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Workshop #2: “Housing - right or commodity. What is to be done?”

18 May 2017, 6 pm

tranzit.ro/ Cluj,
Brassai Samuel Street, no 5

The workshop series “Housing - right or commodity. What is to be done?” continues with a new discussion series tackling the privatization process and the manner in which the property transfer led to the commodification of housing. We aim to discuss the privatization of economic units and of the housing stock, together with the relation between the two. We examine these rights transfer practices at local level, in connection with the national legislation, as well as with the conditions imposed by the international financial organizations as a means to create the market economy. Empirically, we localize these processes in a peri-central urban area. Prior to privatization, it comprised three state factories, alongside a mixed housing property and tenancy regime. The urban socialist development process has partially led to the construction of collective housing blocks, yet not every systematization plan was implemented. Beyond the transfer process introduced in this second workshop, we introduce the transformation of the area under the impact of projects by grand real estate developers, to be addressed during the following workshops.

The workshop series is organized within the project “Strengthening the Housing Justice Coalition in Romania through reframing the political claims for public housing” of Desire Foundation (Cluj) in partnership with tranzit.ro/Cluj.

The project is coordinated by Simona Ciotlăuș and Noémi Magyari.

Texts for reading:

1. Chapter 5. Peter Marcuse - Privatization and its Discontents: Property Rights in Land and Housing in the Transition in Eastern Europe, In: Cities After Socialism: Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post-Socialist Societies, edited by Gregoly Andrusz, Michael Harloe and Ivan Szelenyi, 1996, pp. 119–191
2. MOCSÁRY JÓZSEF: VISSZAPILLANTÁS A PRIVATIZÁCIÓRA, In Eszmélet, 2001. január 1
3. Norbert Petrovici: Privatizând statul. De unde vine urbanizarea haotică?, 14 iunie 2011

Supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Belgrade Office).