1 East European Politics and Societies Volume XX Number X Month XXXX xx-xx © 2011 SAGE Publications 10.1177/0888325411428968 http://eeps.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com Socialist Neighborhoods after Socialism The Past, Present, and Future of Postwar Housing in the Czech Republic Kimberly Elman Zarecor Iowa State University, Ames The Czech Republic’s socialist-era neighborhoods are largely intact twenty years after the end of Communist Party rule. These buildings will be rehabilitated, but not replaced, because of financial and logistical constraints. In the context of the country’s accession to the European Union in 2004 and the recent global economic crisis, this essay questions what can and should be done in an effort to make these neighborhoods better places to live in the present and the future. It starts with a brief history of postwar housing construction and socialist-era design methodologies, exploring postwar archi- tectural practice and innovations in construction technology that were connected to the industrialization of housing production. The role of the Baťa Company in the develop- ment of panelák technology is described. In the context of post-socialist rehabilitation efforts, the discussion addresses current housing policy including regulated rents and the shift in emphasis from renting to ownership. Government subsidies and grant pro- grams are considered, as well as problems such as physical degradation and social segregation. The essay proposes that for the future the social and spatial ideas that were part of the original designs may be more important than the architectural style of indi- vidual buildings. Keywords: housing; architecture; socialist; post-socialist; policy T wenty years after the end of Communist Party rule in former Czechoslovakia, its socialist-era residential neighborhoods are largely intact. Individual apartment buildings have been improved with new windows, better insulation, and brightly painted façades, but the era’s often maligned large-scale and repetitive building pat- terns remain. One particularly ubiquitous reminder of the past is the panelák or structural panel building—the prefabricated concrete apartment buildings that can be found in every city and town in the region. In these fully prefabricated buildings, every wall, floor, and ceiling panel is structural. Built by the thousands from the mid-1950s until the end of Communist Party rule in 1989, more than 30 percent of the inhabit- ants of today’s Czech Republic live in a panelák. 1