Depoliticised urban commons Romania’s perpetuating slum formations, deepening housing struggles, and political disinterest

This chapter explores the ongoing depoliticisation of housing “politics” in Romania’s impoverished neighbourhoods. Provision of housing in Romania has been understood as a privatised matter, whilst the lack of access to it prompts (racialised) accusations of personal failure. Through a long-term engagement with Bucharest’s slum dwellers from the neighbourhood of Ferentari, this work expands on a growing body of critical scholarship that theorises anti-democratic and depoliticised urban governance and housing politics. Yet critical urban scholarship has tended to disregard such spaces and instead reproduce narrow “Global North” perspectives. In this light, a city such as Bucharest, which is well connected to the global economy, provides a valuable context to examine under-theorised, and yet generalisable, urban and housing developments. It demonstrates the consequences of ongoing deregulation, private landlordism, and institutionalised racism within the contemporary city. In this regard, this chapter will also pay specific attention to the potential of urban commons for a more inclusive urban politics.