Smooth transition or contradictions of western and Soviet modernisation:a peculiar case of Lithuanian modern urbanisation path

According to Eurostat, post-communist and post-socialist countries have one exceptional feature compared to western European countries – a relatively high degree of private housing tenure within entire housing sector. The private housing rate of the three Baltic states (more than 80%) is even one the highest among all EU countries. This rate hides differences and the taken different urbanisation paths before and after transition to market economy and the fractions of two modern urbanisation – soviet and market economy models. The Baltic states, and especially Lithuania, were demographically rural and un-urbanised societies before WWII, and it has been characterised with a relatively low rate of urbanisation. Soviet command economy has functioned very differently compared to western market economies. According to Szelenyi (1996), socialist / communist cities could be described as under-urbanised, as there has always been a higher rate of jobs than for urban dwellers in urban areas. So, rapid soviet urbanisation functionally was based on housing policies to meet adequate housing deprivation and the need to urbanise to meet the goal of rapid industrialisation. According to modernisation theory, the combination of urbanisation and industrialisation is the way modern societies are developing, but strong alignment of housing and urban policies and how urbanisation was planned is something peculiar to the soviet modernisation model. Aim. The study aims to showcase how pre-transition period of the soviet urbanisation model was rejected and post-transition period of structural housing sector reforms (i.e. massive privatisation) were implemented. The goal of the study is to track down how (during first decade of independence and transition to market economy) the (un)smooth shift from one urbanisation and housing model to another happened.[...]Sociologijos katedraVytauto Didžiojo universiteta