Rockville in Romania, or 'The city grows for you'

The Baneasa Project seems to be a nice bit o' sprawl. You can take the Tur Virtual, and here are some gems from the interview:

On alienation: "You have to be relatively well off to live there, but its more a question of buying into a lifestyle and an ethos, than wanting to get away from everybody."

On transition: "This is something I believe is a reawakening for Romanians—for so many years they were told, 'You go and live there, or there, or there,' and all the accommodation was exactly the same—you kind of gave up on the choices. The only question was whether you would have a three room apartment or a four room apartment."

On post-Xmas commerce: "you have them to keep people coming to the stores during what would technically be a 'fatigue period' for shoppers"

On mentality: "there wasn't really a retail mentality here until a few years ago... I mean, that whole side of capitalist consumerism is only in its infancy here."

They claim the project has environmental motives, but they seem to be environmental in that way suburbs were in the U.S. a long time ago: cars and lawns and the drive for fresh air.

Aside: Does anybody else find themselves reading in a Romanian accent?