The real estate future, penciled by a sociologist from Cluj, challenged by the chief architect of the county: “Cluj is faced with a limited supply of constructions, failing to meet the demands of the labor market”

The data of a January 2024 survey carried out by the research center I coordinate, from a project co-donated by Cluj city hall, show that the average salary in Cluj was 4,663 lei, similar to that reported by the INS, but non-salaried employees, half of the adult population, had incomes of 2,509 lei. That is, the income distribution highlights major discrepancies: a quarter earns less than 2,667 lei, a quarter up to 4,000 lei, and another quarter more than 5,294 lei. The lack of urban occupational diversity, caused by housing market filtering, brings significant costs, for example to extensive infrastructure projects such as the Beltway. Cluj is turning into a predominantly office city as the “captive poor” are replaced by office workers and factory workers are forced to live in metropolitan and rural areas, thus widening socio-economic divisions. More precisely, 82% of employees outside Cluj commute to work – also fresh mobile phone data, presented today at the computational sociology conference in Istanbul”, the sociologist says.