Urban Regeneration and Affective Connections to Place in Bucharest City Centre

Abstract

“Place” represents an important issue for human geo graphers. This paper deals with the process of urban change that has affected the histo rical centre of Bucharest over the course of the last decade. The urban regeneration process could t ransform the cultural meanings of the ‘sense of the place’ and contribute to a reinvention of an ur ban identity dimension. The aim of the paper is to contribute to the formulation of a critical pers pective on urban regeneration, by highlighting the absence or otherness of cultural urban meanings in creating a place identity among the citizens during the (post)communist period. The authors adva nce and test the hypotheses that the historical importance of the city and the regenerat ion process in the sense of place construction are different among the residents