Conremporary Bucharest History

After the Second World War, the settlement of the 'people's power' creates the favourable conditions to appeareance of communist's dictatorship which had maintained its power till December 1989. For about 50 years, the real democracy and free market economy were been vanished.
Many of applied methods, both in economic and social field, were borrowed from the ancient USSR, didn't take into consideration the specific features of the country and of the Capital city, as well.
By nationalization process of the main industrial branches, the communist system had offered it the means necessary for the reconstruction and development of the city.

Nevertheless, in these last 50 years were built many new industrial plants, new blocks of flats, many social and cultural edificies. There were placed the 'industrial giants' and thousands of blocks of flats type 'matches box' .

In this period, a significant importance in the economy of the city have the fitting-construction industry, the number of workers, in this branch, growing up from 39,700 peoples in 1950 to more than 97,000 peoples in 1983. Considering that until 1950, the main industrial branches developped in Bucharest were the light and food industry (57.9 %) and chemical industry (24.1%), the chemistry counting in 1982 about 55 % of total industrial structure. The annual average of industrial growth was enormous and it has required huge costs, ensuring in these conditions the leader position of the capital city, from the point of view of production.

Besides the nationalized entreprises from 1948 (Lemaitre became New Times Entreprise - Intreprinderea Timpuri Noi, Malaxa became 23 August Entreprise - Intreprinderea 23 August), there were founded new entreprises (Policolour Entreprise - 'Policolor', Autobuzul Entreprise - 'Autobuzul', Danubiana Entreprise - 'Danubiana', CIL Pipera Entreprise - 'CIL Pipera'). A very important role in the economic development of the city was played by the constructions.

The events from December 1989 brought major changes in the Capital city economy, both in structural aspect (decentralization process and ownership type) and of its dynamics.
In 1993, three years after the collapse of the communist's dictatorship (in 1989), in Bucharest city was concentrated 12.7% of active population of the country, including 385 medium sized companies having about 1000 employées. The companies with more than 5000 employées representing at that moment only 1.8% from total number of personal.
Besides the great industrial platforms created before 1989, the number of blocks of flats grew up so, thus if between 1954 - 1964 were build 80,641 flats, this number was about 446,100 flats between 1965 - 1984. There were founded new residential districts, as follows: Titan - Balta Alba District (Titan - White Lake) with 90000 flats, Drumul Taberei District (The Camping Road) with 63,000 flats, Berceni District with 70,000 flats, Militari District with 40,000 flats. The blocks of flats were layed out by a bad finishment, offering minimal habitat conditions and without respect of any standards of comfort.

The census data from 1992 (three years after the communist's dictatorship collapse) indicated that Bucharest city had a number of 10,994 blocks of flats with 760,751 flats and a total of 1803,635 rooms, that means a dwelling surface over 46.1 sq. millions meters (34.3 sq. meters per each flat).
Bucharest is the first political and administrative centre of the country, being the resident place of the Presidency, the Parliament, the Government, the headquarters of many political parties, cultural and educational institutions, financial and commercial institutions and banks.





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