So many people love to shit on these "commie-blocks" for no real reason.

People on the streets is far more soulless than gray concrete housing. Especially because concrete can at least be painted over to make it look better.

What's a house go for now in Sanfrancisco?

Given 2/3 of it is zoned for single family homes I'd assume its still not cheap.

No city folks want to live in agri land due to smell and sounds from agri works. I do agree with more green areas. Stockholm gets a lot of flak for its miljonprojekt but there are quite a lot of trees and green areas within walking distance from most places

Kinda works for representing evil, repulsive people though.

I demand my own little box on a hillside!

Look, the post clearly states "No real reason". You, you gotta learn to read.

(I lived in one of these and it was absolute hell)

Indeed. There is a hierarchy.

Commie blocks are better than tents.

But proper social housing is better than commie blocks.

And proper social housing mixed with middle class owner-occupied housing in the same neighborhoods and even within the same buildings is the best.

Ok im gonna try typing out some of the observations of living in commie blocks from personal experience as well as some stories from my friends. Im also spoilering it for anyone who doesn't want to read the list.. also also.. not a comprehensive list of everything, just what I can think of on my lunch break

Just to name a few :3.. im gonna go eat now

Although it does appear that living in them was better than living in a tent and perhaps led to living in a better housing situation? Unless the place was demolished after you moved out, it would be better than a tent for someone else.

Bad housing is better than no housing, largely in part that it helps people get out of the inertia and deathspiral of homelessness.

There's a minimum a society should provide, and public housing at least can satisfy that.

The history of these countries cannot be seen in a vacuum. Socialist countries were historically enemies of the United States. The U.S. did everything in its power to weaken them (including economic policy and assassinations) in the USSR, South America, and Asia. And then people knowingly proclaim that socialism can never work.

Yes there was corruption, bureaucracy, oversight, and abuse. Of course, there were missteps and injustices. The same can be said, however, for the U.S. today. At least the communist countries have the excuse of having to stand against the richest and most powerful country in the history of the earth. They did not have the luxury of developing an alternative system in peace.

If history were different, we would still live under the "divine right of kings" and people would argue that parliamentarianism is an untenable mob rule. So we surfs should just continue to work the land and suffer the abuses of the king and his vassals. But our course of history has proven this a lie; we know that the status quo only serves the interests of those who exploit the labor of others.

May I introduce you to the concept of microdistrict. That's how the original soviet developments were planned out - every house is guaranteed to have necessities like stores, a polyclinic, a school, a kindergarden, or a fire department within reasonable distance. Usually, walking distance. Everything is pedestrian permeable, there's public transport connecting the "sleeping districts" where there were mostly apartments to the industrial areas where the jobs were. And yeah, playgrounds in or near every building.

Jobs in the same area as apartments isn't really happening though, office buildings and industry tends to be away.

It's not rocket science. Vienna did this once. Also you don't need car parks if a city is well designed. Public Transport and Carsharing is enough

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alterlaa

The original commieblocks were fairly walkable, with parks, schools, grocery stores, and so on nearby. I'm personally a fan of making all the buildings concrete blocks and then getting a bunch of local mural artists to paint them for visual distinction.

I would add to this list, buildings and units that encourage resident diversity. As in, a diversity of ages, household size, economic class (and ideally also race/ethnicity/country of origin). Organically this means a mix of "luxury" and "budget" housing, unit sizes (studio through three bedroom at minimum), building ages and designs, target demographics for shops (e.g. upscale shopping alongside budget grocers), and community amenities (e.g. schools and senior centers). In a pinch subsidized housing can help with integration, but it's a limited and costly solution.

Don't forget access to businesses - I don't know the stats for 3 floor developments but 5 is already plenty to support nearly all your needs within at most a 15 minute walk.

"I have never lived in, occupied, or been near anywhere that employs this type of housing. But, here's a list of stipulations I have decided are absolutely necessary based on nothing other than what I feel former soviet satellite states are like."

-This Dude

Not just the concentration of inequality. Also there was often no infrastructure, no shops, no pubs, no nothing, super thin walls, so you could hear all your neighbours, terrible heat isolation... not so different from the tents but higher concentration of people, which made it worse. In many post-communist countries those were later remade into livable places, but it took lots of time and money to do so. Totalitarian regimes suck.

All the Projects in major cities are an example. But it isn’t the buildings’ fault. It just putting a lot of poor people with lots of problems all in one place tends to concentrate all the ills that go along with poverty.

They are very common in Germany and are in general really safe, the only crime going on there was smoking pot (which is not a crime anymore). I myself did not grow up in one, but many friends have and I still frequently visit people there. Floors, stairs and elevators are clean, neighbours greet you, when someone new moves in its common to help them as a neighbour.

Recently one of these houses was in the news "weißer Riese" in Duisburg because of crime. Now Duisburg is basically Germanys Detroit, used to be a coal mining city and has nothing else going on for it (still the homicide rate for Duisburg is 20x lower than for Detroit lol). And this house is 55years old and has been neglected by the developers, so rent for an apartment there is basically the lowest of any German city and in Germanys most undesirable city and somehow people wonder why there is some crime and this becomes the stereotype for all "commie blocks".

But for every commie block like that you get 1000 others that are really safe and clean, offer cheap rent, are energy efficient as fuck, some even have their own bus or train stations, big playground in the middle and usually more on the edge of the city so closer to nature.

This stereotype thing about commie blocks always reminds me of the american homeless people sleeping in tents in front of the "victims of communism" museum...

These commies blocks don't just look ugly, they tend to become a crime riddled dump

It will surprise you, but this is other way around. Hruschevkas have less crime than modern humant colonies.

The alternative, tent cities like skid row, are pretty crime-heavy. I've never heard about commie blocks being especially crime ridden, but I guess you have good reason to say what you did and aren't just pulling it straight out your ass.

Cabrini Green immediately comes to mind. The police used to get sniped in the parking lot.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green_Homes

Nah. Both are brutal, but only one is brutalist.

There's one two comments down from you.

I am happy my grandparents can't read your comment. And neither can my great grandfather.

It's generally very hard to treat those problems when someone doesn't have a stable residence. Some of the reasons for self-medicating also go away with a stable residence. It's a basic need.

But yeah, large concentrations of people with various problems isn't good either, nor is bad urbanism.

The better solution is generally good urbanism and dispersed municipal housing, so people who start needing it don't have to move far, don't need to have their kids switch schools, etc etc.

Giving people housing doesn't solve the problems that caused them to be homeless in the first place.

Yes

Now you have a concentrated block of people with not just issues, but subscriptions. Mental health, drug, and alcohol abuse.

Yes

You have to address those issues FIRST, THEN get them housed.

No.

You house them and then help then with those issues while in their new homes.

Now the hard and really really important part, you address what caused the issues they were facing.

You create jobs (big incentives for businesses to set up near by), you directly employ people in meaningful government funded projects.

You provide first rate education opertunities (both for adults and children).

You provide good high quality social areas (both indoor and outdoor).

You provide first rate socially funded healthcare both for physical and mental issues.

You legalise drugs so their access can be safe and better controlled. You use the tax money from that to go hard on any non legal drugs.