In the City’s Shadows: How Homeless People in Odesa Survive During Wartime
Odesa has long had a reputation as a city of drifters and seekers. Its mild southern climate and historic status as a “free port” made it a magnet for refugees of various nationalities, the destitute, those in search of shelter or work—and for many, a place where spending the night outdoors felt less brutal. Since […]
Housing in Times of War
Russia's brutal war has left a trail of devastation in Ukraine, making housing a critical issue. With 1.4 million apartments, 135,000 individual homes, and 39,000 dormitory rooms damaged, many Ukrainians are now homeless. This episode examines the contributions of the government, local authorities, and international organizations in addressing the housing crisis. We'll explore their approaches, […]
Comparison and Its Discontents: on the Ethics of Post-War Reconstruction
In 2017, I organized an event at the Mansion, a cultural space in Beirut’s Zoqaq el-Blat neighborhood, on the debates surrounding the future reconstruction of Syria[1]. At the time, many architects and developers in Lebanon were looking at Syria’s reconstruction as a lucrative, exciting opportunity. They not only saw the rebuilding of Syria as a great […]
Houses and for Whom to (Re)Build Them?
In times of war, Ukraine goes through tremendous destruction and upheaval. These events catalyze problems giving the “green light” to those reforms that would otherwise cause public resistance. The spiral of debt dependence, economic instability, and environmental challenges of an export-oriented economy, “optimization” of social expenditures, destruction and shortage of housing and infrastructure, reduction of […]
52 apartments for IDPs. The gap between housing policy and the shocks of war
Full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine caused an unprecedented housing crisis. More than hundred thousand homes were destroyed or damaged, millions of Ukrainians had to flee their homes. Housing policy did not manage to address the housing needs of internally displaced people. At the same time the crisis encouraged creation of new non-profit forms of tenancy […]
Refugee camps or integration? Interview with Elizabeth Dunn on supporting IDPs
One of the urgent issues for the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine is the future of internally displaced persons. Due to the Russian annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, in 2014-2021 about two million Ukrainians were forced to leave their homes and move to other places within Ukraine. After the full-scale Russian invasion on […]
Countering housing dispossession in Cluj, the Silicon Valley of Eastern Europe
The pursuit of international recognition of its urban policies turned into a major source of legitimacy for the Romanian municipality of Cluj-Napoca. The city has been designated the 2015 European Capital of Youth. Next year it made it into the national final stage of the competition for the 2021 European Capital of Culture; losing the […]
Becoming Western: the story legitimising neoliberalism, violence and dispossession in Central and Eastern European cities
The smart city, the civilised city, the city for the respectable tax-paying citizens – in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), what all of these urban imaginaries have in common is that they cater to a performative, aspirational desire of becoming Western. For the past thirty years, while our cities have seen the emergence of a […]
Without shelter: housing policy in wartime
"The realtor said that today there were more than 300 requests, with only 5 apartments successfully found." "We searched all over the Lviv oblast, nothing came out in Lviv, but we managed to find an apartment in Lutsk, so we are heading there." "I will probably have to return to Kharkiv." I hear similar words […]
About “Russian” trace in Odessa events
Andrey Ishchenko A tragic death, which took place on April 17 in Odessa, of Maksim Chaika, a right-wing football fan and one of the leaders of a radical nationalist organization “SICH”, has immediately lead to heated discussions on the Internet. Whereas everything is clear for the closest companions of the killed: “the white warrior” had […]
