Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i.

Departure is on Sunday 28/06/2009 at 13:00 from the conference venue, please be there in advance.

University of Economics in Prague / Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze

W. Churchill Sq. 4 / Náměstí W. Churchilla 4

Prague 3 / Praha 3

Czech Republic / Česká republika

1. Chimneys in Glass Facades: The Redevelopment of Brownfields in Karlín

Karlín is an old inner city neighbourhood near the city centre and beside the Vltava River. This neighbourhood, which has undergone deindustrialisation and seen the creation of cleaved sites, is now going through rapid regeneration and a dramatic restructuring the urban morphology, land use, and social composition of local inhabitants. The field trip provides insight into the neighbourhood and the main development projects that have been reshaping it since the 1990s.

2. Wealth and Poverty: A Variety of Residential Suburbanisations

Suburbanisation is the main process of urban change that is reshaping contemporary post-socialist cities. Residential suburbanisation has developed around Prague since the late 1990s, fuelled by the increasing wealth of Prague´s inhabitants, the availability of restituted land, and support from national and local government housing policies. The field trip presents different types of suburban residential development in a booming area southeast of Prague to illustrate both the dynamics and variability of suburban residential developments and contrast them with old rural settlements.

3. Glamour and Brutality: The Large-scale Reconfiguration of the Urban Outskirts

This field trip focuses on both non-residential and residential development in the Prague outer urban zone, devoting special attention to ribbon development and commercial clusters around highways, spatially concentrated housing, and sprawling landscapes. The main goal is to illustrate the various faces of suburbanisation and discuss new forms peripheral in the context of sustainable metropolitan growth.

4. Fences Between Us: Separation of Wealthy in Gated Communities

Until recently, gated and guarded residential areas have not constituted a prominent type of development in the Czech Republic or the City of Prague. However, as the residential property market has matured, developers have come out with a specific niche form of residential property development that attracts residents interested in and willing to pay a premium to live in an environment of security and peace, obtained through their physical separation from the outside world. The field trip presents examples of gated developments and discusses the major driving forces that led to their development.

5. Weekend Sprawl: Second Homes in Prague’s Hinterland

This excursion demonstrates the importance of the Prague hinterland for tourism, recreation, leisure and second home activities. The southern hinterland of Prague provides excellent natural preconditions and a concentration of conditions for recreation and the development of second home activities. Examples of recreational settlements dating from different periods will be visited during the tour, including historical “tramping“ (hike) cabin communes along the Vltava River from the 1920-30s and newer types of second home construction that form an important part of the

6. Housing Estates - Burden or Chance?

More than one third of Prague inhabitants live in large housing estates – the uniform multi-storey blocks of flats built between 1957 and 1992. Housing estates make up “another Prague”, virtually unknown to tourists and visitors. Housing estates still maintain their original social diversity, but their population is ageing along with the housing. Most of the stock has been privatised into the ownership of the original tenants. Supported by government grants, many houses have been refurbished, for example, and the insulation has been improved recently. A visit to one of the largest estates will be organised.

7. New Housing Development – From Industry to Housing

While in the 1990s only the richest people were able to pay market prices for new housing and many people opted to move into houses in suburban neighborhood, nowadays Prague inner-city housing construction is booming. Prime-price blocks of flats are often constructed on sites abandoned by manufacturing industries and sold as condominiums. There will be a visit to the Prague Marina in Holešovice, a project started in 2007, where housing is being constructed along a branch of the Vltava River on the original site of an old dockyard and ship-building plant.