Planning Capital Cities

First Decay: 1990–2000. The Enthusiasm

The period that followed immediately after the events of 1989 meant, first of
all, a very special state of mind. The hope of desire to rapid and radical changes
of the Romanian society was so great, that other needs and mechanisms
necessary for such a process were overshadowed. There have been numerous
studies and researches on the long and difficult process “transition” from
the centralized communist state economy to the market mechanisms, which
affected in relatively similar ways all the former socialist countries. I will refer
here only to some of the transformations that marked the urban planning
and its fundamental role for the urban expansion. The analysis of this period
is based on the DPSIR matrix, the methodology successfully implemented by
prof. Simon Bell,^5 which reveals several aspects presented below. The key-
factors for the early urban expansion process in Bucharest could be found
firstly in the legal framework for the professional practice incl. the political
and administrative ones, secondly in the decreasing interest in housing blocks
and the return to the village (especially by the last coming in the Capital), and
thirdly in the development of real estate market mechanisms in tandem with
the crediting policies.

Fig. 3

The diagram “DPSIR” for the

peripheral expansion process

in Bucharest, during first and

second decay (1990–2007).

(Stan)

Angelica Stan