• buzz86us@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Y’all be making fun of this, not realizing that you don’t hear about a housing crisis in Eastern Europe

    • TimeNaan@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      And yet there definitely is one. These are still capitalist economies after all.

      • Pringles@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Maybe once they run out of apartment buildings, but that’s not gonna happen any time soon.

        • TimeNaan@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          They already have. Here in poland the commie-block apartments are bought and sold on the free market and a lot of them are kept empty as an investment while people have nowhere to live.

          These problems exist everywhere where there is capitalism, no matter what infrastructure was already built there before.

        • uis@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          Maybe once they run out of apartment buildings

          Only communism can run out of apartments, under capitalism apartments are only “in high demand”. In other words they are hoarded.

    • Track_Shovel@slrpnk.netOP
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      3 months ago

      It’s over here in North America too. Houses are unaffordable almost everywhere you go.

      Woo the capitalistic hellscape we always wanted

    • redisdead@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The crisis is having to live in these rabbit hutches for humans.

      Factory farming human misery and suffering is what these are.

      • trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Eh, they’re okay

        Much better than being on the street and you’re kinda exaggerating how shitty they are.

        • redisdead@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I lived in one long enough.

          You’re underestimating how shitty living in one of those feels.

                • redisdead@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  There’s a reason anyone with a little bit of wealth on their hands get the fuck out of these asap. Nobody lives in these on their own will.

                • witx@lemmy.sdf.org
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                  3 months ago

                  That’s a pretty bad argument if you’re making a case for these buildings. “It’s better than the streets”. What’s next? “Water and bread are better than being hungry”? I think we should cross a line somewhere.

                  Of course living in the streets is worse than any house, but it should never be the baseline. I’m not making a case against those buildings, just your arguments is shit.

      • buzz86us@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        And how exactly is that different than one of the same 5 apartment buildings that are being built in every single city in the US?

    • sunzu@kbin.run
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      3 months ago

      They are a great affordable housing and the blocks are designed for people to have everything close buy. Beats American style suburb 8/10 times IMHO

      They are actually based on some Danish designs adapted to USSRs standards.

      • Hubi@feddit.org
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        3 months ago

        Beats American style suburb 8/10 times IMHO

        Only if you’re lucky enough to live in one of the few well-maintained ones. At least in Russia, many are falling apart with loose handrails, water damage, sketchy elevators and mold.

        • sunzu@kbin.run
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          3 months ago

          That’s because Russian regime is even more retarded then what we got in the US…

          Although looking at Florida condos… Maybe not lol

          Snark a side… the issue is maintenance not the design

          • Hubi@feddit.org
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            3 months ago

            the issue is maintenance not the design

            Oh yeah absolutely, not denying that.

        • Demdaru@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Not only in Russia. Lived in one. Cockroach problem was constant. But overall, if you modernize them, they are great.

        • uis@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          At least in Russia, many are falling apart with loose handrails, water damage, sketchy elevators and mold.

          Handrails and elevators can be replaced during building repair. In mine and my grandma’s homes elevators were replaced somewhere in 2008-2015. Not so sure about water damage and mold.

      • toofpic@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        There was an architect, Le Corbusier. He was a socialist, so his projects of future cities involved a lot of public spaces where people spend their free and working time, while a person’s home was just a small area for sleeping and eating breakfast. The Soviets took the idea of small personal homes, and dropped the “nice public areas” part.

        • It’s cold in the winter because the walls are quite thin
        • You can hear your neighbours loudly speaking
        • I was lucky to have a normal-sized room in a later “Brezhnevka” house, but many of my classmates had rooms (if they had a separate room at all) where you had a bed, a cupboard+desk combo, and a chair in the middle, that you have to remove to get to the window. Japan-sized stuff.

        Speaking of Le Corbusier, as his main (I know, that’s subjective) achievement was a technical approach to ergonomics - all sizes in his projects were based on human sizes and proportions. Meaning that a height of a ceiling is a height of an average adult man raising his hands, + some space. It worked, and it’s cost-effective, but you really like some extra space, and have more than 3 sq.m. toilet.

        • sunzu@kbin.run
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          3 months ago

          All fair criticism and that’s why I prefer to have 600k visiable homeless in the US with likely another 1 million living in their cars.

          SInce you knew all of this would also know All of this is fixable with modern technique and extra investment.

          You would also know that north American style construction with shiti wood frame for both houses and apts are a lot worse for noise . Furthermore they only gotten properly insulated for in the 1990s so all the stock prior to that is beyond inefficient.

          Literally boomer 2mmilion mcmension and you still hear guy walking upstairs…

          Like wtf y’all paying for

          • toofpic@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Oh yes, I’ve heard of (but haven’t experienced myself) a low quality of a “standard” us house, but personally I really value the amount of space over many things. When the covid started, we rented a shitty thin-walled summerhouse to get out of the 5M city and keep some freedom of movement. And it was so awesome I didn’t care how much firewood we burned, or how I could hear the kids through 2 walls. Because I could step out of the door and still stay within “my territory”, my place. And in most of small apartments, not just the soviet ones, you feel trapped in those 2 or 3 concrete boxes you call home.
            And if you build a house for yourself, you have a chance to make use of all the modern technologies, and some things are not that much more expensive - I know because I did plan to do it, and I even have a giant excel file with calculations and choices made. Never happened because we moved to another country.

            • sunzu@kbin.run
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              3 months ago

              There is value in space and you if got means it, it aint no thing.

              We sure as fuck don’t have a shortage of luxury inventory lol

              But sound proofing us style construction is nearly impossible is my understanding due to structural studs running across floors passing sound. Concrete structures are not economical, not sure how true this is though.

          • uis@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            All of this is fixable with modern technique and extra investment.

            Soviets fixed it with old techniques and no extra investment. By, you know, just building homes for people.

        • ThunderclapSasquatch@startrek.website
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          3 months ago

          Oh god I already feel claustrophobic knowing everything in that tiny space would be made for people half a foot shorter than me, it’d be living in that fucking RV all over again

          • toofpic@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            If you’re tall, then yes, it won’t be pleasurable as well. Especially sad because houses of earlier Stalin period were awesome. It doesn’t make Stalin any better, and he wasn’t solving the problem of overpopulation by building houses (sad joke), but the houses from tgat period are well built, have high ceilings, thick walls, sometimes nice things like second entrances and garbage chutes, etc. This was connected with the industrial and economical boom after the war (so, generally the same stuff that happened in the us, only in the us people got a bigger piece of pie).
            I converted the heights for you:

            • Khruschevka ceiling: 2,5m, 8,2ft
            • Stalinka ceilings - 3-4m, 9,8-13.1ft
            • uis@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              Especially sad because houses of earlier Stalin period were awesome

              There is nothing to be sad because houses of earlier Stalin period were not for people, but for nomenclature.

                • sunzu@kbin.run
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                  3 months ago

                  Each city had them but as guy above said, they were for the party members and you had to be decently well ranked to get a stalin style apartment. they were deff luxury.

      • uis@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        It’s like they were build for the benefit of the people.

        Soviet poster "For the benefit of the people!"

  • volvoxvsmarla @lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    I recently moved to a German city that, whenever I mention it, is described as “ooh it’s such a beautiful city!” because it wasn’t bombed to shreds in the war and a lot of buildings are from 1900ish and older.

    Honestly I would rather prefer to live in a building like the post. The apartments often are cut more efficiently and fit better for a family. Yeah, the outside isn’t as appealing as around here but I don’t live on the outside of my house, I live inside of it, so I barely care about its outsides. The other side effect of eastern blocks is that the density per square km is amazingly high. This also leads to supermarkets etc being everywhere. (I am, of course, making generalizations here.)

    Of course I need to say that the energy efficiency in old eastern block houses is also awful.

    But I don’t want to bash the 1900s houses too much. At least they have 4-5 levels. That’s still better than single family homes in the middle of a city (talking about you, pipe smoking guy in the middle of Sendling).

    • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Painting the outside different colors would help the appeal of the buildings, at the cost of whatever thermal efficiency the color white provides

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Of course I need to say that the energy efficiency in old eastern block houses is also awful.

      It usually can be improved with additional insulation.

      • volvoxvsmarla @lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        We live in a house from 1900 and thanks to a lot of work our apartment has the energy efficiency grade A to B. We will also get a heat pump in the next few years. We have PV on the roof (I’m not sure what for right now), our windows are triple glassed and we have two heat exchangers thingy that sucks air from the outside and pushes inside air out. A couple of months ago they also insulated the roof of the basement better.

        We are very lucky that the owner is behind all these works. Most aren’t, but it is to show that you’re absolutely right and how much can be done and improved. (However, I still don’t like the cut of the apartment or not having an elevator/barrier free access to the basement. And the bugs.)

    • TimeNaan@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Rather there was just one development firm, run by the state, mass producing the walls for these buildings to be assembled on site

      • riodoro1@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Pretty much that happened.

        The best fucking joke is that those buildings and neighborhoods despite being absolute piss poor quality are waaay nicer, roomier and greener than what capitalist development corpos build these days. So yeah, free market for the win i guess.

        • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          Quality is actually not bad. Like yea, they usually don’t have modern wiring but since the construction materials used are insanely durable and thick renovating those buildings with new windows, heating, pipes and wires gets you like the best possible apartment. You will never hear your neighbours, winters are warm with minimal heating and that building will last for like centuries with minimal maintenance.

          Source: Lived in one and renovated it too.

        • BenchpressMuyDebil@szmer.info
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          3 months ago

          Seconded. When walking around my 60s neighbourhood in Poland I can clearly see that someone sat down and planned how the neighbourhood is going to look, i.e. where there will be a store, where a kindergarten and where a school. Not to mention a huge swath of lawn with playgrounds in the middle of the buildings for the ultimate flex.

          Opposite of “ok we’ll sell the land and the free market will figure it out”.

          • riodoro1@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            At least where I live new developments are crammed so you can see directly into the windows of your neighbors, there are fences between every fucking building and the only outside there is, is a parking lot.

            You have to walk through concrete plazas 15 minutes to get to a convenience store because its impossible for you to take a shortcut through another buildings parking lot, no, no. You sit in your own fucking designated area.

            Meanwhile commieblocks are spaced apart with trees between them, there is no fence in sight and catch this: they made openings in the longest buildings so you can walk a shorter route wherever you’re going.

            • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Many also have quite a lot of social areas, shopping places and good public transportation. If they are well maintained, they are far superior to the space wasting, infraatructure hungry, climate destroying sprawling suburbs of several western countries.

            • uis@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              Meanwhile commieblocks are spaced apart with trees between them, there is no fence in sight

              Man, I really hate current infencetation.

              Meanwhile soviet city building book:

              1. Trees
              2. More trees
              3. See 2
              4. Each district has everything
              5. Each microdistrict has at least something like school, polyclinic or kindergarden
              6. There are no bad houses

              and catch this: they made openings in the longest buildings so you can walk a shorter route wherever you’re going.

              True. I couldn’t find photos of them on the internets, so if you want, I can walk tomorrow and take some photos. Or you somehow find them and post for lemmy to see.

      • uis@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        It’s like they were built fast, cheaply and durable.

        Soviet poster "Build fast, cheap and durable"

  • Ghyste@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    Isn’t that China? (/j)

    Edit: I’ve looked up the picture and confirmed these buildings are some of the empty city that China has constructed. I’m not sure what all the downvotes are for…

      • Ghyste@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        These buildings have appeared in countless different places. I guess no one’s seeing any humor in it…

        Edit to add that I’d genuinely like to know where you saw them and inquire if you know any background on them. I’m very interested in the origins of these projects. I feel like I’m in one of the best places to learn from people with first-hand knowledge.

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      So generic, I’m pretty sure reverse image search is bringing up buildings from Asia, Europe, South America…