Modernist housing estates in the baltic countries: Formation, current challenges and future prospects

This opening chapter of the book Housing Estates in the Baltic Countries: The Legacy of Central Planning in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania presents seven important takeaway messages distilled from the chapters of this volume that, taken together, provide a comprehensive overview of the formation, current challenges and future prospects of large housing estates in the Baltic countries. Modernist housing built between the 1960s and the early 1990s forms a large share of the housing stock in the capital cities of the Baltic states. Their sheer size suggests that various methods of reconstruction, rather than downsizing or even demolition, would be among the ideal strategies for their future development. Today, reconstruction of these districts and housing contained therein is mainly the responsibility of private owners, since the public sector relinquished most of the housing sector in the early 1990s. Private apartment owners, organised into building-based flat-owners’ associations, often lack the ability to undertake comprehensive renovation of apartment buildings and regeneration of surrounding neighbourhoods. For viable solutions to emerge, the public sector must again assume a prominent role. A comprehensive renovation strategy must be structured to include urban space even larger than individual apartments or apartment buildings and encompass (a) improving the physical environment of the apartment buildings and neighbourhoods; (b) enhancing the social mobility and social integration of the inhabitants (since many possess an ethnic minority background); and (c) facilitating integrated connectivity between housing estates and surrounding metropolitan space through transport, jobs, services and various other activities.