SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION OF SPACE: MAIN FEATURES, CHARACTERISTICS AND CONSEQUENCES FOR URBAN AREAS

Abstract

The production of space and the politics underlying it are a reflection not only of the institutionalenvironment, types of regulation or specific instruments of planning and construction, participation andinteraction – the ways in which space is produced, they also reflect at which spatial levels this process takesplace, which goals and values, concepts and approaches lie in its basis, and what place is designated for aman in the respective type of space. The experience of Ukrainian cities in recent decades reflects differenttypes of the production of space – socialist, transitional postsocialist, and neoliberal – which differ interms of key actors, ways of making decisions on urban planning and construction, and concepts of spatialorganization. These types of space reflect different relations between social, ideological and spatial, thatdiffer in terms of perception and understanding of space, structures underlying it and reflections on it.In this paper, we consider the socialist type of the production of space, its main features andcharacteristics in the context of urban and spatial development through the lens of the relevant period’sdiscourse, its critical evaluation and analysis of consequences. At the same time, we consider the socialistproduction of space as a process of “construction of space”, which reflects attempts to purposefully plan, build, organize and structure both social life and space according to the ideological principles ofsocialism. We substantiate the typical features of the socialist construction of space and illustrate the waysof their implementation in practice of urban development, for “construction and socialist reconstruction”of cities. We critically analyze the construction of space under socialism for establishing the spatial urbanframework, urban planning and development, the formation of the spatial and planning structures andspecific urban morphology.