ON SOME ETHNIC HOUSING AREAS OF CĂLĂRAŞI

The paper makes a general description of poverty areas inhabited by Roma communities in Călărași, Romania and tries to put them into a general context of urban geography. In particular it aims to illustrate the urban setting, the housing conditions of the dwellers, the dynamics and the formation of three ethnic and poverty enclaves that display to a various degree the characters of an urban ghetto (Oborul Nou, Doi Moldoveni and Livadă) using mainly first-hand accounts of the inhabitants, analyzing the spatial policies of the authorities and the ways in which people deal with territory and housing issues. The analysis highlights the specificities of spatialization of Roma communities and racialization of poverty in small size Romanian cities, where segregation policies are rarely explicit, physical distances are less relevant, but the spatial exclusion process is no less visible and defined rather by substandard infrastructure, poor access and unfriendly limits.