Eroded public spaces: Impacts on public space by socio-economic transformations in Eastern Europe.

Tadas Jonauskis

Eroded public spaces:

Impacts on public space by rapid socio-economic transformations in
Eastern Europe.
Tadas Jonauskis
Study number 1535536 _ tadasjonauskis@gmail.com
Delft University of Technology, Department of Urbanism
5th Graduation Lab Urbanism Conference

January 28th 2010

Abstract – This paper will review the literature regarding to socio-economic changes on public spaces in
Easter European countries after the fall of USSR. It covers the topics of privatization, commercialization,
virtualization and mobilization that are the main process affecting the use of public space. Public space is the
main focus of this paper and the main question to be answered is how public space was impacted and changed by
rapid socio-economic transformations in Eastern Europe. Therefore this paper investigates the way society have
changed and the way new elements which were introduced, such as car and virtual networks, after the fall of
Soviet Union affect the behaviour and life style of the people which resulted how differently people started to
use pubic space. Literature review on these elements and aspects will give an overview and suggestions how the
public space is used and what are the threats and negative elements created by the processes of transformation
that can be avoided or solved in later graduation project stages.

Key words – Public space, urban life, street vitality, meeting place, shifted centralities, Eastern Europe, urban
society, privatization, car culture, commercialization

1 Introduction However ‘western culture’ didn’t bring only wealth

This paper will explore the reasons why public
space have changed and is still changing in state of
transition from socialism system to capitalism one
in Eastern European countries after the fall of USSR.
Socialist cities had strict rules on how the public
space had to be used and how society had to look
like and to be shaped. The use of public space was
not only different in physical characteristics from
the Western cities but also it was different how
society was seeing it and using it. A sudden change
after the fall of USSR led to number of
interpretations and unplanned and chaotic changes
in the way people were using public space. Soon
after former limitations of public realm, public
opinion and public politics in Soviet Union society
was free to express itself in a way it could imagine.
People were fascinated by formerly forbidden
‘western culture’ which suddenly became
unbreakable part of everyday life and horizon to
reach, “first comes Coca Cola, then a Shell petrol
station, then a Rolls-Royce dealership and you are
part of the league” (Bogle August 1996). As Kiril
Stanilov investigates, numbers of different social
and economic processes have started to change the
use of public space, and ‘western culture’ gained
more and more importance (Stanilov 2007).
and life quality, but on contrary it resulted in
number of negative effects which are expressed in
the way people are using public space.
This paper will cover main reasons of the public
space to be changing. Literature review will help to
identify the changes and the affects on public space.
The main question to be answered with this paper is
how public space was impacted and changed by
rapid socio-economic transformations in Eastern
European countries.
This paper will start investigating the privatization
of land together with privatization of former state
economic activities was provoked by the need of
relaying of your own. It resulted in physical
shrinkage of space and shifted balance between
public and private spaces (Stanilov 2007). In
addition new commercial activities are effecting and
changing the meaning of public space by creating
and promoting consumerist way of using the space
which lead to decay of users in other than commerce
oriented spaces. Another aspect is increase in use of
virtual networks which created new possibilities to
practice public discussions and public opinion and it
led to fewer reasons for meeting other people in
physical space. In addition mobility and private car

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Eroded public spaces: Impacts on public space by socio-economic transformations in Eastern Europe.
cult which is another type of network affected the
use of public space. Both virtual networks and
infrastructural networks can be related to an
individualization of people which create less need
and fewer possibilities for communal and social
interaction with each other.
In the end the use of public space is affected by
natural socio-economic processes which led to
shrinkage of physical public space, lost of
importance of being in public space and created less
possibilities to be in space together with the other
people. This erosion of public space can be seen as a
big threat to public realm and society which is
needed to be formed and shaped as a whole and not
as a collection of individualities especially in a state
of transition from socialist system to another
capitalist one in such a short time span.
2 What is public space?
First of all public space is not so much about the
physical environment, although it is unbreakably
linked with it, but it is more about the society and
relationships of humans. Hannah Arendt
distinguishes human activities to labour, work and
action – where labour and work is part of the urban
environment and is described as a ’world of things’
where people need to survive and to stay alive.
Activity of action and speech, which she focuses the
most, is the only activity among humans that
doesn’t need things to intersect (Teerds 2009).
However these actions are affected by the urban
environment which creates possibilities for them to
appear. “Organized spaces became the condition for
collectivities that were meaningful and capable of
both persistence and evolutionary change” (Read
2009). In other words the urban environment is
affecting the society directly or indirectly by
creating chances for social interactions to appear. In
general public space can be described as the space
which is publicly accessible regardless any social,
ethnical differences. Basically public space is
opposite of the private. However there are few
places which can be described as ‘public domain’
(Hajer, Reijndorp and Brinkman 2001) where
society is formed and shaped or ‘loose spaces’
(Karen A. Franck , Quentin Stevens 2007) where
people can use different possibilities offered by
these spaces and act unpredictably and freely which
usually become most active and mostly used
locations in the city. Arendt compares this type of
space to be as Greek agoras where activity of speech
and actions were concentrated in one location which
had all functions and activities such as commercial,
military practices and political discussions, for a
society to be shaped and formed. Therefore we can
say that public space is a tool for humans to
communicate and express themselves which
suggests that if people and society is changing –
public space have to and is changing accordingly.
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Tadas Jonauskis
Illustration 1 soviet commercial centers
To conclude we can say that cities have two types of
spaces: one is the urban environment or ‘world of
things’ as described by Arendt and the second is
places for action which are part of the ‘public
domain’ and can be seen as ‘loose spaces’ where
formation of the society is taking place and it differs
from culture to culture. Eastern Europe is
experiencing big changes in the society and whole
political and ideological systems which are visible
and effecting public spaces intensively.
3 How pubic space was used in USSR?
In Eastern Europe cities have changed from the
system of socialism to capitalism in a very short
time and the change strongly affected the use of
public spaces by taking away the amount of it or
weakening or strengthening the importance that was
before. Soviet cities were planned differently from
the western ones and particularly in distribution of
public spaces. Western cities had concentrated
network of public spaces in the city core with some
parks, squares in the suburban areas meanwhile
socialist cities were built to have large amount of
open public spaces spread around entire city. This
resulted in the abundance of public space and low
intensity of its use (Stanilov 2007). Moreover in
socialist city all public space was designed to be
public and collective space (see illustration 1).
“Collectivism was claimed to become one of the
mayor virtues of a new socialist society that society
people were supposed to build and spatial
arrangements were seen as the means to provide
material foundations for emergence of a particular
‘social form’ - a collective body of soviet people”
(Moiseeva 2007). In addition most vital functions
were taken away from socialist public spaces such
as market place, political debates, and religion
practice therefore only social interaction was a
viable function left. In other words all public spaces
were belonging and were design to be used as
Eroded public spaces: Impacts on public space by socio-economic transformations in Eastern Europe. Tadas Jonauskis

collective spaces for a collective society which for people to interact with each other unexpectedly.
could only socially interact with each other without In addition to technical infrastructure networks
any commercial, political or religious actions. It was virtual networks play important role in taking away
a space to live a life but not the space to shape the the need to be in public space. It created possibilities
society. In other words, as Arendt distinct actions, to move part of public realm to virtual space, TV,
which are crucial for public space to be active, most media and it weakened the importance of physical
of them were taken away and only most basic interaction between people. Finally due to these
everyday practices were left for a man to be in processes big amount of ‘lost-spaces’ were created
public. which have no public space image at all. In fact it is
just urban space in which you still can have social
To summarize, public space was intensively planed interaction but the space have no tools or is not
and distributed throughout the whole city under the creating possibilities for people to get engaged with
communist regime and it created large amounts of one another.
open spaces which were called collective public
spaces. However most essential elements were taken
away from public space and people couldn’t use 5 Privatization
these spaces for economic activities, political Most active and most visible process is privatization
discussions, religion practices and it wasn’t devoted of public land and former public economic
to be place for society to form and shape. In the end enterprises. While in soviet city there was no private
all public spaces were designed to belong to land and private property in post-socialist city it was
everybody but in fact they didn’t belong to nobody a matter of survival to have private house, land and
and they were ‘no-one’s’ space and after the fall of be part of private economic enterprise. Private
USSR the balance between public and private realm property became most valuable subject in the
have started to change which led to rapid society and suburban lifestyle led to enormous
reorganizations of public spaces. speeds of suburbanization. People simply wanted to
escape from idea of living collectively and sharing
4 The change after the fall of USSR collective land while living in flats (illustration 3)
After the fall of USSR people were fascinated by and the possibility to live ‘western’ life style lured
formerly forbidden ‘western culture’ and people to live separately from each another. In fact
immediately started reach the level of the west. it started the fragmentation of urban land into small
“People in Eastern-Europe finally enjoyed political isolated pieces which resulted in a big use of the
and economic liberties, where some people indulge
in fast food and fast cars” (Hanasz November 30,
1999). In other words different processes have
started to affect the use of public space especially
economic and political freedom, fashion for
‘western culture’, private and public realm shifted
balance and implementation of different networks of
communication. First of all economic freedom
created the need for public space to be part of
commercial activities and it left the rest of the city
to be neglected and excluded from any changes and
social activities. It changed the meaning of public to
a new commercially oriented definition.
Consumerism became part of everyday practice and
it became a place for political and social discussions Illustration 2 privatization of land
to take place. Commercialization affected the
importance of space and market oriented functions
became a tools of ‘place making’ and ‘branding’ of
space while the rest of the city was excluded from
consumerist system and have no reasons to be in.
Privatization led to enormous change in the balance
of private and public realm which resulted in
physical shrinkage of the public land. Of course
western culture is not imagined without a private
suburban house and a private car which led to other
change in mobilization. Paradoxically it created
better accessibility of functions to be reached by car
but on the contrary it reduced the use of public
functions and spaces by creating fewer possibilities Illustration 3 socialist residential districts

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Eroded public spaces: Impacts on public space by socio-economic transformations in Eastern Europe.
land only for the private purposes (Stanilov 2007).
In other words big amount of public space was
privatized disregarding any public wellbeing while
creating fragmented and isolated collection of
privately owned and only privately used plots of
urban land (illustration 2). People started to cluster
together accordingly to their social class which
resulted in formation of gated communities
especially around places with big natural or urban
quality which created no possibilities for public to
use them.
In the end the process of privatization led to
physical shrinkage of public space to a collection of
privately owned land parcels which clustered
together and in some cases overtook natural and
urban qualities to private ownership or blocked
access by creating gated communities. Moreover it
resulted in a loss of possibilities for social
interaction and created more individual and isolated
lifestyle which was proudly adopted from ‘western’
cultures.
6 Commercialization
Commercialization is another process which
weakens the importance of public space. Since
commercial activities were forbidden or strictly
controlled in socialist city it became the first things
to start from the beginning. “The activity of trading
or buying in open air market became more open,
more acceptable and more noticeable in the post-
communist period” (Sik and Wallace 1999). In other
words it started with informal economy and open air
market type activities (illustration 4) which finally
developed into fully equipped leisure-shopping
centers sometimes in the middle of historic core,
which eventually took away the users from the city.
As described by Kaliopa Andrews
commercialization of the historic core led to number
of negative effects such as decline of residential
functions, uncontrolled and unplanned development,
damage to the historic heritage and traffic
congestion and parking problems (Andrews 2002).
More over market oriented spaces started a
Illustration 4 commercialization of space
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Tadas Jonauskis
campaign of ‘place making’ and it gradually
develops into apathy of people towards the spaces
without any commercial activities. Comfort,
concentration of functions and well known name is
a key element for a successful commercial space.
These types of spaces lost its meaning of social
interaction and formation of public domain and
developed to profit oriented consumerists spaces.
This process weakened the importance of spaces for
action and communication therefore society is
relying more on the importance of ‘place’ rather
than people that are in the place.
In conclusion commercialization of public spaces
led to loss of importance of being in the public and
communicating with each other. Moreover it created
society which rely more on the importance of
consuming and their choice of being in public space
is based on importance of ‘place’ rather than people.
In addition this process led to big disregard of any
other non-profit oriented spaces which became
backyard of commercial activities.
7 Virtualization
Another important aspect is ‘virtualization’ of
public domain. The outcome of this process is that
many discussions moved away from the street and
physical space to internet, TV, newspaper and the
importance of meeting people for ‘face to face’ was
lost. However it didn’t take away in total the need
for ‘face to face’ communication but on contrary it,
in a way, emphasized the need of doing so, and as
Saskia Sassen discovered it happens mostly in
highly concentrated and clustered market oriented
areas (Sassen 2001). In other words the meeting of
people became very important at highly dense and
clustered areas where one type of social class people
needs each other for purposes of their economic
interests. That means that only the places of big
concentration and one type cluster can afford of
having vital public space which is needed for social
interaction. Therefore the rest of the city is left apart
from these locations and social interaction can take
place in virtual world. The need of being in public
space changed and is still changing according to a
Illustration 5 virtualization of space
Eroded public spaces: Impacts on public space by socio-economic transformations in Eastern Europe.
possibilities of being connected via different virtual
and physical networks. As shown in illustration 5 in
the 19th century city, public space was the place for
communication, information and transporting goods
however in present times physical and social cities
have been torn apart and there are multiple social
networks in physical space which have any
connection where they find themselves at that
moment (Christiaanse 2008). On the other hand
virtual networks strengthened individualization of
people by creating possibilities to be connected with
the rest of the world even in the most private spaces
via mobile network, internet and over other
communicational networks. It created possibilities
for people to be alienated from each other physically
while being connected virtually. In other words it
took away the need of social interaction and created
alternative ways for public domain to be developed
and discussed.
To summarize ‘virtualization’ process affected
public space in both ways of making it more wanted
and concentrated and on contrary making it less
needed and not used. It created places of high
concentration of similar type clusters where people
use space actively but most of the times thematically
and periodically while other spaces are left behind.
On the other hand virtualization took away the need
to be in public space by creating possibilities for
being connected with other people in even the most
private locations. This process is not a big threat for
public space but it created alternatives and forced
less people to use physical public space.
8 Mobilization
Mobilization and private car cult in the post-
socialist city became important part of everyday life.
The amount of private car tripled or doubled in the
Eastern European countries and the use of public
transport have dropped from very high percentage
(80%-90%) to sometimes bellow 50% (Stanilov
2007). It changed the way people move and the way
people live. Suburban life style is not imagined
without a private car which unfortunately became a
‘must’ to have element in post-social society.
Therefore Eastern European countries are quickly
Illustration 6 car culture
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Tadas Jonauskis
going toward ‘western’ life style without any
considerations of negative effects of it. Most of
former public collective spaces around residential
areas were turned into big continuous parking areas
without any considerations about life quality. In
other words car became dominant element not only
in the city centre or highways but it occupied all
vacant land or former public space for facilitating
parking demands. Moreover the use of car
developed possibilities for suburbia to flourish
together with decentralization of functions all
around the city which moved to locations that are
better accessible by car. In addition big amount of
public transport users were lost and in total it
resulted in less pedestrians in the streets which
means less possibilities to have vital spaces. In other
words suburban life style and metropolitan way of
distributing functions led to individualization and
segregation of people. Private car shifted dynamics
of cities towards more transport oriented
development which mostly settled along the
highways or main roads which unfortunately are
mono-functional and pedestrian unfriendly.
Although the accessibility of different functions
have increased but segregation and separation of
people made fewer chances for unexpected meetings
and interactions with others which is part of
individualization process.
To summarize, private car became a new ‘western’
lifestyle which is roughly affecting public space
physically and indirectly. First of all suburban life
style together with sprawl of functions created less
possibilities for people to meet and socially interact.
Moreover public spaces around residential areas
became one continuous parking space due to rapid
increase of the amount of private cars and few
changes in the environment to adopt this change. To
conclude people became more separated from each
other and sprawl of functions created more
segregated cities which are pedestrian unfriendly
and car oriented.
9 Conclusions
In conclusion former soviet cities are experiencing
process of transformations and it is damaging and
weakening the importance of public space.
‘Erosion’ can be used to describe the loss of the
important elements for public space to function and
be a vital part of the city and society. Physically
public space is shrinking due to privatization
process and the need of transport oriented spaces.
Commercial process are taking away the users from
cities public spaces and create the need of ‘place
branding’ and the need of commercial activities to
be in the public space therefore the rest spaces are
regarded as unwanted and without any importance
and the need to be in there. Moreover virtual
networks partly took away the need for ‘face to
face’ interactions and ‘public domain’ is moving
Eroded public spaces: Impacts on public space by socio-economic transformations in Eastern Europe.
away from physical space to a virtual. Increased
mobility created separation of the people from each
other and segregated areas which are mono-
functional and pedestrian unfriendly and car
oriented. In the end we can conclude that cities
started to change from open and collective to closed
and individual cities. It changed from open city in
terms of open and well accessible public space to a
closed city in terms of privately owned and fenced
city. Accordingly collective way of living was
changed to a private ‘western lifestyle’ with the
importance if individual rather than society as such.
To sum up, public space was important tool to
create collective communist society but now it is not
used and not understood as a tool to create and
promote social interactions but in opposite it is
resulted to be used as a tool to separate and alienate
people and create the city for individualities.
10 Recommendations
The main intention of this paper is to determine the
processes that are affecting the use of public space
after the fall of USSR in Eastern European countries.
It showed the way people are using public space
under new social and economic conditions and how
public space has changed in past couple decades.
This given overview will give literature based
argumentation for further site specific empirical
research and will play a theoretical underpinning
role in graduation project.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my appreciation to mine
main mentor Stephen Read who gave well
structured support on the topic of public space. Also
I would like to appreciate Remon Rooij and Ana
Maria Fernandez-Maldonado for a support and
lessons on writing this paper.
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