Vlad Odobescu has talked to anthropologist Bogdan Iancu about rethinking middle class housing
For some years now, an anthropologist has been riding his bike or has been travelling by tube to find out where Bucharest and its inhabitants are heading to. He is Lecturer Dr. Bogdan Iancu who teaches at the National School of Political Science and Administration (NSPSA) and belongs to a research team whose goal is to draw up a portrait of Romania’s middle class. How do the Romanian middle class eat? How do they dress up? How to they express their compassion for those around them? Here are some of the questions emerging from their inquiry.
The project began three years ago. Back then, Bogdan Iancu was particularly interested in the way the middle class would arrange their homes mostly built at the edge of the city. However, soon after he began interviewing various people who had moved into residential ensembles, he noticed they kept on talking about traffic or neighborhood issues. So, he switched his research and tackled up the idea of space, infrastructure and the way these people thought about their belonging to the middle class.
He explored the whole chain of localities surrounding Bucharest, except Pantelimon-Colentina. He even reached Crevedia, Buftea and also surveyed the new ensembles within the city.
He has recently revisited the periphery neighborhoods to finish an article he was writing. In one of such neighborhoods he bumped into one of his first interviewees. The man said he would abandon his apartment from the ‘residence’ and move somewhere in Baba Novac neighborhood so that his daughters could attend school and kindergarten there, and he could be closer to his job. “He spends around 1,500 lei a month on gas-oil and wastes too much time in traffic, a time he could use to earn some extra money,” the anthropologist tells.
People have started making such calculations, Bogdan Iancu notices. We are witnessing the phenomenon through which the former working class neighborhoods are reconsidered because they are better connected to city infrastructure. If you took a walk in I.O. R. Park or around Crângași, you’d have the hard proof to that trend, he says. “It’s like crazy. You’ll see how the crowd competes for a seat on a bench. And people are very mixed: from young middle class members to parents or retired grandparents. You couldn’t have seen that a few years ago.”
Those people who were once dreaming about the green paradise outside the city became more pragmatic: they want a lake, a park, a good, cheap market place, a tube station, a tram, a big, handsome mall, and that kind of living coherence they failed to find in those residential ensembles with fanciful names.
Vlad Odobescu: How did your project on housing start?
Bogdan Iancu: The research began three years ago as part of the project on Bucharest’s middle class material projects, coordinated by Magda Crăciun. Years ago we’d explored and taken some initiatives on housing in Bucharest. Yet now, with this project, I can join the already investigated paths more consistently. I was interested in the way they build, in the relationships between built spaces and neighborhoods. I also looked into the spatial gaps they generate.
Initially, I interviewed several people on what is called rather the material culture of domestic space, yet I realized they referred to dwelling only as a space for sleeping. There were fewer people who would consider it a space for leisure or something of this sort. Most of them discussed traffic troubles.
So, I switched my attention to spatial practices, spatial manifestations and the resulting geographies. I began, so to speak, with the material culture and gradually moved to space and infrastructure and the way my interlocutors saw their belonging to the middle class; how will some policies of access to infrastructure blow up somehow their own representations about their status, when things don’t work smoothly, when they feel the odors from the water-purification station, when the running water changes its color, when a power failure happens, when the residents of the First Home program storm in? Such things work like some oxidizing agents against your aspirational project, against your belonging to the middle class, against the very reason you chose to move in there.
I’d like to set the timeline of the whole story. When did people start to move outside the city, outside the existing infrastructure?
The first villas appeared in the mid-1990s, on the former farming lands. Because land was restituted, people from the villages surrounding Bucharest started selling it. Then the local councils would sell lots of land. Villas were built well after 2000. To take full advantage of the land, they built the first high rise blocks.
The first residential ensembles were built around 2000-2005. One big problem surfaced in 2008, when the crisis began and they would rather build for the First Home program. The latter was a way to further loaning and building industry; it was state’s decision to help both the financial sector and the building industry. After 2008, they started to build differently. This is why there are neighborhoods whose Face Book pages show a deep tension between the first residents and those who came later and congested the place. During the second stage, buildings got denser and higher, while in the third stage they will be even higher and denser. There is much bad feeling related to behavior, parking, garbage management and stuff of this kind.
Who are those who moved to the city edge during the first stage?
As I’ve read in some texts, because I couldn’t talk with these pioneers, during the first stage, like in the rest of Europe, there were the nouveau riche who moved in; right after 1990 they pulled it off, started some small businesses and put the network capital they had gained before 1990 into something lucrative. You can see this phenomenon all over Eastern Europe, maybe less in Hungary and Poland, yet it prevailed in Bulgaria, Russia and the former Eastern Bloc countries. They were the new upstarts. They could handle any sort of business, but in general they were entrepreneurs, because the loan capital was absent.
I should make it very clear that the way everything was built depended mostly on how housing was financed. Until 2000, the low and middle class couldn’t afford such loans; it was only the upper middle class who could take a loan. Jennifer Patico [an anthropology researcher] looked into Russia’s nouveau riche and the way people would perceive them, and found that immediately after 1990, they were thought as racketeers and deviants. And she reveals how after 10-15 years of gospel media these people are thought to be some heroes of transition to capitalism whose children learn how to play tennis, how to play the piano, and the people’s reactions have softened a bit. It happened with us, too: the first housing developments were perceived by most people as proofs of a questionable success.
From your discussions with those who moved in the periphery, could you tell what they expected from that place and what they found?
Interestingly enough, I’ve discovered there were but few who had a definite project on their mind. I thought so at first, when I started my research; I was sure that people would have a well-defined project which, depending on how things went on, they would accommodate or reject. The fact is that most of them hoped only to evade the city, because the city was something repulsive due to its traffic, pollution, and noise. Then they would begin to search and visit several ensembles. What’s more interesting is that more often than not, their decision to move depended on minimal aspects: a larger storage space, airy rooms and green areas. Then they would forget about infrastructure, because they were already used to heavy traffic. That wasn’t a priority for those who didn’t have kids. Once they had one, the trouble began: someone had to take him or her to school or kindergarten, which meant an additional ride. Someone had to leave home earlier. If they don’t have kids, they are stuck in traffic. Whenever they went to view an apartment, the realtor would take them when the traffic was at its lowest ebb. Then the apartment seemed airy because it wasn’t furnished.
Well, let me pick up your question again: they didn’t actually need consistent projects, chiefly because there were few who could decide on how they should look like. Most of them went and visited whatever was available. They wanted to see if it was spacious, if it had storage spaces, that’s all. What is worth noting is that some wanted an open space. Generally, they were individuals aged in-between 20 and 30 who hadn’t learned how to cook yet. Those between 30 and 40 would reject the open space because they didn’t want smells spreading in other rooms. Many would consider the neighborhood, which should be by a lake, by a river, by a forest or at least by a park. If you check the extended map of Bucharest, you’ll see how the natural environment becomes an irresistible space for these ensembles.
Then they consider the social proximity. As a rule, they avoid the Roma populated areas. I came across a well-rooted racism. In general, precarious vicinities are a kind of oxide agents for the project. It’s the same with infrastructure: when it’s missing, it turns the project rusty, it makes it old, it erodes it. In a word, these are the things they consider.
I don’t think I gave you a complete answer, but here is what I’ve meant: they don’t start from a project, they operate instead a selection of weaknesses and strengths on the way. As a rule, the apartment finishing blows them away and developers know it too well. They work more on finishing, which are bedazzling.
Who do they get mad of, as a rule, when such problems surface? They’d have every reason to be upset on the seller. Do they also manifest their anger towards the state that allowed such things to happen?
If something fails or is about to fail, they fight the developer first. Then they realize they are the developer’s prisoners, because the project hasn’t been completed yet and they haven’t reached the last drop that makes the cup run over. So, they give the developer some slack because they realize they’ll be able to take a stand only when the project is completed. Until then, the developer tells them that “By reacting in this way, you only make the potential buyers who might help complete the project run away.”
So, they do negotiate.
Oh, yes, at first. Next, these individuals, who escaped from the city and the contract with the state, will have to meet the state again. What is more, they want to get rid of the community, they want to see their ideal of autonomy fulfilled and all at once they find out they need the state to build a road, to reopen a road, to build a school, a nursery, etc. Maybe they can’t afford the proximity school, and state is an instant option, the actor they need. Such cases lead to interesting forms of association which are worth studying. Maybe none of these people ever dreamed of being leaders of resident associations, but they are faced with poor services. Such associations are ultra-active and put pressure even on changes of the interior: if you are allowed to have air-conditioning, if you are allowed to glaze in your balcony. Some associations are very tough; others are quite lenient; rules are established that allow or forbid things.
To what extent does their pressure on the state work?
In Greenfield’s case it does. Following the first stage, when there were rather reticent or, even worse, hostile actors, the Local Council of District 1 and the Municipal Council realized the voting potential of such good lobbyists. Thus, the residents of that ensemble are now supported, at least morally, and some initiatives start to materialize. They have been promised a school and a nursery in the neighborhood. That is a good example of what Ștefan Ghenciulescu called ‘urbanity without urbanism’. He says that having discovered that, and being helped by the state or other parties to overcome such crises, these places could be infused with meaning.
It’s possible, isn’t it!
Yes, very much so. But the individuals from those places hold privileged positions. For instance, the rally which took place on Prelungirea Ghencea was less successful because the neighborhood is inhabited by the lower middle class. In Greenfield, the fact that Mircea Cărtărescu lives there made all the difference. It became an issue of political symbolism no less.
I find the reaction from chunks of society to such rallies interesting. The first reaction would be like ‘Hop, it was you guys who wanted to go there, it’s kind of self-do, self-have!”
There are two sources of rejection. Judit Bodnar evokes some theories about degenerated phantasies and excessive privatism. Obviously, there are people who think they are a kind of degenerated projects. On the other hand, there are some who feel frustrated because they couldn’t afford it, and in my opinion the latter are wildly critical.
In an interview you described these residential ensembles as some “rural galaxies flooded by the city, yet which don’t have city benefits.” How do they get along with the communities existing nearby? As long as they are not Roma, since it seems that in this case things are pretty obvious.
I’ve noticed certain forms of accommodation: farmers sell tomatoes, bell-papers, eggs, meat, and they buy and fill their pantries. At the same time, there are some frictions. As I’ve noticed they manifest in this way: the new-comers criticize the space they populate because they discover its limits, while the others reaction is like ‘Hop, when you came over, didn’t you know what’s all about?” It’s just like you said before. The locals are pleased with what they have, and all at once they are stormed by some ‘odd strangers’. I followed a discussion inside a Face Book group from Tunari, where a lady would write: “You laughed because we’d come with mud-spattered boots to the market in Bucharest, but now the tide has turned.” Yet I think it’s only a Face Book reaction. At the same time, I’d like to pinpoint that it all depends on the zone; in fact, projects differ very much. For instance, the northern area of Snagov and its neighboring villages is opposite to the southern area.
What is the source of such differences?
It’s just an assumption: I could very well say that the north is inhabited by the upper middle class which had already lived there before the 1990s. The first who had a vacation house built there were high-ranking officials before the Revolution. Then, immediately after 1990, when building sites were started over there, they also moved there. There are permanently under-construction projects like Militari Residence and those nearby, or Popești Leordeni, which look very much like Vama Veche in a way: nothing is ever completed, the streets are throbbing with life and services. Interestingly, although the residents are complaining and say “wow, they won’t finish building the road and there’s much garbage here”, they are not in the least as demanding as the residents in the north. They feel they didn’t pay too much, so, end of discussion! “We didn’t put much money; we didn’t make a real effort.” And they tend to complain less. On the other hand, the cheaper ones have been somehow grafted on the mobility infrastructure. For instance, in Military Residence there is the terminus of 178 bus, which takes you to Păcii tube station. At the other end, in Popești Leordeni, it’s Dimitrie Leonida tube station. North and South are very dissimilar archipelagos.
Yet, there is one more difference: because not many housing ensembles were built in the early 2000 in the south, the projects came quite close to the edge of the former industrial sites, while in the north, their resources were the forest and the airport.
People referred to today’s residential ensembles as potential ghettos; this dark perspective has been pointed at already. What’s your opinion?
I think that when people talk about ‘ghettoization’ they mean isolation; yet, there are huge differences between a regular ghetto which results from space production achieved in the absence of state services and where people have to form associations in order to survive, and a ‘posh ghetto’.
The individuals from the residential ensembles feel they become political actors and thus form associations. Local councils also take them into account because they are interested in their votes. On the other hand, in neighborhoods like Popești Leordeni nothing of this kind ever happens because most of them do not change their identity cards for a very simple reason: they hope their children will attend a school or a kindergarten in the city. Again, this is very interesting; we’re talking about people who, in a way, are swimming between two waters.
In conclusion, I wouldn’t call them ghettoes but rather dormitory-cities or dormitory-neighborhoods. Those holding a lower profile are more suitable for living: they have access to the necessary functions of an urban space. I think all they miss is the post-office, the clinic, and the local police station. However, in the northern ensembles there are no pharmacies but medicine machines to make up for it. And it’s funny to follow their group comments: ‘Do you happen to have Augmentin? We need to take some extra antibiotics and we’ve run out of them.” And they’d arrange a meeting in the neighborhood. They do have a community life, after all.
Especially when it’s about running out of a thing or two.
That has nothing to do with what was going on before 1990, but, clearly, penury leads to association, to a form of mutual aid. People try to help each other and overcome their difficulties.
How do developers relate to legislation, in general?
In Bucharest and in the surrounding areas things, for instance, water is seized primitively. The fence is thrust directly up to the water course. There is only an access road that might stay in their way. The lake is simply surrounded and destined only to those who run the project.
In addition, there are other weird things happening; for instance, the dramatic effects on the environment. Many of such projects don’t include the sewerage main, and if the waste-water purifying station breaks down, they will drain it off in the lake, in the end. So, lakes are good to look at and to drain waste-water. Take the case of Mogoșoaia. If you go to the Mogoșoaia Palace and take a panoramic view from its bank anyone can see it clearly. They are building wharves there.
I’d like to talk a little about the idea underlying the exhibition within BETA 2018, which starts from the assumption that there are four actors and one of them, the end user’s voice, is hardly heard because the decisions are made before he could lift a finger. What can the user do so as to become more important?
I think it’s quite late to talk about it. One important thing is that a person shouldn’t be stingy if he or she decided to take out a loan; they could ask someone who could guide them through this landscape. Such services have appeared lately and they can help you imagine a project and set it within the grid proposed by developers and see if that fits there or not. Or, they may start by asking ultra-legitimate questions like: “How long does it take to get there?” “What amenities does it offer?” He’d rather see if the things he got used to can be found there. People never raised such questions and they should do it now: “What are the things I can’t do without?” They should make a short list and see what they can accommodate and what they can negotiate.
Clearly, they should be aware of such euphemisms like “15 minute-away from the center!” How can you live in Chitila and reach Bucharest’s central area in 15 minutes? And why the center? That is an interesting provincial symptom. Why should you get to the center if maybe you work in Pipera or Aurel Vlaicu or somewhere else? You finally understand that those people left Bucharest just to come back for fun, because you can have access to cultural events or have fun only in the downtown.
What are their alternatives?
The malls have become the most favorite cultural hangouts. That’s why the periphery malls are so successful. That’s why they open registries or other offices in malls; because the malls have turned into a sort of vent for all sorts of shortcomings.
There are lots and lots of fractures in this metropolis: people don’t complain as much as they should. What is more, once you take a loan or once you pay back that hard-earned money for 10 or 15 years you start performing an enormous self-persuasion semiotic labor by persuading yourself you didn’t do anything wrong and that ‘Well, I’ll be tied up to this place for 20 or 30 years!”
What I found very strange was the limited relationship between architect and user, how little they communicate with each other.
That also depends on the project financing, because the developer never sets up a discussion between architect and ‘beneficiary’; he just thrusts in their hands whatever each is supposed to be doing, at the price he had tailored just to maximize his profit, thus concealing as much as he can of what cannot be done. Architects are struggling for a project and try to do something about it within the financial constraints set by the developer. The developer becomes a powerful yet devilized figure.
Equally, this phenomenon led to the rethinking of housing spaces built under socialism. Some people reconsider their options and choose the socialist housing pocket and the zones containing parks, nature, and infrastructure. It is a whole tide of individuals who return to the city. The first tide of ‘escapees’ begins to return, which can be noticed in some of Bucharest’s zones. I met people who came back from the periphery and rented their homes to the youngster who are experiencing their dream; the latter will be the second tide.
How did they come to reconsider the former working class neighborhoods?
When housing becomes one of the consumer goods, when marketing slogans invite you to personalize your life and become self-sufficient, it’s but normal to reject socialist housing projects at first and rate them as leftovers of a matrix-system. This kind of idea was intensely cultivated after 1990.
From this viewpoint, there are but few that could understand there were several types of dwelling under socialism. Yet, all it takes is to visit cities like Brașov, Râmnicu Vâlcea, Craiova or Timișoara and see that there was a large variety of building types and some were quite good quality housing. As an architect you could have choices back then. Sometimes the projects were built in the fields but the infrastructure was reachable.
Obviously, there were also poor quality buildings, as it is today. However, at that time the urbanistic rules were observed. Housing was consistent and coherent. Today, many competing projects are overlapping; the new projects rival with the vicinities they belong to. Thus, at the end of the day all we can see is a tournament of phantasies.
It is especially inside the city, in the former working class neighborhoods built before 1950, that they choose to build taller buildings, thus creating a gap environment. I’ve found someone’s manifesto; the individual would drop by a block of this kind and tell those who lived there they should understand that one day they themselves might be surrounded by tall blocks.
Likewise, new lots of land have emerged on the former industrial sites inside the city. Naturally, they are super-attractive because they address those individuals who had searched for the ‘green phantasies’, and now realize they have no infrastructure. If we are talking about the socialist period, then it is a fact that the new ensembles are already well-connected to infrastructure. Such sites directly benefit from this capital: they are located within a 5-10-minute walk from the tube station, are well-connected to streets because they were placed on vast expanses of land.
I can also notice the phenomenon of ‘biscuit-blocks’. They are small blocks in the periphery. I call them ‘biscuit-blocks’ because they are 3 or 4-floor buildings on very awkward lots. They contain very cheap apartments in the semi-basement in front of which people park their cars. I know for sure it’s also illegal. Besides, their existence is an obvious sign of decline. We cannot realize what it really means for someone who, besides living in a poorly lit, cheap apartment, he can also see his neighbor’s car parked right in front of his window.
Once I talked with someone about the absence of education in matter of housing.
Let me play the devil’s advocate now and ask: what do you mean by housing education? Do you think that in Italy or Spain they teach it in schools? I don’t think education is the real issue; I do think people don’t set their minds to the things they really need, that is, beyond the tittle-tattle of the marketing gospel. They brand up advertisements that transform the domestic environment into a stress free zone. Nay, a dwelling is a relational space, you won’t play darts all day long there, will you?
In one of your articles you mentioned that we shouldn’t judge these people as they are judged for the decisions they made.
This is one of my research topics: I have to stop being biased whenever such issues are discussed in those areas. They are mostly design problems and they never come out of the blue. I wish people would understand and look at how these projects are designed; those misfortunes did not just happen; they weren’t mere biographical mishaps. They were all hidden in the details people overlooked. I would like to start a discussion from here: can people look into these “sub-finishing”? They put a lot of money, after all, so they must be careful with what they pay for. Fine, it’s not the hard-earned money now, but they’ll be hard-earned money in the future.
My message is that these people should be understood, but they, in their turn, should make an effort and realize how they’ve got themselves into such trouble. They shouldn’t oversimplify the matter and blame it all on either the city council, the developers or authorities. They should train themselves in political entrepreneurship and start being more than contributors who are given things “because they are tax payers”. This vision has been parachuted from different cultures and can’t be simply implemented here. If one’s domicile on the identity card is in Bucharest, how does one expect that the mayor from Popești Leordeni will do anything for him? One doesn’t count there as a political actor. One should clearly justify one’s position. If they want to be taken into account, they should apply for an identity card in the area they live.
I would also emphasize that there is a problem with purchasing, with the idea of property, more precisely. No one thinks about a rental. It seems that people think that unless the place belongs to them, they’ll be thrown out in the street. Many monthly loan payments are quite often more expensive than a rent, and the Robor index made the First Home Program have a chocking effect: there were people who found out they were supposed to pay 100 euros extra for their installment. And that is excessively challenging not only for homes but also for the chance of having one. I would like to propose these topics for further reflection: “Why should I buy?” “What should I buy?”
Interview conducted by Vlad Odobescu, published by Zeppelin on August 2018
