Iron Curtains

Iron Curtains has been awarded Honorable Mention for the 2013 ASEEES Harvard Davis Center Book Prize! The prize is sponsored by Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and is awarded annually by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, for an outstanding monograph published on Russia, Eurasia, or Eastern Europe in anthropology, political science, sociology, or geography. Utilizing research conducted primarily with residents of Sofia, Bulgaria, Iron Curtains: Gates, Suburbs, and Privatization of Space in the Post-socialist City explores the human dimension of new city-building that has emerged in East Europe. Features original data, illustrations, and theory on the process of privatization of resources in societies undergoing fundamental socio-economic transformations, such as those in Eastern Europe Represents the sole in-depth monograph on contemporary urbanism in Southeast Europe Makes a broader statement on issues of urbanism in Europe and other parts of the world while highlighting the complex connections between cultures and cities

List of Illustrations and Tables viii Series Editors’ Preface xi Acknowledgements xii 1 Introduction 1 2 Public, Private, Privatism 14 3 The Post-socialist City 34 4 Post-modern Urbanism Revisited 60 5 Sofia: Wither the Socialist City 81 6 The Ninth Ring: Suburbanizing Sofia 105 7 Iron Curtains I: Gated Homes 131 8 Iron Curtains II: Gated Complexes 149 9 Architecture of Disunity 170 10 Possibilities 191 References 198 Index 220