Due to the lack of land market and differential
land rent the utilisation and commercialisation of
city centres was low. There were no incentives to
redevelop the city centres and, as a result, little
physical and land-use changes were observed there,
except for some representative buildings. The
centres preserved, to a considerable extent, their
residential functions.^6 The socialist cities preserved
a significant proportion of industrial areas in inner
cities. The overwhelmingly industrial character was
preserved and the transition to a service-oriented
city progressed slowly.^7 The industrial land took up
15–0 % of the total built-up area, compared to only
5–8 % in the West European cities.^8 Large part of the
industrial land was located close to the city centres.^9
The high-rise housing estates on the periphery were
substantially larger than analogous estates in the
capitalist cities. They were relatively heterogeneous
in terms of the socio-economic resident’s status.^10
Socialist cities showed a sharp contrast between
the compact high-density core city and the outer
suburban ring. Socialist cities were, in general, more
compact and dense as compared with Western
European and especially with North American ones,
with little or no suburbanisation taking place.^11 The
settlements in the suburban belt preserved their
rural character.^12
Bertaud provided population density profiles of various European cities,
measured by concentric circles of 1 kilometre from the centre to the periphery.^13
Most of the Central and Eastern European cities had high residential densities in
the city centre, which fall off in the inner city areas due to the large proportion
of industrial spaces and low-density pre-war housing, then rise up in the ring
of socialist housing estates, and drop off rapidly again in the suburban zone.
Of course, there are differences among the cities reflecting their topographic
conditions, cultural traditions and pre-socialist patterns. However, despite
these variations, the cities’ spatial structures are generally consistent with the
above described model of population density distribution.
Bertaud and Renaud attribute the specific features of the socialist cities’ spatial
structure to the absence of land markets, which has impaired the ability to
allocate and recycle urban land.^14 In the socialist cities, where no land and real
estate markets were allowed to exist and all development decisions were taken
trough an administrative-command process, once land was allocated, it was
almost never recycled. In the absence of price signals, there were no incentives
to redevelop already built-up areas. It was administratively easier to meet the
Fig. 2
Sofia Municipality, macro spatial structure.
(Archive Valkanov)Yani Valkanov