Around 35% of the housing in Sofia is empty, said Vasil Lyunchev in an interview for the Hristo Botev programme on Bulgarian National Radio.
What I heard in the headphones brought me out of my morning nap and made me listen with great interest to the end of the interview. The guest in an interesting way combined statistics and curious situations from real life in response to the host’s questions. The interview was over, but my mind refused to stop dwelling on the topic. Actually, things haven’t changed. The majority of Bulgarians think and act in the same way and this has been passed down from generation to generation. The differences are in the implementation. As a child I remember my parents building huge two-storey houses, planning to house several generations to live together. The advent of “prefabs” in “mature socialism” quickly shattered that patriarchy. The young wanted to live on their own, independent of the old – it was fashionable. So many of the second floors of large family houses remained empty. Whole houses in smaller settlements remained empty. Today, the concept of a multi-generational home is no longer on the agenda. Society has changed, but the thinking has not. Today we call the process investing, but in fact many parents have simply replaced building a “second floor” with buying additional housing. Maybe in bigger cities, but why not in the capital.
Children must be provided for to prosper. But who is asking the children. In life they may go to study and then live abroad. Statistically our population is declining and there is simply no one to live in the newly built apartments. And then they apartments, yes the new ones remain empty, empty like the empty floors of the old family houses.
Hum! Why am I bothering you with this question? Why am I raising the subject? Because it is directly related to the things we are concerned with at the Public Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development, namely “Sustainable Development”. The issue has a direct bearing on the wise use of the resources we consume. That is the basis of Sustainable Development. Perhaps it would be more sustainable to invest resources in the education and upbringing of children, but if they decide to live in a Bedouin tent, why not. Perhaps if you have more money, it would be more sustainable to invest it in improving the quality of the environment instead of investing it in personal restocking. Maybe that way today’s kids will have more than one reason to stay to live where their parents lived and built their community.
I don’t know if you’re guessing, but there’s actually “no bad thing”! Globally population is increasing, climate change will very soon cause whole nations to “catch the path” of migration. In that line of thought, some empty homes could prove useful, but for their owners?
