Off topic, but does anyone have the sources for the images of the commieblocks? I'd love to see some higher resolution versions and check out the photographers' other works.
this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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Fun fact: for many residents moving into commieblocks when they were first built, it was the first time they had ever had electricity, indoor plumbing, and central heat. These buildings may seem lacking by modern standards, but they were absolutely revolutionary for their time.
I'm pretty sure top-left is anti-skateboard architecture
So were homeless people living in those brutalist structures??
These prefab panel apartment buildings were made to reduce homelessness. Obviously, the people living in there weren't homeless anymore by that point, and in many cases they weren't homeless before either, because, believe or not, at the time, those apartments were a big upgrade for people from rural regions.
These brutalist style buildings were/are not very pretty, and I would much prefer the much nicer, organically grown mid-density residential areas of Western Europe, but if given the choice between solving the homelessness problem with anti-homeless spikes and police raids on tent cities versus solving it by constructing a lot more mid- to high- density apartment buildings of any type, pretty or not, I would definitely prefer the latter.
I would much prefer the much nicer, organically grown mid-density residential areas of Western Europe
Yeah everyone would prefer to be rich rather than to be poor.
those apartments were a big upgrade for people from rural regions.
From urban regions too, old buildings from XIX century and from before WW2 were much worse standards, often without proper plumbing and heating. Also socialist countries were heavily devastated in WW2, so before they build those people often were living in temporal or overcrowded places. Polulations were also growing quite fast. True homelessness was very rare under even wartorn socialist countries though.
These prefab panel apartment buildings
much nicer, organically grown mid-density residential areas of Western Europe
You do know that the prefab technique was invented in the West and a lot of western countries also have a lot of those? YOu don't get to compare it to "organically grown" (is that ephemism for patodeveloper craze?) burgie houses
it's what i say, uglier than those prefab buildings is having nowhere to live.
My knowledge of prefab homes in the west is limited mostly to wooden single-family suburban homes. What prefab options in the west were available for mass housing?
I think you missed my point, one image is showing where homeless people are supposed to (not) live, the other does not. Comparing apples to oranges.
It's comparing apples to apples. The solution for homelessness in Capitalism is to terrorize, the solution for homelessness in Socialism is to build homes and give them to the homeless. The fact that the Capitalist solution doesn't actually solve anything is what's being drawn attention to.