ABSTRACT
The complementary co-existence of different housing systems is one of the most important characteristics of socialist Yugoslavia’s housing practice. By combining two dichotomous dimensions we can better understand its main features: (a) formal-informal and (b) legal-illegal. We thus obtain four types of ‘housing production’: 1. (+ +) legal and formal; 2. (+ −) legal but informal; 3. (− +) illegal but formal; 4. (− −) illegal and informal. Of course, this theoretical model does not cover the full spectrum of empirical evidence, but I think it helps to elucidate the various forms of actual building. The first type designates socially legitimized building, carried out by public building companies which are predominantly active within the framework of the formal sector of production. In our circumstances this type is almost identical with social (public) housing construction. The second type represents the most frequent self-help building. A characteristic of the third type is that, due to the social power of the agents, i.e. public building enterprises, the public only rarely gets to know details. And for the same reason most of these cases are legitimized in the course of time, after greater or lesser difficulties. The fourth type includes two socially unsuitable (or at least unwanted) practices: informal and illegal building, i.e. the type of building that evades planning regulations to the highest degree.1 From the planners’ (state) point of view, the fourth type is nevertheless the most contradictory case since it represents in fact an excessive housing practice. On the other hand, this practice is also interesting because it develops innovative self-organizing activities.
