It’s so incredibly clear when someone talks about soviet housing without setting a foor in one. You can say a lot about those, but saying the word quality about them will be actually a crime. For example, mine had a hole between the panels big enough, you could put your hand out and grab loose concrete from the wall. It was 4th floor. My mom had to work 15 years without changing jobs to be able to get one.
I live in a communist block built in '89. The outer walls are 1m thick, while the inner walls are 50cm thick. I can’t hear my neighbours, even if they’re having a party. We even have a 7m long terrace. It’s a nice enough appartment, especially since the city made a lot of green areas with plenty of trees, playgrounds, schools, shops, etc. Granted, the later were post-communist additions, but it’s still a nice place to live. And yes, I’m aware of the state of most of these commieblocks, I’m just saying it’s also possible to have a nice “communist” apartments as well. We had to work abroad for 4 years to be able to pay for it, but we could do it without taking on a mortgage for 30 years. Would I rather live in a house with a garden than in a flat? Sure. Would I rather live in a house with a garden while paying a huge mortgage for 30 years? Absolutely not.
Believe you me, they are used today not by choice. You need to stretch the definition of inhabitable significantly to include 80 years old mass construction buildings in it. Unless those Theseus shipped over the decades, but even then. Buildings from ancient Rome still standing today, it’s really not that big of a bragging rights to have some of the homes be technically upright after 80 years.
Ironically, the only buildings from post-war era that survived in my hometown are only those that were built by Germans as part of the reparations. Make of that what you will.
No one said they were being used by choice. The very reason behind their original purpose was precisely because people didn’t have anywhere else to live, not because they thought people would genuinely choose to live there over a normal home.
The whole premise of the meme is that we should be in awe how amazing commyblocks are, and how greatly they survive even to this days.
The reality, that nobody disagrees with, is that post-war USSR very quickly built a bunch of cheap housing that was planned to be gradually replaced by a more nicely built ones, and a lot of them weren’t. This isn’t controversial, and not worth the meme. So the meme stretches this to mean something else.
The premise of the meme is that the problem of affordable housing could be very easily solved if the western world was willing to acknowledge that sometimes socialists have good ideas.
This would not necessarily solve the problem of affordable quality housing, but it would be a very effective step in the right direction.
First of all, no, it isn’t. Like, textually isn’t.
Second, situation in post-war USSR is vastly different from the modern western countries. The problem isn’t lack of housing, it’s using housing as commodities. If you can create a system that can build millions of shitty crumbling concrete gravestones, you’d better use fraction of this system’s power to make laws that prevent commodification of housing, so it becomes affordable, and this will be the better outcome. And that’s also one of those good socialist ideas actually.
But again, we’re not talking about the original point anymore.
First of all, no, it isn’t. Like, textually isn’t.
Then explain the “Liberals” part of the meme.
The problem isn’t lack of housing, it’s using housing as commodities. If you can create a system that can build millions of shitty crumbling concrete gravestones, you’d better use fraction of this system’s power to make laws that prevent commodification of housing, so it becomes affordable, and this will be the better outcome.
I remember yougthos sending a reply with an image russian passport (I think russian but not sure as I dont read any language tgat uses the cyrrillic script, it could have some other place that also uses the cyrillic script) at one point
It’s so incredibly clear when someone talks about soviet housing without setting a foor in one. You can say a lot about those, but saying the word quality about them will be actually a crime. For example, mine had a hole between the panels big enough, you could put your hand out and grab loose concrete from the wall. It was 4th floor. My mom had to work 15 years without changing jobs to be able to get one.
I live in a communist block built in '89. The outer walls are 1m thick, while the inner walls are 50cm thick. I can’t hear my neighbours, even if they’re having a party. We even have a 7m long terrace. It’s a nice enough appartment, especially since the city made a lot of green areas with plenty of trees, playgrounds, schools, shops, etc. Granted, the later were post-communist additions, but it’s still a nice place to live. And yes, I’m aware of the state of most of these commieblocks, I’m just saying it’s also possible to have a nice “communist” apartments as well. We had to work abroad for 4 years to be able to pay for it, but we could do it without taking on a mortgage for 30 years. Would I rather live in a house with a garden than in a flat? Sure. Would I rather live in a house with a garden while paying a huge mortgage for 30 years? Absolutely not.
The exact context in which the word “quality” was used, since you seem to have glossed over it was:
No one said that these are high quality homes. They said that the caliber of build was strong enough to still be inhabitable 80ish years later.
Believe you me, they are used today not by choice. You need to stretch the definition of inhabitable significantly to include 80 years old mass construction buildings in it. Unless those Theseus shipped over the decades, but even then. Buildings from ancient Rome still standing today, it’s really not that big of a bragging rights to have some of the homes be technically upright after 80 years.
Ironically, the only buildings from post-war era that survived in my hometown are only those that were built by Germans as part of the reparations. Make of that what you will.
No one said they were being used by choice. The very reason behind their original purpose was precisely because people didn’t have anywhere else to live, not because they thought people would genuinely choose to live there over a normal home.
The whole premise of the meme is that we should be in awe how amazing commyblocks are, and how greatly they survive even to this days.
The reality, that nobody disagrees with, is that post-war USSR very quickly built a bunch of cheap housing that was planned to be gradually replaced by a more nicely built ones, and a lot of them weren’t. This isn’t controversial, and not worth the meme. So the meme stretches this to mean something else.
The premise of the meme is that the problem of affordable housing could be very easily solved if the western world was willing to acknowledge that sometimes socialists have good ideas.
This would not necessarily solve the problem of affordable quality housing, but it would be a very effective step in the right direction.
First of all, no, it isn’t. Like, textually isn’t.
Second, situation in post-war USSR is vastly different from the modern western countries. The problem isn’t lack of housing, it’s using housing as commodities. If you can create a system that can build millions of shitty crumbling concrete gravestones, you’d better use fraction of this system’s power to make laws that prevent commodification of housing, so it becomes affordable, and this will be the better outcome. And that’s also one of those good socialist ideas actually.
But again, we’re not talking about the original point anymore.
Then explain the “Liberals” part of the meme.
I agree
OP is a russian citizen
I think they’re Canadian, or live there at least.
I remember yougthos sending a reply with an image russian passport (I think russian but not sure as I dont read any language tgat uses the cyrrillic script, it could have some other place that also uses the cyrillic script) at one point