The Impact of Tabula Rasa Actions and Laissez-Faire Planning Inaction on Urban Landscape Dynamics: A Bucharest Case Study

This case study of the Văcărești area in Bucharest documents what happened to an abandoned communist urban megaproject, which had been undertaken in a typical tabula rasa manner, applying the dictatorial politics of the communist regime. A significant monastic complex was razed, and a massive riverine holding basin was partially constructed in the 1980s. The area then experienced several decades of rewilding of the basin and of uncontrolled urban development around it until its recent designation as a Natural Urban Park (NUP). This study uses local observations, desktop research and the results of 48 semi structured interviews with planning and other specialists. It considers the impacts of tabula rasa and laissez-faire (i.e., uncontrolled and essentially market-driven) planning regimes on the local landscape from the viewpoint of Văcărești’s current and potential levels of ecological and cultural resilience and sustainability. The research addresses three questions: (a) what is the study area’s sustainability potential? (b) what, if any, physical interventions to recover the study area’s place memory might be feasible? and (c) how might the resilience of its new urban landscape be improved? The findings from this study have both local and general importance, demonstrating to urban communities why they need to define and act in time in order to capitalize on their natural potential and to recover cultural values which may have been destroyed or damaged. It notes the long-term inaction and lack of coherent urban renewal policies for this study area and concludes that these have magnified the challenges that it currently faces.