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This paper presents the results of an empirical study examining residents’ perceptions of contemporary dwellings in Serbia, with a focus on spatial organization, comfort, and everyday usability. An online survey conducted in October 2025 was structured into four thematic sections: demographic characteristics, dwelling attributes, housing quality assessment, and subjective spatial experience. The study is based on the hypothesis that apartments built during the socialist period are perceived as spatially and functionally superior to recently constructed housing. The results indicate a pronounced user preference for dwellings built between 1975 and 1990, particularly in terms of functional layout, kitchen daylighting, storage capacity, and spatial adaptability, despite their technical obsolescence and lower energy performance. By highlighting the relationship between spatial characteristics and user satisfaction, the findings contribute to a better understanding of everyday housing experience and provide a basis for informing architectural design and housing policy grounded in user needs rather than exclusively market- or norm-driven criteria.

In Western and Northern Europe, post-war large housing estates (LHEs) stand out as areas of segregated and minority-populated housing, and have faced numerous attempts of reconstruction with the idea of social mixing. LHEs in Central and Eastern Europe had different developmental pathways. The heterogeneous structure of these estates has persisted until today, but due to the systematic neglect and aging, the estates are threatened by physical and social deterioration. The analysis is based on a survey conducted in Croatia in 2022 on two types of housing estates (socialist and post-socialist; N (Zagreb = 657). The results confirm that the social composition in both types of estates is mixed, with a predominance of middle-class residents and without pronounced social differences. The residential satisfaction is high, so the majority of residents are stayers. Nevertheless, certain regeneration policies should be adopted because the population of the socialist LHEs is aging, which could jeopardize the present heterogeneity and make maintenance of multifamily buildings more challenging, thus contributing to further deterioration of the estates.

Change in labor markets, extended education period and economic instability are negatively influencing housing accessibility of young adults. In post-socialist countries, such as Serbia, the biggest issues are the lack of supply volume and diversity of government subsidized housing, as well as the soaring prices of the newly built homes. As a result, young people are relying on the unregulated private rental market or their families to help them enter homeownership and acquire residential independence. There is an apparent need for affordable housing or policies which are catering to young people's needs. The relevant body of research has been using residential satisfaction approach to provide an evaluation of the variety of housing available to young tenants. Hence, the primary purpose of this paper is to identify the factors which are significantly related or can predict the higher residential satisfaction and can be beneficial to the future policy makers in Serbia. To assess the residential satisfaction, following variables were included: socioeconomic characteristics, residential status, current housing characteristics, problems faced in the current dwelling, housing attribute preferences, privacy perception, dwelling proximity, neighborhood attachment, as well as overall residential satisfaction. The findings indicate that young people in Serbia had average levels of satisfaction with their housing despite the various problems and lack of privacy they were facing in the apartments. Higher residential satisfaction in this research was significantly predicted by the marital status of our respondents (single people were more satisfied), homeownership tenancy status, independent living arrangement, larger apartment size, greater levels of privacy and higher neighborhood attachment.

Taking the Soviet Union Apart Room by Room investigates what happens to domestic spaces, architecture, and the lives of urbanites during a socioeconomic upheaval. Kateryna Malaia analyzes how Soviet and post-Soviet city dwellers, navigating a crisis of inadequate housing and extreme social disruption between the late 1980s and 2000s, transformed their dwellings as their countries transformed around them. Soviet infrastructure remained but, in their domestic spaces, urbanites transitioned to post-Soviet citizens. The two decades after the collapse of the USSR witnessed a major urban apartment remodeling boom. Malaia shows how, in the context of limited residential mobility, those remodeling and modifying their homes formed new lifestyles defined by increased spatial privacy. Remodeled interiors served as a material expression of a social identity above the poverty line, in place of the outdated Soviet signifiers of well-being. Connecting home improvement, self-reinvention, the end of state socialism, and the lived experience of change, Malaia puts together a comprehensive portrait of the era. Malaia shows both the stubborn continuities and the dramatic changes that accompanied the collapse of the USSR. Making the case for similarities throughout the former Soviet empire, this study is based on interviews and fieldwork done primarily in Kyiv and Lviv, Ukraine. Many of the buildings described are similar to those damaged or destroyed by Russian bombings or artillery fire following the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. A book about major historic events written through the lens of everyday life, Taking Soviet Union Apart is also about the meaning of home in a dramatically changing world.

The different forms of collaborative housing, their possible effects on the housing market and urban development processes have gained importance in housing policy and city development debates in many European countries. A shift towards the acceptance and promotion of more collaborative housing concepts can be observed in numerous cities. However, the precise process of co-creation and co-management can be widely different, depending on the exact relation of stakeholders to each other, the legal, economic and institutional environment, the level of business interests involved, and, very importantly, the role local authorities are willing to play in the process. Following three countries and highlighting cases in each of them - Germany, Hungary and the United Kingdom - the article aims to provide a better understanding of how this co-creation process is influenced by the governance concepts and practices of local authorities, arguing that their support becomes even more essential if financial resources are scarce or national legislation - including the laws regulating the housing market - is not supportive.

The aim of this research is to study the emergence and evolution of the multi-storey extension (MSE) of socialist blocks of flats in the form of additional storeys or lofts on top of host buildings, which is seen as a dominant model of post-socialist spatial change in inherited multi-storey housing areas in Serbia. Relying on an analysis of empirical data sources, interviews, observation and a comparative analysis, the paper investigates the MSE as a predominantly self-organising process. It also considers its manifestations at different operational and spatial levels in the study area of the city of Nis. It is argued that the MSE, under conditions of low economic capacity, an indifferent attitude of local authorities, an inconsistent legislative environment, and the market as an essential driving force of the process, results in uneven urban transformations, both in physical and social terms.

Decentralization and shift to market-driven planning systems that started after the fall of USSR all over Central and Eastern Europe, had followed a predetermined path, however it varied depending on socioeconomic and spatial features of a specific location. This paper analyses socialist housing history, its politics, planning culture, institutions, concepts, and ideals that shaped socialist city and its infrastructure in USSR and in Lithuania. It juxtaposes socialist planning principles, construction volume and ideals behind the concept of microrayon, to its actual quality, poor implementation patterns and prevalent underdevelopment culture. Furthermore the paper covers the origins of a legitimacy crisis that Lithuanian planning system entered after independence together with processes and their outcomes that shaped Lithuanian cities during first decade of an independence. Lastly, this paper offers an explanation for chaotic post-socialist transition during and after the “wild east” phase highlighting planning flaws, socio-economic changes in the society, planning incompatibilities and other challenges that Lithuania faced after the shift from planned to a market-driven economy

This study examined the spatial patterns and transformation of the socialist collective housing areas (KTTs). The areas experienced physical and functional changes with Hanoi's urbanization after the country's reforms. The KTTs were originally built on the outskirt of Hanoi during the 1960s-1980s. The development was influenced by the state-led mass housing model originated from the micro-district concept of the former Soviet Union. With the urban expansion of Hanoi, the KTTs have become situated in the city's central area. The study attempted to analyze the location of Hanoi's KTTs based on the distance from the inner-city area. The outcome of physical transformation, the use of spaces, housing prices, and conditions of the surrounding areas of the KTTs were investigated based on a resident survey of 240 households and field studies in six KTTs sites. Changes in the use of spaces on the ground-level, addition of self-extended structure from existing housing units, and wholesale redevelopment were observed from the field studies. The degree and pattern of changes were different by locational types. The KTTs located near the inner-city area with good accessibility was the most actively transformed. The study showed that the living conditions of the KTTs were influenced by the location as well as social and economic factors such as transitional living culture and an increase in the residents' income. Furthermore, the study found that Hanoi's KTTs play an essential role as adequate urban housing due to their locational advantages, the presence of an intimate community, and affordable housing prices.

The article examines the rise of informal spatial practices in the areas left in the shadows of the socialist planning system, in Belgrade (Serbia, former Yugoslavia) in the 1970s and 1980s. By looking into the relation of spontaneous interventions with the constitutionally enacted system of territorial self-management, we explore both the enclaves of everyday life forming in parallel to the hegemonic and homogenous plan, and highly formalised, planned attempts at emulating spontaneous practices in large housing projects. The research is based on comparative analysis of planning documentation and illegal interventions, period sources including letters and memos written by architects and illegal constructors, available statistics and published polemics. The article argues that many of the unresolved contradictions of the socialist period can be seen as the seeds of those practices which have been part of the post-socialist transition and its spatiality from the 1990s onwards. Indifference toward self-management, cynicism of the everyday in the blind spots of socialist society and the planning profession's failure to deal with informality, are reproduced within the post-socialist city through unrelenting consumption of the common Space. Článek analyzuje rozvoj neformálních způsobů uchopování prostoru v Bělehradu (Srbsko, bývalá Jugoslávie) v oblastech ponechaných na okraji socialistického systému plánování v 70. a 80. letech 20. století. Zkoumá spontánní střety se systémem teritoriální samosprávy akotveným v ústavě. Jejich prostřednictvím studuje jak enklávy aždodenního života, které se utvářely paralelně s hegemonickým a homogenním plánováním, tak formalizované cílené snahy potlačit v rámci velkých sídlištních projektů tyto spontánní praktiky. Výzkum vychází z komparativní analýzy územně plánovací dokumentace a nelegálních intervencí do těchto aktivit, z dobových dokumentů včetně dopisů a vzpomínek architektů a neautorizovaných stavitelů, stejně jako z dostupných statistik a polemik v tisku. Článek konstatuje, že mnoho nevyřešených rozporů období socialismu vyústilo v praktiky, které se staly součástí postsocialistické transformace a jejího nakládání s prostorem od 90. let. Nezájem o samosprávu, cynismus každodenního života v marginálních oblastech socialistické společnosti a neúspěšné snahy projektantů čelit neformálnosti se otiskují do postsocialistického města v podobě neúnavné konzumace veřejného prostoru.

This chapter examines family-based strategies for acquiring a separate apartment under the conditions of property without markets, including inheritance, swapping, and marriage. The property rights of most owners today can be traced, directly or indirectly, to privatized socialist housing. To leverage privatized wealth, young Russians needed either the cooperation of older family members who were still alive, or an inheritance from those who had passed away. This chapter first considers the cultural logic of property rights before discussing young people's patterns of residence, registration, and home ownership. It then explores how young Russians try to improve their housing conditions and what cultural dispositions guide their strategies. It shows that young Russians diversify their possible routes to separate apartments, and secure those rights in case of divorce, by exploiting a perceived disjuncture between the residence, based on propiskas, and ownership, based on title, as the basis for legal claims to property.