Up,down, and away: placing privilege in Bucharest,Romania

Anthropologists have become increasingly sophisticated in the analysis of class by detailing the urban margins, by ‘studying up’ to examine elite wealth, and by charting the rise of the global middle classes. The anthropological commitment to depth, however, tends to keep these three strata separate in ways that mirror analytically the kind of segregation observed on the ground. Tight analytical framings risk obscuring the co-ordinates of privilege, especially in cities such as Bucharest, Romania, which are being rapidly transformed by foreign direct investment (FDI). This article, by contrast, moves across Bucharest's diverging strata to explore the complex interconnections between the pursuit of FDI, urban planning, and increased class separation. Ethnographically, the article examines the production of three kinds of emergent spaces – homeless shelters for the very poor; high-rise towers for the truly elite; and metro stations designed for the middle classes – to trace the interrelated politics of belonging and exclusion in a rapidly transforming city. The article suggests that these efforts, successful as they may be at ordering competing claims to the city, produce a landscape that cements unequal class relations into the built environment. Taken from Bucharest, this analysis offers wider insight into the future of contemporary urbanism in the European Union but also in cities the world over that are being similarly remade to attract global capital.