Bucharest today is a city of contrasts. On one side, elegant interwar buildings with wide courtyards and ornate facades. On the other, massive apartment blocks built in the 1960s–1980s, lined up in neighborhoods that look almost identical: Drumul Taberei, Titan, Berceni, Militari. These so-called “dormitory neighborhoods” were the result of a deliberate political and urban planning decision: the city grew mainly upwards, not outwards.

Why upwards, not outwards

The central reason was rapid industrialization. After 1948, Bucharest began attracting hundreds of thousands of workers from rural areas. The city was unprepared for such demographic pressure. Expanding through single-family homes would have required vast amounts of land and expensive infrastructure—roads, utilities, public transport. Apartment blocks, by contrast, were a fast and relatively efficient solution: large numbers of people could live on a small footprint, close to factories and transport lines.

Planning and uniformity

Communist urban planning followed a functionalist logic. The city had to be “rational”: work – housing – transport. This produced dormitory neighborhoods: large residential zones with few mixed functions, dependent on commuting to factories and industrial plants. Architectural uniformity cut costs and enabled mass construction.

Social consequences

In the short term, the model solved the housing crisis. Tens of thousands of young families moved from overcrowded or unsanitary rooms into apartments with running water, heating, and access to schools and kindergartens. In the long run, however, dormitory neighborhoods created monotonous spaces with weak urban identity, heavily dependent on the center for services, culture, and entertainment.

Why Bucharest didn’t expand outwards

Geographic and administrative factors also played a role. The city’s administrative boundaries were fixed, and expanding them would have required political negotiations. In addition, farmland around the city was considered a strategic resource, so authorities avoided converting it on a large scale into residential areas. Unlike other European capitals, where suburban single-family housing became the norm, Bucharest remained compact and vertical.

The legacy today

Dormitory neighborhoods still define the lives of most Bucharest residents. Nearly 70% of the city’s population lives in blocks built between 1960 and 1989. The lack of mixed-use areas has led to chronic commuting and overburdened public transport. Yet these neighborhoods also have an advantage: high density makes local communities possible and supports relatively accessible public services and transit.

Bucharest grew upwards because it had to respond quickly to immense demographic pressure. The choice was not just urbanistic, but also political and economic. Today, as the city struggles with traffic, pollution, and the lack of green spaces, the legacy of dormitory neighborhoods is increasingly visible. The open question is whether Bucharest can, in the future, find a way to also grow “outwards”—through more balanced and diverse development.