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In capitalist Eastern Europe, surplus population is created at the intersection of economic restructuring, leading to the decline of jobs, the absorption of housing in broader circuits of capital accumulation, and the state's disinvestment in social housing. Drawing on the lived experiences of the impoverished Roma from Baia Mare (Maramureș county, Romania), I analyze how racialization produces them as surplus-as-laborer and surplus-as-tenant. The article explores the historically constituted labor-housing nexus. Capitalist enterprises are interested in having permanent access to a cheap and flexible labor force that reproduces in housing conditions that are as low cost as they are inadequate. Private real estate capital excludes those who cannot afford the fast-rising level of the ground rent while the post-socialist state refuses to invest in public housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the micro-foundations of failed market insertion in Romania's chemical sector. During the EU pre-accession period, transnational integration regimes (TIRs) induced FDI-dependence. In turn, mass-privatization policies in conjunction with weak state capacities—evidenced by domestic development policies with limited operational use—caused failed market insertion. Two former state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are analyzed in this manner, and two pathways to failed integration emerge: via domestic mismanagement and multi-national corporations' (MNCs) rent-seeking practices. The findings extend the diversity of the TIR framework and provide a nuanced account of downturn scenarios during EU integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Petrosani Depression, considered to be the most important exponent of the hard coal mining industry in Romania, represents today an area characterized by serious social and economic problems. The economy of this region still depends strongly on the mining industry, which makes the other sectors underdeveloped. The failure of the restructuring process from the Petrosani Depression generated a series of serious consequences such as the reduction of the employed population, to which is added the difficulty of finding a new job, either due to the low supply of jobs compared to the demand, or due to the technical specialization of mining employees, which limited their employment opportunities in other economic sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will look into the interconnections between the common imaginary of the built socialist symbols and the perception of the built environment in the post-1989 romanian context. The attention will be directed towards the case of socialist built propagandistic symbols such as those introduced by the industrial architecture and their impact on the current patrimonial endorsement of the 20th century industrial legacy. This is analyzed through the specific case study of hunedoara, a former metallurgic town in transylvania. During communism, hunedoara steelworks became an example of 'monumental industrial architecture,' despite its multi-layered industrial development dating from the 19th century, while during the post-1989 period, under the visible effects of deindustrialization, it was labelled as a symbol of 'romanian decay.' This case study not only proves how vulnerable the industrial legacy is in romanian context, but brings into debate issues such as the post-1989 territorial transformations and the disappearance of derelict industries, especially when labelled as 'misfortunes' of a political built legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the case of Lugoj Municipality in Romania to reveal the major characteristics of the post-socialist industrial restructuring. During the last two decades of post-socialism, industry in Romanian cities has undergone an important transformation in terms of industrial restructuring. This is an outcome of the neo-liberal policies that reached the Eastern European countries (EECs) with the collapse of the former state socialism. The paper examines the post-socialist industrial restructuring at the local level based on quantitative and qualitative methods. In-depth empirical analysis unveils the main transformations in the industry of Lugoj Municipality, emphasizing how industrial restructuring works at the local scale, altering the spatial structure of the town and generating new different spatial patterns. Postulating a simultaneous de-/reindustrialization accompanied with tertiarization, the paper provides a critical reflective and generalizable account in the post-socialist transformations of Romanian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After remodeling the economies of the Western world all along the 1980s, deindustrialization abruptly hit the former socialist countries in the early 1990s. Deindustrialization with destructuring meant the disintegration of the economic structure and industrial cities, and regions entered a downsizing spiral of population loss after the breakdown of traditional industries, outmigration and suburbanization. Post-socialist Europe forms a new 'pole of shrinkage'. Set within the regional context, deindustrialization and urban shrinkage show a solid cause-effect relationship in the Romanian case. The industrial change of cities creates a pattern of uneven growth which stays at the core of understanding the emerging urban shrinkage. The paper finds out that 122 out of 260 towns had an above average Location Quotient (LQ) of industrial employment in 1992 and about 5 million urban dwellers were under the threat of forthcoming deindustrialization. Towns of all demographic sizes were above average industrialized but mostly were medium-small and medium-big towns. They lost more than one quarter of the 1992 population number, significantly higher than in towns with below average LQ of industrial employment. At a large extent, the mix of urban, regional and industrial policies failed to reduce the social costs of deindustrialization. The policy response of spatial strategies, while avoiding the 'one size fits all' perspective, should be focused on place-based approach and should be built on economic diversification, complementarity and cooperation within the specific territorial context of small and medium-sized towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transition from centralized to market economy has led to deep restructuring of urban land use. It is particularly important for the shift between the two trends: deindustrialization of the 1990s and economic tertiarization of the 2000s. Post-communist built-up space dynamics has manifested in two phases: a) before 2000, with industrial destructuring and insular appearance of commercial spaces within big residential zones; b) after 2000, with extending residential areas on city's periphery and in suburbs, as well as with logistic and commercial facilities in sub-and peri-urban areas. Dynamics of built-up space has been evaluated using spectral mixture analysis of remotely sensed data, extracted from two Landsat5TM images (acquired in 1988 and 2010). Comparative analysis of the results has led to identification of the areas with increasing and decreasing density of built-up spaces. This analysis was realized in order to verify the hypothesis, according to which peri-central areas are more preferable for new buildings, even when there is enough free space in central area. These results, reflecting the dynamics of built-up spaces in Bucharest city, are the effect of certain processes, frequently chaotic, reflected on the urban landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the municipality area of Bucharest, the capital of a former socialist state, shows profound changes in landscape structure as a result of economic transition towards market economy and the consequent conversion of certain spaces to different uses (more commerce, less industry for example). The approaches regarding the dynamics of the industrial landscape and how conversion process is taking place is however limited. The purpose of the present paper is to define the industrial landscape, current trends and evolution of this landscape type within the urban tissue. Also, models of conversion in the post-industrial landscape are pointed out in this article. The methodology used is based on evaluation sheets that have been applied in several industrial areas in Bucharest. The results obtained from the survey showed that the industrial landscape is experiencing a quick transition, many industrial units are transformed into supermarkets, malls or business buildings, and often the investors choose to demolish the industrial artifacts instead of preserve and use them. These changes are affecting the urban tissue and the communities, not always being good examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]