Spatial Planning and Urban Development in the New Eu Member States: From Adjustment to Reinvention by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138273214
Google: FBFVvgAACAAJ
Goodreads: 32833822
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2006-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

9

The Third World in the First World: Development and Renewal Strategies for Rural Roma Ghettos in Slovakia

Jakob Hurrle

Introduction

Although ten years ago it was a topic hardly ever mentioned beyond the narrow circles of human right activists, the situation of the Roma minorities in Central and Eastern Europe has recently become the subject of various ambitious empirical studies and publications (European Commission 2002, Ivanov 2002, Ringold and Tracy 2002, Ringold et al. 2003, World Bank et al. 2002, Vaŝečka et al. 2003). The new interest of Western countries and international organizations reflected in these studies is a result of changes in Europe's political geography. With the Eastern enlargement of the European Union, the increasing social exclusion of Roma in countries such as Slovakia, Hungary or Romania has become a pan-European issue. This international dimension is the reason for the fear of the old member states that poverty, desperation, and open borders could result in a mass exodus to the West. In those countries in Central and Eastern Europe where Roma constitute a minority of significant size (such as Slovakia, where some estimate the Roma to constitute up to 8 or 10 percent of the population),1 the Roma issue has been conceived as one of the main obstacles to their European integration. At the same time, however, the national governments used the Roma issue as an effective way to demand EU support to resolve a problem which might indeed exceed the economic and political capacities of the transition countries.

In most of the above-mentioned studies, one recurrent finding is direct the causality between poverty and spatial exclusion. The more spatially isolated from the majority population a Roma family lives, the higher the probability that this family lives in extreme poverty. Roma living in segregated settlements are also less able to maintain contacts with members of the majority population (Ivanov 2002: 70; Radičová 2004: 11). Obviously, this further limits their chances for a future integration into mainstream society. In light of the empirically proven correlation between poverty and spatial exclusion, the opening-up of existing ghettos and the prevention of any new ghettoization should be a cornerstone in any Roma integration strategy. Alas, current developments in Slovakia and other Central and Eastern European countries give little reason for optimism in this respect. ‘Creation of living conditions for homeless citizens, citizens who failed to pay their rent or who are nonadaptable’2 – in many Slovak cities with a significant share of Roma this and many similar sounding municipal resolutions led to the creation of new ethnic ghettos for Roma who tended to occupy the historically valuable yet neglected historic inner cities during the socialist period. The newly created units of substandard social housing were typically created in spatial isolation from the rest of the city's housing areas. This way they are one of the most important stabilizing factors in the circle of social exclusion and poverty.

The creation of new ethnic ghettos can be conceived of as a reversal of developments during the socialist period, when the state sought to completely assimilate the Roma.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.