Socio-economic residential differentiation in post-socialist Tallinn

• Published in: Journal of housing and the built environment Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 49 - 73
• Main Authors: RUOPPILA, SAMPO, KÄHRIK, ANNELI
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Kluwer Academic Publishers 2003; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Cities; City districts; Dwellings; Economics; Households; Housing; Housing subsidies; Income inequality; Inner cities; Inner city; Low income groups; Mobility; Neighborhoods; Population; Poverty; Rentals; Single family; Social groups; Socialism; Socioeconomic factors; Socioeconomics; Statistical analysis; Studies; Tallinn Estonia; Estonia
• ISSN: 1566-4910; 1573-7772
• DOI: 10.1023/A:1022435000258

It is widely agreed that residential differentiation has increased in Central and Eastern European cities since the collapse of communism. This article analyses the pattern of socio-economic residential differentiation in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, and shows that by 1999 Tallinn's eight city districts had not yet been divided into rich or poor areas. The polarisation related to housing quality, as discovered within the more rapidly developing districts, suggests the development of pockets of wealth and poverty within an otherwise mixed sociospatial structure. The article questions the straightforward connection often assumed between residential mobility and increasing residential differentiation in post-socialist cities. The Tallinn case shows, first, that mobility was low in the 1990s, and second, that all changes of a place of residence – especially those made by middle-income groups – did not increase residential differentiation.