The mosaic versus the melting pot: Canada and the USA

Ownership represents a key relation between people and places. Eastern European transformations since the late 1980s confront western norms of private property rights within a capitalist system with the legacies of an alternative ownership system and with attempts to establish property markets from first principles. The developments in the former GDR and in eastern Germany after German reunification offer an opportunity to question assumptions of use and value which underlie western models of property tenure. While common themes of privatisation and commodification link eastern and western experiences, the particular manifestations of transformations in eastern Germany challenge the claims of the primacy of ownership and the legitimacy of claims for control over the built environment.