The nature of urban regeneration policy and practice in the Czech Republic is strongly linked to the various processes of economic and political transformation that have occurred post-1989, characterized by a shift from centralized state planning, toward mechanisms more strongly influenced by the market.

Keywords: housing markets, urban regeneration, expatriates, Prague, post-socialist city

I.

In order to examine the implications and nature of such elitist developments in a particular district of Prague, this paper concentrates upon the activities of two private-sector companies. The first of these is a major real estate developer involved in the regeneration of a specific district of Prague, Prague 8 (Real Estate Karlín Group, hereafter REKG), whilst the second is a real estate agency owned by a British entrepreneur (European Reality, hereafter ER). Whilst interview material used throughout this paper has been anonymised and the names of informants changed, the names of the companies have not for reasons of transparency. By examining the linkages between these actors, their wider relationships across space and time and the residential spaces they produce, it is possible to gain a more nuanced understanding of the sheer complexity of the networks, linkages and articulations that are present behind the façades of contemporary luxury housing and office developments. Additionally, these case studies provide helpful insights into the relational and networked nature of both power and space, echoing Massey’s (1991; Massey et al 1999) concerns with (re)thinking the nature of the two concepts, as well as moving toward what Massey refers to as a relational and global sense of place (Massey 1991). The following section consists of two case studies of companies intimately bound up with the regeneration of Prague 8, allowing some conclusions to be made regarding the asymmetric nature of the power relations existing between the municipal government and the private sector, as well as some general conclusions regarding the implications that the research presented here has upon our understandings of post-socialism.

It is possible to delineate a number of different developmental typologies of housing development within the city of Prague. Processes of gentrification are particularly prevalent in the inner city, particularly in Vinohrady, Nové Město and Stare Město, and more recently Vršovice, Žižkov and Vysočany (Cook 2007; Sýkora 1993). Exclusive, gated suburban developments are also in evidence on the urban fringe (e.g. Malá Šarka, Prague 6) and new build brownfield developments such as River Diamond, Prague 8, are increasingly common in former industrial and working class neighbourhoods.

I use the term gated in this context not merely in reference to the existence of physical gates, but to a broader semiotics of gatedness, indicated by the presence of various panoptican surveillance technologies, security guards and other techniques of power and exclusion (see Blakely and Snyder 1999, Davis 1998 and Low 2004).

The production of new build enclave housing in both suburban and inner city contexts is emblematic of Prague’s post-socialist transformation, creating semiotically gated and secessionary spaces that foster narratives of socio-spatial exclusion and polarization. Such developments have been widely reported as evidence of Americanization and  many studies have been undertaken on  similar gated communities globally (see Blakely and Snyder 1999; Wu 2004 and Roitman 2005 for illustrative studies). Additionally, the internationalization of financial capital and a set of transforming regulatory regimes related primarily to EU accession have increased capital mobility and have created a situation whereby, "…infrastructure and real estate capital is itself increasingly withdrawing from rolling out general networks across cities and regions to focus on ‘glocal’…articulations for strategically favoured places and users, largely within metropolitan areas”, (Graham and Marvin 2001: 311).

Such an argument echoes the work of Olds (2001), which focused on the culture-economy of urban megaprojects, and whilst the development discussed below cannot necessarily be seen as falling into the same category as mega-projects in the Pacific Rim, the scale of the project discussed is significant in a regional context. It shares many of the traits defined by Olds (ibid: 6) in terms of the important role played by international finance, the homogeneity of design types, elitist marketing strategies and the attempts of property developers to create a placeless urban ‘utopia’ for the twenty-first century. Using the case studies that follow, I will argue that the characteristics of the regeneration of Prague 8, emblematic of a distinctly post-socialist form of urban regeneration, rather than a transitory position in the procession from the state socialist era to a ‘mature’ and ‘Western’ set of institutions and practices.  

Real Estate Karlín Group (REKG) is a real estate developer with significant property interests in two specific parts of Prague, Karlín and the neighbouring district of Libeň. These two districts (together with Bohnice, Čimice and Kobylisy) form Prague 8 and both have a rich industrial, working and lower-middle class heritage, encompassing areas characterized by the now derelict Prague Docks and a significant proportion of Prague’s heavy manufacturing industry that is now in decline. This heavy industry centred on several ČKD plants that specialized in the manufacture of train carriages, locomotives and tram cars for both the Czech and Eastern Bloc markets during the era of state socialism. Nowadays Karlín and Libeň have been (re)scripted and (re)placed by REKG as being:

... the most dynamically developing districts in Prague. This is partly because industrial production in this area stopped entirely during the 1990s, and a number of buildings are no longer used for their original purpose…The planned revitalization of old and [the] construction of new buildings aims to take advantage of the genius loci, which continues to exude the glory of past industrial boom[s], so strongly associated with this part of Prague. (REKG 2007, emphasis added)

Of particular relevance here is the way in which REKG have invoked the ‘genius loci’ of Karlín and Libeň, by placing the current redevelopment in an historical context that both  romanticizes the industrial heritage of the district, whilst at the same time destroying it. Indeed, if ‘genius loci’ is interpreted as meaning the spirit of place, or more classically, the protective spirit of place, then it is somewhat problematic to see how the construction of new build luxury apartments (such as River Diamond, discussed below) is sympathetic to the character of the neighbourhood. Figure 1 demonstrates the spatial extent and types of transformation present in Karlín.

They’re [REKG] backed by a multi-billionaire [Marc Rich] so they’ve definitely got the money for their plans. They’re very well connected let‘s say...So the building permits won’t be an issue. I think they’ve pretty much covered those off...there will certainly be no issues...These guys will make an awful lot of money, they were buying space in that area [Karlín and Libeň] ten or eleven years ago for about $30 a square metre. (Interview with Keith, CEO of European Reality, 5 May 2005)

The fact that such practices were greeted with a casual shrug of the shoulders and a throwaway acceptance of the implications of corruption should be seen as disturbing, not only due to the potentially dubious nature of the financial capital that REKG are investing in both Karlín and Libeň, but also to the immense profits that are expected to be made in the process. Additionally, as alluded to above, the typical constraints placed upon property development in terms of planning permits appear to have been evaded through these alleged corrupting practices.

Whilst it is important to highlight the nature of the business practices and associations behind  REKG’s business interests, it is equally important to understand some of the spatial implications that their developments are having in the district of Prague 8. Currently completed projects include both residential and commercial developments throughout Karlín, located in both refurbished former industrial property as well as new constructions, the flagship of which is the River Diamond Development (See Figure 2).

Figure 2. River Diamond Residential Development

Indeed, when fully completed, the development will contain a fitness club, a number of gyms, access to tennis courts and a golf course, as well as secure underground car parking and 24 hour security. The project is, “…specifically aimed at expats, top management and Czech directors” (Interview with Keith, 5 May 2005). Purchase prices per square metre within this development range between 80,000 and 105,000 Czech Crowns (hereafter CZK) per square metre (£1900-2500). The most expensive property available within the development is currently for sale at just over CZK 20,740,000 (c. £490,000), and clearly is only a realistic purchase for the wealthiest expatriates and Czech nationals. This development can be confirmed in its status as an elitist and secessionary space (Graham and Marvin 2001) by comparing the pricing to average property prices in Prague 8. The average purchase price per m2 for new build apartments in the district is approximately CZK 50,000 (c. £1500) (this data is based upon King Sturge (2007) and the authors own data) whilst older flats average at approximately CZK 40,000 (c. £1200) per m2. In addition to this, the average wage for individuals working within the highest paid sector of Prague’s economy, financial intermediation, was CZK 408,048 (c.£9600) per year (ČSÚ 2005), suggesting that even a wealthy Czech citizen would have little chance of owning such a property.

River Diamond – and many of the similar projects in Prague 8 – is evidence of the creation of a landscape of economic and social exclusion that is simultaneously destroying the urban spaces of state socialism, and creating in its place a series of secessionary spaces retrenched behind the very real barrier of real estate pricing, physical gates and surveillance systems. The contribution made by such developments to the transformation of the historical character of neighbourhoods (in this case from a working and lower-middle class neighbourhood to one increasingly defined by affluent middle class professionals), echoes much of the research conducted on similar projects in established global cities such as London and New York (see for example Smith 1996). These processes of re-classing are occurring throughout the city, though Prague 8 is a particularly marked example of these transformations. Neil Smith’s work (1996; Smith and Williams 1986) has demonstrated how processes of gentrification and inner city regeneration contribute to the formation of a fragmented and revanchist city that has become representative of cities under late capitalism. Until recently, Prague’s ‘gentrification frontier’ lay at the eastern edge of Vinohrady, Prague 2, with occasional processes of revitalization occurring beyond it in Žižkov and Vršovice (Prague 3 and 10 respectively). Nowadays the frontier extends as far as Vysočany (Prague 9) and Libeň (Prague 8), again areas traditionally occupied by the Czech working and lower-middle classes, as one informant elaborated:

Neighbourhoods in which no one ever dreamed of living in 10 years ago now they’re [developers] going in, buying apartment blocks really cheaply, doing them up, making them beautiful…Vysočany is the place now that has got, you go online, beautiful apartments, Vysočany is where working class people lived for so long and friends of mine who have lived out [t]here say that what’s happened is that their rents have gone up, they’re being forced out of their apartments basically. (Interview with Jack, a teacher at the International School of Prague, 16 April 2005)

The following case study will build upon this examination of the role played by property developers in the reconstruction of Prague 8 through an exploration of the role played by a British owned real estate agency and property management company, European Reality.

IV.

In 2005 when the interviews included here were conducted, ER was a small but ambitious company, set up in 2003 by the aforementioned British entrepreneur, Keith. He used to work for a telecommunications company in Prague during the early 2000s, setting up ER to fill what he described as the ‘niche’ in real estate customer service that existed in Prague, spurred on by the poor way he had been treated by Czech real estate agents during his stay in the city. In 2005, the firm employed six full time bilingual staff, as Keith saw bilingualism as a necessity of doing business in Prague, despite the fact that he himself cannot speak Czech. ER consisted, in 2005, of a rentals division referred to by Keith as, “…the gentleman you saw [in the office] next door”, a one-man accountancy department and several other negotiators and real estate agents. Nowadays, the company has expanded significantly employing nearly twenty people and having a property management portfolio with an approximate value of €185 million making it, “Prague’s largest rental and property management team” (European Reality 2007). Unlike REKG, ER purely acts as a real estate agency, focussing entirely on new build apartments as this avoids contact with Czechs generally and Czech landlords specifically. Indeed, the complexities perceived by Keith relating to transactions involving Czech owned apartment buildings has influenced Keith’s business strategy:

All the history involved, the ownership has changed, it’s been in state hands, restitution issues, it can get very, very complex. Also the worst part of it I, you have to deal with, and it’s a horrible thing to say, but you have to deal with Czechs. The Czech owners in Prague are mind blowing people…

Keith’s rationalization of what is essentially casual racism is bound up with what he perceives as a set of poor experiences of negotiating with Czech property owners, deepened by his own apparent lack of familiarity with the historico-political aspects of local business culture and a lack of Czech language skills. As he elaborates:

Trying to buy off a Czech is almost like a scene out of The Life of Brian when they’re negotiating over the price of beer. “Oooh it’s 18 dinars, no I’ll give you 15 dinars. No you must haggle. You must offer me 10 dinars…” Ahem, anyway it’s a strange way of doing it…we’ve had a gentleman’s agreement on a price, gone away to sort the finance, come back a few days later and the agreement’s changed, and they say, “until we sign a contract it counts for nothing anyway”, which makes it a little difficult to do business…

The ‘problems’ that Keith experienced has encouraged him to move away from any dealings with Czech landlords, companies or individuals, focusing largely upon the buy-to-let market aimed at foreign investors. As he noted, this means that he only deals with, “…very organized, very well set up, very professional [companies]”, specialising in new build developments.

ER essentially acts as an intermediary between foreign investors (both institutional and individual), potential tenants and property developers, fulfilling a variety of functions for each of the parties. In 2005, Keith worked with two medium sized UK investment firms, Prague Property Secrets (PPS) and Prague Property Investments (PPI), who purchase large numbers of flats in new developments to either sell or rent via ER to private clients. For example, according to Keith, in a new development of some 200 residential units, one of these companies would typically purchase 60 or 70 to sell to individual investors in the UK, who would then look to rent these apartments out, using ER as the property management company and rental agency. Whilst many new developments are granted planning permission on the basis of urban regeneration and the provision of new housing stock, the reality is that many apartments are purchased by overseas clients, site unseen, involving transnational circuits of capital speculatively purchasing property (see Ball 2007 for a useful overview of speculative investment regionally) with no guarantee of finding tenants. Indeed similar processes are occurring in Jinonice, Prague 5 whereby Russian capital has stimulated an increase in new build apartment construction, and these new properties are purchased, held by the owners and then sold on to another investor at a higher price (Interview with Jack,16 April 2005).. Such practices mean that certain developments in this district of Prague are uninhabited throughout the year.

Keith’s specific role within these circuits of capital is to pitch new developments to clients (PPS and PPI for example) on behalf of the developer (for example REKG), and to source tenants and perform agency and landlord functions for the new owners and tenants. These agency functions include mortgage brokerage, securing residency permits, setting up and registering a Czech company in the name of the purchaser (a legal and regulatory requirement in the Czech Republic for foreign property owners prior to EU accession) and performing property management functions on behalf of the (often) absent landlord. Therefore, ER’s emphasis is placed firmly upon the buy-to-let market, dealing with a largely foreign group of investors, landlords and tenants. Such practices are indicative of an increasingly complex array of property and financial markets that are spatially manifested through the production of exclusionary and secessionary residential spaces catering to an emerging class of young professionals and ‘virtual’ residents.  

ER’s property portfolio focuses upon three distinct bands of property and classes of tenant or owner. These differences are based both upon the physical location of the property within the city, as well as upon factors including the aspect of the property, the presence or absence of secure parking facilities, the floor on which the property is located, as well as the local amenities and conveniences (Interview with Keith, 5 May 2005). The so called ‘Band 1’ properties typically sell for CZK 30-38,000 per square metre and are rented out for approximately CZK 11-13,000 per month (£320 to £380) and are aimed at potential Czech tenants as the rental price is not out of their price range. Such properties are not aimed at expatriates at all, though Keith may well get several interested tenants. The second, intermediate band of properties, retailing for between CZK 50-60,000 per square metre and renting for approximately CZK 20,000 per month (c.£580) is aimed at the ‘aspiring middle classes’. Most of the properties dealt with by Keith in this category are located in Karlín, Prague 8, targeted in part at Czech professionals – doctors, dentists, lawyers, what he terms, “…your classic trades”, but primarily at the expatriate market. The final band, or the ‘top end’, consists of penthouse apartments located in specific developments such as River Diamond in Prague 8. These apartments are aimed at wealthy, high earning Western expatriates and diplomats, who can afford to buy a one bedroom flat for CZK 7,000,000 (c. £170,000) or pay rent of over CZK 43,000 per month (c. £1250).

The fact that ER does not have a property development section does not serve to remove the firm from the network of actors that is so substantially transforming the district of Prague 8. By acting as the intermediary between international investment capital, the Czech Government (for work permits and company formation duties pre 2004) and foreign tenants, ER is complicit in the creation of both an exclusionary and polarized real estate market as well as a series of exclusionary spatial forms that are transnational in form (Olds 2001), serving to weaken the historical and class character of certain districts.

V.

In conclusion, it is possible to make a number of observations regarding the nature of the urban transformation of Prague 8 and the broader implications that such developments have on our understandings of urban regeneration schemes not only in Prague, but in ECE more generally. First, the nature of the recent developments in Karlín should be seen as indicative of broader processes of uneven capitalist development that are leading to the production of an increasingly differentiated and exclusionary urban landscape. Whilst the construction of luxury housing developments and high specification offices in the district is contributing to Prague’s emergence as a global city and as a regional node for the producer services sector, the developments themselves are creating an increasingly fragmented and secessionary district of the city. The housing projects (particularly River Diamond) contribute to these segregatory landscapes through both their gated physical form (evidenced by swipe card entry systems, surveillance technologies and secure underground car parking facilities) and the high prices of the apartments themselves. Indeed the pricing strategy of REKG serves to prohibit the vast majority of Czech residents from ownership, whilst the role played by real estate agents such as ER, serve to deepen this exclusivity by marketing the properties to overseas investors. Such practices are contributing to the production of an exclusionary market, largely serving the profit motives of international capital(ists) rather than the particular needs of the current residents of the district or to the development of affordable housing in the city.

Second, the nature of the relationship between private investment capital and the municipal authorities provide credence to claims made by Feldman (2000: 847) who, discussing waterfront redevelopment in Tallinn, suggests that, “…institutional weakness and fragmentation…breed reliance on fluid and personalized networks instead of enduring partnerships, institutions or class interests…”. Such fluid and personalized networks can readily be seen as existing between the municipal authorities and the private sector, particularly in the alleged corruption practices outlined in the discussion of REKG above. According to Maier (2003: 216-219), the processes of regulatory liberalization that occurred during the 1990s opened the planning arena to input from the community, as in the UK, but it seems that this ‘opening’ has mainly benefitted large private companies and capital groups (often foreign owned) rather than small and medium sized enterprizes or local communities, as was perhaps intended. Indeed, the Strategic Plan for Prague (City Development Authority of Prague 2000) identified a lack of concerted cooperation between the municipal authorities, local businesses and the general public that has encouraged low levels of participation in the decision making process.  This has reinforced the necessity of asking, as I do here, ‘for whose benefit are these regeneration schemes implemented?’ The lack of public engagement and transparency has further reinforced the dominance of overseas investors and consortia in the development process, as well as demonstrating the relative fiscal and political weakness of the municipality. The requirement for increased transparency in the planning and redevelopment processes needs to be addressed, not only to tackle alleged municipal corruption, but also to ensure that regeneration projects are actually meeting the needs of local residents in the district and the needs of the city as a whole, particularly given the deteriorating panelák housing and the lack of affordable housing.

Third, and linked to these asymmetric power relations, is the complexity of the urban regeneration architecture that exists within the district of Prague 8. The articulations and networks of actors and institutions comprising of developers (REKG), construction companies, overseas investors (both individual and institutional such as PPS, PPI and MRREG) and real estate agents, means that implementing meaningful regulation of foreign investment  into property markets is a challenge. As a result the various legislative checks in place appear to be somewhat permeable and dysfunctional. This is borne out by the fact that CzechInvest (the Czech Republic’s Investment Agency) had no knowledge of the involvement of Marc Rich in the regeneration of Prague as they do not monitor the activities of foreign companies in the Czech Republic. In fact CzechInvest fear that such monitoring would be seen as ‘discriminatory’ toward investors (Mainville 2000). The difficulties of regulation stem from the topological nature of the actors and institutions involved, and the variety of different scales through which they operate, as well as the aforementioned fiscal weakness of the municipality. The transnational nature of these networks encompassing investment companies based in Austria, Switzerland and the UK, as well as a number of smaller companies based in the Czech Republic and the wider region means that their activities cannot be effectively regulated by national and municipal mechanisms.

Fourth, the redevelopment of Prague 8 can be seen as indicative of wider processes of transformation, not transition, that are ongoing within many post-socialist cities. Processes of liberalization, privatization, restitution and internationalization, traditionally seen as indicators of ‘transition’ toward an imagined end state of neoliberal capitalism, are combined with the legacies of state socialism (the physical fabric of the city, weak municipal governance and a deteriorating infrastructure) to produce a particular set of practices of urban renewal. Following Feldman (2000), I suggest that the characteristics of urban regeneration in Prague 8 (the reliance on foreign capital, the importance of personal networks and the fiscal and political weaknesses of the municipality) should not be seen as a midway or transitory point between the state socialist era and the imagined goal of ‘mature’, ‘Western’ institutions and practices. Rather then, I posit that the situation present in Prague should be seen as specifically and distinctly post-socialist, following Stenning and Hörschelmann (2008) who argue for the further recognition of ‘actually-existing post-socialism’, rather than subsuming understandings of post-socialism into dominant universalist discourses of globalization and transition. Indeed, there is little evidence of a translation of urban regeneration practices popular in the ‘West’ such as public-private partnerships or the entrepreneurial city (Maier 2003) as may have been expected considering the various transformations to the Czech economy and society post-1989. Finally, the situation in Prague reported here should be seen as a partial reading of a multiplicity of ‘post-socialisms’, and this partiality should not be seen as theoretically limiting. By understanding the fluidity, complexity and plurality of different post-socialisms, new and rich potentials for research are opened out. Such opportunities are limited if researchers ascribe to singular understandings of ‘transition’ that are overly obsessed with teleology and the ‘end’ of post-socialism. The research presented here then, seeks to make no grand claims to universalism but is rather a contribution to an ongoing concern amongst post-socialist geographers to, “…outline post-socialisms that are partial and not always explanatory but nevertheless important” (Stenning and Hörschelmann 2008: 312), and by doing so shed light upon the ways in which various transformations are reconfiguring urban space.

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