Sonia A. Hirt

Sofia was once one of the greenest capitals in Europe. A grand “necklace” of public parks was first planned in the early 1900s, and while it was not fully built, it remained a central tenet of Sofia’s planning for decades. The end of communism provided many opportunities for a better life for Sofia’s citizenry. But something was “lost in transition.” The new political economy, which spurred intensive commercial construction, led to massive depletion of public greenery, including parks. It also led to significant losses in historic heritage. Especially at risk have been buildings from the mid-twentieth-century modernist era. This project, conducted in consultation with Bulgarian scholars, seeks to explore and remove cultural and political barriers to preserving Sofia’s green and built heritage.

This research examines the social and physical characteristics of the suburbs around the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. The suburbs are the signature contribution of post-socialism to the city. Yet they remain largely unexamined. The main hypothesis is that while cities like Sofia are suburbanizing--a process well known from the history of capitalist urbanization--their suburbs exhibit aspects specific to the post-socialist context. Unlike Western suburbs, the post-socialist suburbs are class-heterogeneous. They also include a very high proportion of explicitly private spaces--spaces guarded by formidable walls. By studying the suburbs, the project highlights the unique dynamics of post-socialist social segregation, and the tension between the post-socialist public and private realms.