Presentation given by Catalin Berescu during the URBACT Summer University 2013 in Dublin

1. Roma Ghettos in European Cities:
Who Made Them?
Cătălin Berescu
architect, PhD

2. What is a ghetto?
• Who are the Roma?
» Are Romanies migrants? What is a Gadje?
» What is the difference between Romanians and Roma?
• Who did the first ghetto?
• Are we still building ghettos?
– What about the illegal camps?
• Who’s in, what and when are we going to do
something?
• EU to local – good practices?
• Who is discriminating and on what grounds?
• Social housing vs. forced evictions
2Roma Ghettos in European Cities:

3. Ghetto
• Venice, Florence
– segregation, political control
• Shtetl – The Jewish Pale of settlements
– teritorial segregation, prostitution, estreme poverty
• Jadabwne, Dorohoi
– neighbourhood pogrom
• Iasi, Odessa
– military pogrom
• Budapest
– urban planning operation, Holocaust / Shoah / Samudaripen
• Chicago
– hidden violence
» Holocaust City - Tim Cole; Bodies and Souls – Isabel Vincent; Making the Second
Ghetto – Arnold Hirsch; Neighbours – Jan Gross;

4. Ghetto
• ghetto / slum / banlieu / barriada / mahala / varos /
bidonville / șatră / țigănie / campo nomadi / platz /
kampung
» Urban Outcasts - Loic Wacquant; Planet of Slums – Mike Davis;
Shadow Cities – Robert Newirth; Architecture for the Poor – Hassan
Fathy
» Global – local – glocal
» Multiple determinations, intersectionality
» Segregation, self-segregation, gated communities (ghettos chics)
» Les ghettos du Gotha – Michel Pincon; Le ghetto francais – Eric
Maurin

5. slum
New Poverty
Ghetto
Historical Ghetto
Jewish Ghetto in Venice, Warsaw, Budapest, etc.
Rich black ghetto
Ethno-Camp
Non conflictual Ethnic neighbourghood
(recent migrant areas, war
refugee camps) subsidiarity,
diminished ethnical dimension
Residential segregation,
Exposure to improper housing conditions,
Exposure to hazard conditions (Environmental
racism),
Forced evictions, rent refusal, acces problems
Ethno Park
“Purely” ethnic areas
mahala, igănie, atră,ț ș
sat, new development
zones with a strong ethnic
dimension
Substandard housi
Discrimination
Poverty
Cultural Difference Ethnicity,
Race, sexual orientation etc relative poverty
banlieu
poverty neighborghood
severe poverty
extreme poverty
slum

6. Rosia Montana

7. Roma Ghettos in European Cities:
SECOND PART: How to make a CV for a
Ghetto researcher
Catalin
Berescu

8. CV: recycle / common space

9. CV: recycle - tradition
Jurilovca – Dolosman Cape ADOBE 2006-2010

11. Dolosman

13. Adobe houses, floodings and Roma
communities

14. CV: recycle - stereotypy
Venice Architecture
Biannual 2008

15. CV: recycle - stereotypy

17. CV: (re)cycle - science

18. CV: mapping the invisible
Bucharest – Peisajului St. – informal Roma settlement in a flooding area - 2005
Forced evictions + residential segregation

19. CV: mapping the opinions

20. CV: mapping the toilets

21. CV: mapping poverty

22. CV: mapping the fear

23. CV: mapping the elections

24. CV: recycle ghettos

25. Roma Ghettos in European Cities:
THIRD PART: Europe – State of the Art
Catalin
Berescu

26. Roma in Eastern Europe
Who is a Roma? Where? How many?

27. Romania
Romania has the largest number of Roma
inhabitants in Europe. The economy of
transition produced a decline in their
housing condition, leading to an acute
social exclusion. The racist attitude that
forms the background of urban decisions
can be seen today in the alarming
development of the shantytowns
surrounding the Romanian towns. The
post revolution era reversed the process
that defined the communist period –
after the forced settlement of the
nomads, the gypsies were the first to
loose their jobs and to be evicted.

28. Romania
Tirgu Mures – Cold Valley

29. Serbia
• Gazela Bridge
» Municipality relocation plan, Vladimir Macura - Holcim Awards,
UNHABITAT, Roma Decade, Belville, Orlovsko Naselje

30. Slovakia
“Some 14 walls segregating predominantly Roma
neighbourhoods have popped up across the
country since 2008, the latest erected in the
country’s second largest city earlier this month.
The walls differ in size and scope, but all are
designed to segregate the poorer Roma
communities from their neighbours. While such
walls exist elsewhere in Europe the Slovak trend
is exponentially stronger than anything
underway elsewhere, said Dezideriu Gergely,
executive director of the Budapest-based
European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC). “This
reflects and ‘us and them’ rhetoric that says
there needs to be a clear distinction,” he said.”
(The Economist, 25.07.2013)
Nalepkovo (photo Marek Hojsik)

31. Hungary

32. Bulgaria

33. Greece

34. Greece

35. Roma in Western Europe

36. • Italy – Rome / Castel Romano
Roma in Western Europe

37. Italy
Castel Romano – Villagio della Solidarita (Walter Veltroni) 6 mil Euro

38. Napoli
Via del Reposo

39. Napoli
Scampia Casa Rosa

40. Napoli

41. France
• Paris St. Denis / Aubervilliers / Bobigny
• National Action Plan against Substandard Housing
– Substandard, indecent (logement indigne), insalubrious, dangerous
– Political vs. Technical vocabulary

42. Paris
• St Denis

43. Paris

44. Paris

45. UK
http://www.standard.co.uk

46. UK

47. Roma Ghettos in European Cities:
FOURTH PART: Roma by Gadje
Catalin
Berescu

48. Nomad / settled
• Are Roma
nomads?
• Are nomads
Roma?
• Roma vs.
Gipsy
Rudari/baiesi
Lehliu - Romania

50. Roma Palaces
Buzescu
Foto:IoifKiraly

51. Roma Palaces
Foto:IoifKiraly

52. Foto:IoifKiraly

55. Ciurea, Iasi
Photo Serban Bonciocat Photo Peter Velciov
Soroca, Moldova

56. Cluj – Pata Rat - Dallas

57. Cluj – Pata Rat – Garbage Pit

58. Roma Ghettos in European Cities:
FINAL PART: The making-of a Ghetto
Catalin
Berescu

59. The Making of a Ghetto
• Housing discrimination
– Water
» The European Roma Rights Centre is concerned by reports that municipal
authorities in Torino, Italy, have cut the water supply of a public fountain
providing water for approximately 300 Roma, including children and women.
The Roma live in a nearby semiformal camp, Corso Tazzoli. The public
fountain, the closest source of safe drinking water for the Roma, has been
out of use since 29 July 2013. The ERRC is calling for the tap to be
reconnected immediately.
» Last week a Hungarian local authority cut public water supplies, affecting
thousands of Roma. We are deeply concerned by these repeated incidents,
and urge public authorities to allow Roma access to safe drinking water and
to develop positive, proactive solutions for Roma communities and their
inclusion. (
http://www.errc.org/article/italy-torino-municipality-shuts-off-water-supply-near-
)
59Title of Your Presentation

60. Orăştie – Mecanica Stadium
Sorinel shows us the well proudly. It is the
only water source for the 20 families that
live here. They have been moved in the
lockers under the Mecanica Stadium
tribunes, from a delapidated block of flats
with no utilities. Even if water is pouring
from the ceilings whenever it rains, they
succeeded in keeping the place clean.
Medicinal plants grow here and there on
the former football pitch; people look
after a garden near the entrance, and
there were several attempts to breed a
swine, but the town hall denied it because
they would "damage the pitch".
Dampness and mould, chilliness and the
garbage produced by "the dirty ones”
lead to a high level of morbidity.

61. Orăştie – Mecanica Stadium

62. Orăştie – Mecanica Stadium

63. Orăştie – Mecanica Stadium

64. Miercurea Ciuc (Csikszereda)
• Social housing for Roma

65. Municipality Ghetto

66. No intervention ghetto

67. No intervention ghetto

68. No intervention ghetto

69. NGO intervention

70. Dorohoi

72. Dorohoi
Minimal apartment
5-6 people
3 rooms
13.500 Euro

74. Dorohoi

75. Roma Ghettos in European Cities:
Who Made Them?
Cătălin Berescu
architect, PhD

76. Thank you!