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Archived Articles
Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Gated communities: East European versionGated residential community is the new buzzword in the East European real estate dictionary. The experiments in some countries have been done for sometime, but with the growing number of settling foreigners and returning former emigrants this market may become much more important than it is in our days. The philosophy isn't very different from the original meaning represented by thousands communities in North America and Western Europe. In the former communist countries however it's just another sign of the new class stratification.
Some historyGated community has a simple philosophy: people from upper class, and in some countries from the upper middle class, should live separately geographically from the rest of society. The richest classes in any society have enough resources to do this. The point is usually why they should? The gated communities solve many social problems. They reduce the level of criminality toward the upper class members. They reduce the possibility of undesired personalities to mix with the upper class. They show in a clear way, although more symbolically than really, that one particular society is divided on impenetrable classes.The former communist countries represented class societies without creating gated communities. The very few who could be separated from the rest of the society were standing at the very top. In this sense their separation looked more institutional than class-based. In fact, nobody makes an assumption that the President of the U.S. is a different sort of person by living temporarily in the White House. His physical separation is done on security grounds. In the same way the communist top rulers explained the existence of their separate residences. The large number of communist nomenclature lived in residences close enough to those of the ordinary people, although their residences weren't at all ordinary.
The age of democracyWith the demise of the communism the money became the leading factor determining the social status of any person. With no 'old money' available for risky capitalist adventures, some old nomenclature personalities took jump-starts in their social promotions, accumulating private capitals in a scale unheard of during the communism. Another important difference with the communism is that the new capitalists risk everything, including their lives. They may rely on the state in order to accumulate money, not to maintain it regardless of the social environment. Some former communist countries have witnessed hundreds of high-profile murders since early 1990s. Any such murder is usually followed by property redistributions. In this sense the personal security of the capitalists become of high importance for the smooth maintenance of their businesses. Living in a peaceful neighborhood therefore becomes something more than a matter of pleasure. It may decide how long you will live.
The gated communitiesOvercrowded cities in Eastern Europe are ideal for high-profile murders. Narrow streets with many potholes, dense traffic, corrupt police forces, cynical public opinion; there are so many small details that have initially helped the new business class getting richer and now help their killers to take over their wealth. Living in a gated community to a degree reduces the level of physical danger to some living at the very top of the economic scale. One gated community in the city where the main business is located; another gated community close to the sea during the summer vacations; third gated community outside the city and perhaps close to the mountains providing golf courses and opportunities for hunting. With not many opportunities to have all these facilities in one place only, the new ruling class buys several properties per family in different new projects. The prices vary enormously from less than $100,000 for small family houses to more than a million for large mansions. Even within this class the budgets are very different.
Who else can live in?The fact that these communities were initially set up to serve the growing security problems of the new ruling class in Eastern Europe doesn't mean they are exclusively reserved to this group, at least not all of them. There are at least two other groups of persons that can both provide enough financing to be able to buy house in such new projects. The first group is composed of foreigners, retirees and professionals alike. The second group is composed of returning former emigrants. They all have certain 'western' understandings about what the living conditions should be and this is one of the main reasons why they find the gated communities so attractive. Many such communities are built in areas away from the crowded cities where the land in very cheap, so buying a house in some of these new developments may not be as ruinous as it may seem at first sight. It will of course be more expensive, all the rest being equal, but the security premium may after all be the factor that decides how long you live.
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