Bucharest, City of (Un)Care. A Gender Perspective on Urban Infrastructure
Cătălina Frâncu
Abstract
Caregivers rely on robust care infrastructure to participate equitably in society. Inadequate facilities disrupt both personal and professional lives. This project investigates how the distribution of state-led care facilities in post-socialist Bucharest impacts caregivers, examining walkability, geographical wealth disparities, and the consequences for gender equity.
State-led care facilities, operationalised as nurseries, libraries, recovery centres, day centres for the elderly, etc., will be mapped and their distribution assessed using qualitative and quantitative criteria. That way, a study into the walkability (the ability to comfortably navigate the city without encountering major obstacles ) and other factors will be combined with geographical wealth distribution, and additional criteria to be defined during research.
This project would add an Eastern-European perspective to the Western-centric discourse and practice on caring cities. It will moreover offer critical insights into how care infrastructure – or its absence – affects gender equality, informing urban planners, designers, and policymakers who work to reduce systemic inequalities.
This study expands the theoretical understanding of care infrastructure and sheds light on urban structural discrimination, particularly in post-socialist contexts. Furthermore, it unveils the adaptive mechanisms people use to replace lacking care infrastructure, unravelling cases of commoning care to be further studied and understood. Last but not least, the findings of this project could contribute to widening the concept of (un)care to encompass human activity and the environment interconnectedly.
About the Author
Cătălina Frâncu, architect and Deputy Editor-in-Chief at Zeppelin magazine, has been coordinating the development, funding, and implementation of the cultural projects “Bucharest’s Care Infrastructure: An Urban Culture Study,” “The Care Infrastructure: Research Interviews” (Zeppelin), and “The Alifanti Library” (in collaboration with BAAB) since 2023.
She is currently mapping the care infrastructure in Bucharest as part of her PhD at TU Wien, supervised by Sabine Knierbein. On the same topic, she has created research workshops for students and young professionals from administration, culture, urban planning, architecture, and other fields. She offers consulting on public policy development and writes about the city, architecture, and heritage. She has worked with the Romanian Order of Architects (ROA) on cultural communication and on projects concerning urban inclusion, architectural market analysis, and built heritage. Her work sits at the intersection of architectural research and theory: she has curated exhibitions (Forms of Exclusion, ROA) and organised conferences (Datorită cui? [Thanks to Whom?], The Influence of Artificial Intelligence on the Creative Process—forthcoming).
Cătălina graduated in Architecture from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville and holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy, Gender, and Minorities. She is the co-author of two architecture books: Oameni la lucru în casele lor [People Working in Their Homes] and Locuind împreună 2, Blocuri recente de ADN BA [Living Together 2, Recent BA DNA Blocks].