch, Wolfgang 244 Wert, Henrik 124 Wilanowskie, Pola 124 Working class 87, 221, 269, 285 INDEX Working masses 221 World Festival of Youth 1955, 219 World War I 84, 85, 174 World War II (Second World War) 11, 85, 106, 143–144, 151, 163, 177, 191, 218, 225, 246, 249, 262, 263, 278 Wólka Kossowska 196, 201 Wroc̅aw 17, 72, 115, 150, 199, 200, 224 Wyka, Kazimierz 12, 249 Za ﾈelaznC BramC 195, 302 Zak̅ad Oczyszczania Miasta (ZOM) 174 Za̅atwia6 sprawy 12