Pipera village is a neighborhood in

Voluntari Voluntari () is a town in Ilfov County, Muntenia, Romania. It is located at a distance of 1 km from the northern border of Bucharest (on the DN2 road towards Urziceni) and is thus frequently viewed as a suburb of Bucharest. The population ...

Ilfov County Ilfov () is the county that surrounds Bucharest, the capital of Romania. It used to be largely rural, but, after the fall of Communism, many of the county's villages and communes developed into high-income commuter towns, which act like suburbs ...

, at the northern edge of the city of

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north o ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

Development

Until 1995, Pipera was an ordinary village. After that, an "

El Dorado El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king ...

" of land transactions began. Plots of land that were US$1/m² reached in 2005 the US$250/m². In this time, more than 1,400 houses were built there, transforming Pipera in one of the most expensive residential areas. Between 2002 and 2011, in just ten years, the surface of the residential area doubled in size. The residential area expanding quickly and faster than the street network created many problems and concerns, such as urban planning, traffic control, water supply and electrical supply. A shopping park was also built, initially as a

Carrefour Carrefour () is a French multinational retail and wholesaling corporation headquartered in Massy, France. The eighth-largest retailer in the world by revenue, it operates a chain of hypermarkets, groceries stores and convenience stores, whic ...

and Bricostore, and later developed into a Metro, a Selgross Cash & Carry, an

IKEA IKEA (; ) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands that designs and sells , kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been ...

and, most importantly,

Băneasa Shopping City Băneasa Shopping City is a shopping center in the north of Bucharest, Romania, opened on 18 April 2008. Located in the Băneasa neighborhood of Sector 1, it is part of the Băneasa Developments owned by convicted crimimaAurel and Radu Timofte ...

. However, these have been developed chaotically. The village is currently plagued by overcrowding, corruption, heavy traffic, crumbling infrastructure and soaring pollution. A significant number of properties have been built as a result of bribing local authorities and, as such, one can find tall building blocks in the middle of house developments, building with illegal extensions and medium industrial sites among residential areas.

Transportation

This massive increase had a great impact on road transportation in the area. It seems that the number of cars exceeds the limit of traveling in comfort from Pipera to Bucharest and back. For this, the City Hall of Voluntari has started building a bridge on one of the two roads connecting it to the city. The work started in early 2007 and ended in 2012. This improved the traffic flow, but the lack of parking spaces and of one-way streets still causes major issues.

Infrastructure

The district is served by the Pipera metro station, albeit far from the actual village, on the northern terminus of

Bucharest Metro Line M2 M2 () is one of the five lines of metro of the Bucharest Metro. The M2 Line runs from Pipera to Berceni, thus linking the north to the south of the city. The line is the busiest on the system, passing through a multitude of neighbourhoods, and a ...

. The Pipera industrial center ( ro, platforma industrială) is on the site of a former airport ( Pipera Airport) from the

interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relative ...

Buildings

The tallest office building in the area is the Pipera Business Tower.

References

Districts of Bucharest {{Ilfov-geo-stub