<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The article is a contribution to the debates on the topics of class divide and urban development in the ex-Socialist Bloc after the 1990 regime change. In the first part, it renders the roots and limitations of the middle class concept and shows the role the concept played in the transition narrative. After it elaborates on how the middle class can be understood within the broader discussion on contemporary global class restructuring under the neoliberal forces, in the second part the article provides, using qualitative data, a micro social and economic history of the city of Cluj-Napoca, which reveals and explains how flows of capital investments grant the economic conditions for a strata of people to embrace the middle class’s ideal and values, and how this new material basis is reflected in the spatial restructuring of the city.</p></abstract>

The article is a contribution to the debates on the topics of class divide and urban development in the ex-Socialist Bloc after the 1990 regime change. In the first part, it renders the roots and limitations of the middle class concept and shows the role the concept played in the transition narrative. After it elaborates on how the middle class can be understood within the broader discussion on contemporary global class restructuring under the neoliberal forces, in the second part the article provides, using qualitative data, a micro social and economic history of the city of Cluj-Napoca, which reveals and explains how flows of capital investments grant the economic conditions for a strata of people to embrace the middle class’s ideal and values, and how this new material basis is reflected in the spatial restructuring of the city.

Suburbanisation and Middle Class Imaginaires in the Post-Socialist City. A Romanian Case Study

Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Sociologia

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The article is a contribution to the debates on the topics of class divide and urban development in the ex-Socialist Bloc after the 1990 regime change. In the...

Suburbanisation and Middle Class Imaginaires in the Post-Socialist City. A Romanian Case Study

Published Online: Aug 09, 2019

Page range: 89 - 108

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/subbs-2019-0004

Keywords
middle class, post-socialist city, Cluj-Napoca, critical anthropology

© 2019 Gabriel Troc, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Suburbanisation and Middle Class Imaginaires in the Post-Socialist City. A Romanian Case Study

Published Online: Aug 09, 2019

Page range: 89 - 108

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/subbs-2019-0004

Keywordsmiddle class, post-socialist city, Cluj-Napoca, critical anthropology

© 2019 Gabriel Troc, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
middle class, post-socialist city, Cluj-Napoca, critical anthropology