this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2023
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People tend to argue that commie blocks look depressing and dystopian but you can actually make very pretty neighborhoods with them.
This is where I live. It's called Oyak Sitesi in Turkey/Antalya and it's a beautiful place with an actual community. Very affordable too. We just did a stability test and they were also very durable to earthquakes.
Just because you're making blocks doesnt also mean that they have to be 20 stories tall either. Here is my old house.
The important parts are paint and maintenance.
Give a commie block a fresh coat of paint every decade or so and they can look good (though I just don't like flat roofs. But that's personal taste.)
But while a somewhat run down european style house can still have some charme for longer (guess I'm biased here) a run down commie block in gray and with cracks in the facade will quickly start to look depressing.
And as they are often chosen for cost reasons inside capitalistic environments, they are often neglected.
So, the problem is not commie blocks, but how they are maintained. And as often we tend to search for the extreme examples if we (dis)like something.
I happen to live in a city that's primarily blocks (or as we call them: Plattenbauten) and honestly, they're pretty good houses. The structure is sound, after some renovations in the 90s and 00s, insulation and comfort are perfectly fine, and the surroundings are usually very green and pleasant.
The only real problem is, that these buildings are somewhat away from the city center due to superior socialist planning, so they are not super attractive for younger people.
I should probably take pictures of freshly-paited commie blocks in my district and post them on lemmyy.
Why do you call them "commie blocks"??
It wasn't communists who came up with the idea of that type of building and it's a common sight in many European countries, for example, which are not communist.