|
Yugoslavia Housing
Obtaining adequate housing was a major problem in all
Yugoslav cities, especially for rural migrants. For years, single
male migrants resorted to dormitory-style accommodations that
many enterprises maintained for their workers. Migrants from
urban areas fared better in finding housing in cities because of
their greater experience with urban life and generally higher
education or professional level. The quality of migrant housing
usually improved with length of residence, and acquisition of
satisfactory housing became a mark of a migrant's success in a
new location.
Although Yugoslavia had a total of 6.7 million housing units
in 1984, housing remained in short supply in every urban area,
and cost began to increase dramatically in the 1970s. In 1987 the
price of a housing unit with sixty square meters of floor space
equalled about twenty average annual incomes. While the urban
population grew in the 1970s, housing construction in
Yugoslavia's cities actually dropped. Urban centers received
10,000 fewer new housing units in 1978 than in 1975, a decline
that was sharpest in the six largest cities. In Slovenia, this
fall resulted in part from the republic's effort to promote the
simultaneous growth of several urban centers. In Yugoslavia's
other republics, however, the drop reflected shortages of
building materials, rising construction costs, and administrative
problems in the self-managed housing system.
Yugoslavia's housing system offered two methods of obtaining
long-term accommodations: through private initiative, using bank,
enterprise, or private loans; or through allocation of socially
owned apartments. A person's chances of receiving housing loans
or a socially owned apartment generally were proportional to his
or her social standing.
About two-thirds of Yugoslavia's housing units were privately
owned, and about 80 percent of housing construction was done by
private enterprise. In nearly all cases, private housing
construction was a long-term, pay-as-you-go ordeal involving
contribution of significant labor by the homeowner. The outskirts
of all Yugoslav cities featured rows of occupied and unoccupied
homes at various stages of completion. Private housing consisted
mostly of village houses, private apartments, and homes built on
the periphery of major cities.
Socially owned apartments were allocated by the state without
investment by the occupant; rent and maintenance payments were
nominal. Although apartments were technically social property,
occupants had de facto property rights. Enterprises deducted
funds for social apartments from the general employee payroll;
thus, all employees paid for socially owned housing, whatever
type of housing they occupied. Apartment allocation was based on
a complex set of criteria, including family size, work seniority,
age, and position. The wait for a socially owned apartment could
last decades, and bitter disputes arose among candidates for a
long-sought apartment.
Graft was endemic in the Yugoslav housing system. Partly for
this reason, workers had the least chance of obtaining socially
owned housing, while professionals and members of the bureaucracy
had the greatest. Reform plans for the early 1990s called for
occupants of socially owned apartments to begin buying them
outright by adding a monthly principal payment to their
maintenance fees, but in 1990 reforms awaited a government
decision on redefinition and distribution of social property.
Data as of December 1990
|
