this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
828 points (98.8% liked)
memes
17512 readers
1254 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
We need this in North America if we ever want to solve the housing crisis tbh. I'm talking Soviet-style, grey concrete commieblocks. Yes the buildings are ugly, probably lack amenities, cheaply constructed and not well maintained, but we desperately need cheap, dense housing if we're going to bring down the costs. Building more luxury Manhattan condos and suburban single family abominations does nothing to bring down housing prices.
Yeah but I'd also like to see such huge buildings in the middle of nature. Imagine 10.000 people with their own daycare, school or even medic / doctor surrounded by fields and food forests so they can produce their own food. Generates it's own power, centralized super efficient heat storage system for winter, cleans up it's own water etc. And have a fast mass transport to the next hub, like a chain of such buildings a few miles apart linking to the next big city. That's my solar punk.
It's basically a whole city in a building. The big advantage for this is that the city is not taking up massive amounts of space.
American Fork, Utah, has 33k inhabitants on 19 square kilometres. The building in the OP has 20-30k inhabitants on 0.04 square kilometres, which would mean that if you house all of American Fork like that, you'd get between 18.92 and 18.96 of untouched nature in return.
I'm from Poland.
So the commieblocks are always:
Vs "modern" blocks:
To me the ideal is the commie era urban planning with modern techniques, but that's uncommon.
With climate change cities can't be made without trees everywhere, they cool down the streets so much
Commie urban planning with modern blocks, exactly my ideal too
Though for density the blocks being close together is beneficial.
Oh and I’d like to see more ground floors of residential buildings used for services. Have a dentist in your building, small grocery store in the next one and a restaurant in another. Though I do think that’s becoming more common with new builds here in Estonia.
When I was in the Czech Republic a lot of old commie blocks were painted and surrounded by grass with wide passages between them.
It was incredible compared to what I saw in Poland or where my Russian friends lived. (they managed to flee the country)
Depending on the city in Poland they might also be either painted in pastel colors or there might be murals on them.
Example:
And the wide green corridors between them were a constant feature as far as I know (at least I don't remember NOT seeing wide grass + trees + some flowers corridors between 'em).
I do agree that Czechs picked better colors for it and keeps them fresher.
We don't even necessarily need those, fucking row townhouses like old Chicago or New York would be a massive improvement in space usage and density alone. Just modify the design to have a garage in the back and make the alleyway larger. Hell you could narrow the front road if you do it right.
Hell you ~~could~~ should narrow the front road ~~if you do it right.~~ and turn it into a pedestrian plaza with a few shops and restaurants.
While I like the enthusiasm we are still talking about the US here, even just for controlled semitruck or emergency service access it would still need to be wide enough for say a firetruck even compensation with utility alleyways and back end garages. But you could set it up to be relatively easily converted to such a thing if the required modifications to infrastructure and emergency services are done, but even then it'd be twenty years off even on a rapid timescale.
To be fair, I didn't say make it impassible, I said narrow it. It's easy enough to make a pedestrian plaza that a box truck or a firetruck can fit down. It works in the majority of the cities and towns in Scandinavia. They're not going to build affordable rowhomes or high density housing in the states anytime soon so this is literally allll wishcasting from top to bottom.
Fair enough, though my point was moreso to do with how absurdly massive American fire engines and semi-trucks there are smaller tanks. A Stuart tank from WW2 or fuck even a M60 Patton are smaller than a standard American fire engine.
Tanks are pretty small, even European fire engines are bigger.
What’s fucked up is that tanks get better frontal visibility than American pick up trucks lol
3-5 story housing with no parking works in France/Europe. No elevators/pools is huge cost savings. Room for cars ridiculously expensive where land is ridiculously expensive. Bikeable/walkable communities FTW. 5th story units would be cheaper, but young people need cheaper.
elevators are required for ada compliance
3 story houses/buildings exist without elevators. There is no proposal to outlaw ADA compliant buildings.
The problem is that, for the property owning class, the unaffordability of homes is broadly a feature and not a bug.
For the property investor class. I assure you, the average homeowner isn’t happy about the idea of increased property tax, nor having to spend more if the want to upgrade to a bigger home.
Of course if you’ve got a mortgage and property prices go up, you can leverage that into and easier upgrade because you can use the increased equity in your property as collateral. I know someone who got a huge boost during COVID that way. Tiny studio to 3 bedroom. But mortgage payment went up 2 or 3 times too, so that doesn’t work if property becomes unaffordable altogether.
That’s how you create undesirable neighborhoods which eventually turn into ghettos. Many cities in Europe tried that and many of those neighborhoods quickly became unsafe and derelict. Like many of the banlieus in Paris or the Bijlmer in Amsterdam. Because people who eventually have the means to move out will leave asap. Nobody wants to settle in such a neighborhood. So only the poor and desperate stay. Which in turn means local business will leave as well.
Look at how Vienna works. Contrary to other places, they did government housing blocks really well there.
Check out for example this one here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alterlaa
It can be done well. It doesn't have to be crap.
Yeah but that’s different from what the poster above is suggesting. They literally said cheaply build and no amenities.
Yeah, there aren’t really any Estonians moving to Lasnamäe. Some live there because it’s cheap, but you’re going to have to speak Russian to talk to your neighbours. Of course if you do, you can get drugs fairly easily, which is a plus.
It’s not actually unsafe or super criminal though, it’s just very undesirable and tends to attract the lower strata.
I agree with the general mission of FuckCars, but it always seems full of people who don't care about anything of what goes into a prosperous city that isn't the amount of cars on the road.
We need mass housing, but also a focus on aesthetics.
I noticed my area has done a nice job after visiting Chicago. Chicago was concrete, roads and parking lots, and barren. Fly back to metro Vancouver and even worst neighborhood has beautitul construction, parks, trees and flower beds everywhere.
I mean I agree that Vancouver is maybe one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but it's also one of the most expensive!
Yeah I meant an hour out of Vancouver, Metro Vancouver... But still pricey
Cheap construction and poor maintainability is more expensive in the long run, I think it's possible to create affordable housing while still having longevity and a reasonable access to amenities in mind.
I honestly think commieblocks don't look that bad.
What's even the point of living if we have to live like packages sitting in a warehouse? Living for the sake of being alive sounds like torture.
I'd much rather a cleaner healthier city scape to live in than a slightly bigger personal home space. I'm a garden person though so i prefer to be outdoors.
We need mass housing, but also a focus on aesthetics.
I noticed my area has done a nice job after visiting Chicago. Chicago was concrete, roads and parking lots, and barren. Fly back to metro Vancouver and even worst neighborhood has beautitul construction, parks, trees and flower beds everywhere.
Ok this is a soft rebuttal because I agree we need to fix affordability asap, but is intensification really the right path?
Like something else needs to be fixed or these super condos will just enable politicians to import even more people to maintain the unaffordability.
Do you live in an apartment, a condo, a townhome, a home or...?
I live in a wildly overpriced studio apartment. I would jump at the chance to move into a concrete block apartment with no AC and limited hot water if it took $500 off my monthly rent.
How much do you currently pay and how much do you think these commie block apartments would cost? Because where I’m from, a 1br commie block apartment is as much as if not more than a modern studio apartment.
The lack of AC and poor ventilation really show in the summer too.
Apartment blocks are nice, but I don’t want to live in the commie ones, they suck in many ways.
You think it would take $500 off your rent? Lol, they're not going to make things cheaper, just life more miserable.
Wouldnt that just be supply and demand? Why would less comfortable housing not be less expensive?
If people want it, they'll pay more. If they don't, it will end up like the projects in Chicago.