The Balkans

In the past week, the Antiplanner has visited Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and currently Romania. While I haven’t had time to sort through photos in detail, here are a few. I don’t pretend to be an expert on these countries based on my short visits, but I have learned quite a bit.

Many of the former communist nations received aid from the European Union and they have spent that money or local taxpayer money building roads and other infrastructure. Macedonia, however, has spent between 500 million and 750 million euros turning the center of its capital, Skopje, into a grand plaza surrounded by huge buildings reminiscent of Las Vegas. I was told that many of the buildings are shoddily constructed and probably won’t last a long time.

After the fall of communism, the various governments gave most of the apartments built during the socialist era to residents for very low prices, with the result that eastern European countries have some of the highest homeownership rates in the world. Locals derisively refer to these buildings as “the communist buildings” but similar apartments can be found throughout western Europe. This one is in Tuzla, Bosnia’s second-largest city.

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Montenegro has plenty of high-rise apartments too, but it is also the wealthiest of the former Yugoslavian countries. This is partly because the mountains that surround it protected it from the 1991-1992 war but also because the country has low tax rates and low labor costs. Still, most of these countries are suffering a “brain drain” as college graduates leave for higher paying jobs in other parts of Europe.

We visited a winery in Montenegro, and while I don’t drink wine, I was intrigued to learn that the winery’s 2,500-hectare vineyard is the largest such vineyard in all of Europe. Most other farms are also much smaller. While government restrictions are the main cause of unaffordable housing in many European countries, the lack of large blocks of land that could be purchased and developed is a contributor. However, many countries have half or more of their land in government ownership, and privatization of some of these lands could relieve housing shortages.

Romania is wealthier still, and Iasi, where I am today, has attracted thousands of high-tech jobs from Amazon and other companies. Here is a mixed-use development near the heart of the city that combines shopping and offices. However, I was told that the residential part of the development failed and the apartments in the high-rise tower on the left were turned into offices.