Romanian large housing estates

What is it about?

This article explains the challenges of managing owner-occupied flats in the communist-built housing estates: how the collective system of utility provision has been adapted for individual metering; and how residents finance the maintenance of their common property (lifts, roofs, halls).

Featured Image

Photo by Jimmy Chang on Unsplash

Photo by Jimmy Chang on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This paper challenges both the idea of the 'tragedy of of the commons' and the 'tragedy of the private goods' , and it is relevant to the whole post-communist area.

Perspectives

“

Being a flat-resident myself, I worried prior to the fieldwork: will I be able to observe and elicit new insights from what I was already knowing too well? This is how I learn being self-reflective on my positionality as a researcher.

”