Why Communists Demolished our Cities (and other Urban Renewal Stories)

The public discourse on urban transformation during the communist period is still full of stereotypes and misconceptions, emphasizing the failures of the socialist city: demolition, the grey appearance and poor living standards of the new districts, pollution etc. But what was the logics behind these policies? How did we end up with such cities? While focusing on the case of Romania, this talk will offer a broader comparative context to post-war urban renewal policies, arguing that the solutions adopted were conditioned by economic scarcity as much as by ideology and references to other national contexts.

Liliana Iuga received her doctoral degree from the Department of History at the Central European University (Budapest) in 2017. She studied in Cluj-Napoca and Perugia (Italy), and was a visiting fellow at the Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester (UK). Currently working in Cluj, she writes on architecture, architects, and urban transformation during (and after) state socialism.