Concentrating human populations into cities, apartment living, etc is the healthiest thing for our planet.
I mean the dark grey houses of capitalism using every square centimeter of ground are way more depressing than blocks with a lot of trees around them
This is fascist/communist dictatorship architecture. There was a Professor in our Honors College that would go on a fucking tirade about it whenever he saw it. It wasn’t even a lecture. I was working with him in his office and he just went off for 15 minutes about the Humanities building on campus.
Miss that man.
Right wing Architecture
“Rugged individualism.”
More like
They put butt-plugs on those posts?
right wing architecture: jail
The tarpe movement was very influencial from the 80s.
Yeah my parents did crack in these blue tents, so nostalgic
Honestly, commieblocks arent that bad. Most of the pictures of them are cherry picked to be the unmaintained, dirty ones, and are exclusively taken in gloomy weather. The houses on the inside are usually good quality as well (though likely not well maintained anymore).
Hell, if you just painted them colourfully, they’d look nice.
That looks like a SimCity screenshot.
They mixed residential, industrial, and commercial.
/original Sim City had color-coded zones
Most of the pictures of them are cherry picked to be the unmaintained, dirty ones, and are exclusively taken in gloomy weather.
Look at the trees. They don’t have leaves. The image was definitely taken in winter. That adds a lot to the depression of it.
As someone in a city with tons and tons of commieblocks - the apartments are usually fine, but no, these areas almost always look like shit and are depressing to be around, regardless of the weather.
And this is not one random guy’s opinion, no one I know likes these parts of the city and is excited to live there.
I’ve lived my whole life in and around commie blocks and I do not share your sentiment. My blocks are colorful with massive murals painted on their sides making each unique. The green spaces in between also help a lot, there are nice playgrounds for the kids, outdoor gyms etc. All the commodities I need are very close to my living space. I have not seen a single space in my city that looks like one in the picture even though we do have a lot of commie blocks standing around. Although I must say that the city isn’t taking enough care of our buildings. While mine and most others around are holding up fine there’s one that looks like it has rotted over the years. It is really starting to ruin the atmosphere but it’s just an odd one out and I hope proper steps will be taken in the future to restore it back to it’s shape.
Yeah, in Czechia most of the are painted (perhaps not as well as in the original picture)
Those look very similar in style to the 5-over-1s being built all over the United States. Four floors good, ten floors bad? Or does “left-wing architecture” refer to leaving the trees instead of paving every square inch of outdoor space for parking?
5 or 6 stories are the most you can do with 2x4 construction bought from the local hardware store. They don’t want to spend the money on concrete and use the cheapest shit to furnish the apartment they can. There was a pretty bad fire in my state and they made the fire codes stricter on them. Faux luxury.
Yeah. The live/work/shop complexes are profitable. Especially when you can charge for parking, too.
The thing is, a lot of capitalist countries also used to build these, except they stopped due to outrage from real estate barons and NIMBYs losing value on their buildings.
That isn’t left wing architecture. It’s USSR architecture. Don’t make everything bad from that dictatorship a part of the left. The Soviet Union wasn’t even real communism. Because communism wouldn’t have a regime consisting of oligarchs and a dictator for example. Just because some people abused something for bad, doesn’t make the thing itself bad.
But these Stalin blocks were actually built an mass to house all the nomads living in the USSR. Most people didn’t have a home, electricity, running water. They used to live in tents. So even though these blocks are ugly and depressing, it made sure people didn’t have to live in a tent with -40°C and Stalin was widely praised for that.
I am a loud critic of the USSR but WW2 destroyed an enormous amount of housing in their country and they spent decades struggling to catch up. Even prior to that, they had WW1 and a civil war negatively impact housing and during the interwar industrialization they focused on increasing industrial output with most home building relegated to cheap temporary construction. A number of the economic issues faced by the USSR were unrelated to any specific political or economic system (for example, the vastness of the country added transportation expenses)
Better than live in ugly apartments than freeze in the harsh Russian winters.
Yes, there is something even more depressing than late soviet (or late Francoist, if you want a right wing equivalent) residential monsters: just look at any first world homeless camp.
also, if you live in the states, go look at some car oriented developments. they are just as brutalist, just as same-y, just as sad
Top image looks like one of the movie posters for Vivarium
I live in WV in a rural area. Houses differ greatly. 2 floor, one floor, trailer, 2 garage, trailer, mcmansion, trailer… all on each street. Then I go to Houston and find this setup. I kept driving past my inlaws cause every damn street and house looks exactly the same.
Yup. And look at the warehouses all these cars are going from these bullshit suburbs to get to. If you find joy in the architecture of a Home Depot you are a profoundly odd person
I mean, those are basically just large apartments at that point, all cookie cutter. But at least the house is decent size and has a yard and you own it.
With an apartment you have no yard, probably no garage, cant make any changes to it, and you hear all your neighbors, and smell them if they smoke, and you dont own shit. Apartments actually benefit the wealthy class, which is why I find it funny lemmings love them so much.
I guarantee 99% of people would want a house on 2 acres thats a 30 minute drive to town than an apartment.
2 acres 30 minute from town is just not a realistic expectation, unless by town you mean a small rural town. even most suburbs are at least 1 hour drive away from downtowns.
apartments are a real solution to a lot of environmental and financial problems, and offer a higher quality of life for particular areas (mostly access to culture and socializing). it is ok not to value those things and prefering a more rural place, but then you should expect to be giving away a lot of the benefits of living in a city. the (orders of magnitue) higher cost of land in cities over rural areas should tell you that a lot of people actually want to live there, and while access to job opportunities is one of the factors, a lot of it is the cultural benefits of cities.
and regarding aparments benefiting the wealthy class, i have no idea where you are coming from. obviously there is a big cost of living crisis, and city living is not expect from that, but car dependance benefits the wealthy class much more than walkable apartment life, which is why the US has been pushing for suburbs and car dependance for the last 80 years.
With an apartment […] you dont own shit.
What if you buy it? You can buy apartments, you know.
I guarantee 99% of people would want a house on 2 acres thats a 30 minute drive to town than an apartment.
I think that owning a house is also a lot of work, because you’re responsible for everything yourself, including construction and maintenance, and i don’t like that. There’s a proverb: You build the first house for your enemy, the second house for your friend, and the third one for yourself. It says that when you’re young and inexperienced, you don’t know what to look out for when you build a house. So you might build rooms without proper ventilation, and that makes mold grow. You might build the garage in the wrong dimensions, because you don’t know better. You might mess up the room layout or their sizes. When you buy an apartment built by the city, you can have a reasonable expectation that they’ve built 10000 apartment units before and know what they’re doing. With private construction companies, i’m reasonably worried about being ripped off or fucked with. I trust public housing much more than private construction companies.
On top of that if i live in the city, i don’t even need a garage, nor a car. It’s all very efficient and compact.
I know you can buy apartments, but its a joke to me. If you dont own the land its on, thats as worthless as renting.
I can see your take on liking things already done for you. Im someone who likes doing it the hard way and doing things myself. Maybe when im really old then it’d be fine to let others do things. Ive just always preferred to do anything i can myself, and if I really cant, then ill call a pro, like for gas line work. Electrical, I do myself just fine.
Ive heard many many more complaints about apartments and terrible landlords and awful appliances than I have from a homeowner because you can fix shit yourself.
Also, garages can be for a lot more than just car stuff. Workshop, band space, hangout space, etc.
I guarantee 99% of people would want a house on 2 acres thats a 30 minute drive to town than an apartment.
This is an insane take.
Many people like density.
With an apartment you have no yard, probably no garage, cant make any changes to it, and you hear all your neighbors, and smell them if they smoke, and you dont own shit.
Many apartments have yards.
If you own that apartment, you can make changes to it. Maybe not some drastic changes, but I imagine the real limited there is money rather than architectural.
Many apartments are sound proof. I almost never hear my neighbors.
I don’t know if my neighbors smoked. I’ve never smelled anything.
Apartments actually benefit the wealthy class, which is why I find it funny lemmings love them so much.
You seem to be confusing renting with apartments
Maybe apartments in non US countries are nice? Any I’ve ever seen in the US are shit. And not cheap ones either. Paper thin walls and trash electrical.
And yes I know you can “buy” apartments but thats kind of a joke. You cant seriously think buying an apartment is like buying a house on a plot of land. You dont own the land your apartment is on and you sure as heck cant add on to it or build a small workshop near it! “Owning” an apartment or a townhouse is a scam.
Again, I just prefer open spaces and not being surrounded by people I dont know and probably won’t get along with. You cant pick your neighbors and it takes 1 Karen to ruin your life.
And yes, of course Karen’s exist in other communities with houses. I also think homeowner associations should absolutely be illegal and no one should be able to tell anyone what to do with their own house. Ill never live in one.
My apartment isn’t bad and blows away houses around here unless I want to spend about 3x what I pay for rent on a mortgage (after a 20% downpayment). Any house cheaper than that is going to be a shitbox. Yeah, I know about equity, but 3x is a huge gap that I instead choose to put towards retirement.
The sound insulation here could be better, but even so most of the noise comes from outside. Garbage trucks, barking dogs, etc. The house I lived in growing up was actually louder. A lot more neighbors’ dogs that were left outside at all hours of the night, more lawn equipment (when I was home, instead of during the business day), etc.
If I had hobbies that were loud or took up a bunch of space (particularly outdoor space), then I’d probably have to look into getting a house. But I’m in a good spot and see no reason to change.
That makes sense ! I can see it from that point of view. Im also lucky to be in an area with cheap ish housing.
Yeah thats my thing. Tons of hobbies that are loud and also take up space ha
What parts of the US have you visited? I’ve only really spent time in the NYC area. Many apartments in NYC are pretty nice, though I can’t judge their electrical quality. When I lived outside the city, I rarely had problems with hearing neighbors.
I don’t think most people really want to build a small workshop in their day to day. I did know a guy who got up to some weird shit in his apartment’s back yard. Bunch of artists doing weird metal sculpting stuff.
Again, I just prefer open spaces and not being surrounded by people I dont know and probably won’t get along with.
That’s fine, man. You don’t need to live in a city. But I don’t think it’s accurate to say most or even “99%” of people feel the same. Many people are happy in denser living spaces.
I struggle with this because I hate apartments. Theyre inherently depressing.
As long as we can have apartments and I can still have my house and land, its fine.
But a lot of times it seems like they want all of us to live in 1 bedroom ny style apartments like sardines and eat bugs, and i think thats where the backlash comes in.
I guess if youre homeless any apartment is a good one. But a lot of them would get destroyed from mentally ill people. So then what, build concrete cell block apartments ? Im really not sure.
Depends. Having a house in the middle of nowhere is reasonable, having a house in a population center is wasted space. You could fit a two mother in law units onto the land my home sits on and not negatively impact my life even a little bit.
Agreed
Theyre inherently depressing.
Lol what. How are apartments inherently depressing? Several of my friends have very nice apartments with natural light, grassy spaces, and close proximity to parks and essentials.
Personally I find isolated single family homes a little depressing, but that’s not an inherent property of them.
I’m the oddball who prefers living in an apartment. It has some nice features that are difficult to find in a stand-alone house, difficult to replicate, or simply don’t scale down well.
So they are living in those ‘luxury’ apartments. So many of those low income apartments are not very nice at all.
I don’t think most of my friends are living in luxury apartments. Though there are many shitty apartments, shittiness is not an innate attribute of apartments.
Luxury is a point of view. A millionaire’s view of just getting by isn’t the same as someone living on $35,000 a year with 2 kids. And you are right shittiness isn’t an innate attribute of apartments. But it sure is pretty common in many areas.
Although I do not personally feel that apartments are inherently depressing, perhaps someone who was more worried about exactly what decisions they are allowed to make about their living space might. They may be considering the lack of agency one experiences in some regards as a renter, which could make them feel as though every apartment type situation was inherently depressing.
Yeah, could be. I said elsewhere in this thread that I think they’re conflating renting with apartments. They said that buying an apartment is a “scam”, and I didn’t follow up with “but people rent houses, too.”
I could see why eternal renting is depressing, but that’s not the same as living in an apartment.
Several of my friends have very nice apartments with natural light, grassy spaces, and close proximity to parks and essentials
Cool, where can I get an apartment like that? I have one roommate, and combined we have a budget of $1k for rent and bills.
Well, I don’t know. Where do you live? Where do you want to live? There are sites like zillow that let you search, but there’s other listings and word of mouth. A combined budget of $1k for rent and bills isn’t going to go very far most places.
You said these nice apartments were available, but I can’t find any, so I’m asking you.
Where do your friends live, and what do they pay for housing? How can I be like them?
I live in new york city. I don’t get the impression you’re engaging in good faith, though.
I keep being told that better is available, but am frustrated that there are never any details on how I can obtain it.
Well, you haven’t provided any details yourself so that seems fair.
Because they’re tiny and you cant make any noise in them (usually not allowed, and if it was id feel bad for annoying others)
Thats probably my biggest issue. I cant understand liking such small spaces and having people surrounding me watching and listening to everything i do, even if its passively. Plus, id be the one to get awful neighbors that I dread being near.
Not every apartment is tiny. I don’t have the measurements for mine but it feels comfortable with two desks, a couch, a coffee table, and some bookcases. Plus there’s the bedroom with a queen size bed, bookcases, another desk, and dresser. The kitchen is admittedly a little small. This isn’t a fancy apartment, and its priced pretty average for the city. I’m pretty sure all the units in this building are about the same.
I very rarely hear my neighbors. I play music through speakers and (I’ve asked) they never hear me.
Also no one sees me, so far as I know. For contrast, where my parents live out in the suburbs, neighbors are always creeping on each other and gossiping.
Now, admittedly, there are many apartments that are tiny, or have shit sound proofing, or whatever. But, again, that is not an inherent property of apartments. Many houses have problems, too.
People surrounding me watching and listening to everything i do
Counterintuitively, denser living spaces make you less seen. Not that you’re invisible, but that you don’t register. If I went for a walk out in the suburbs, people would look and see me. They’d be like “Who’s that weirdo walking?” or “Did you see that weird guy with the metal band on his t-shirt?” Someplace denser, I blend in with everyone else and don’t get a second thought. Not even a first thought, most of the time.
I very rarely hear my neighbors.
Somewhat paradoxically, the soundproofing in big buildings tends to be much better than in smaller buildings. The concrete and steel and thick storm resistant windows and fire doors between unit and hallway required by the building code for tall buildings have so much weight that things like footsteps, moving furniture, and other sources of noise just don’t carry between units.
Also can’t make many changes, limits to what can be installed in general etc etc. How is owning literally nothing about your home NOT depressing
I chose all the furniture and decorations. How often are you remodeling your home? What kind of remodeling are you doing? Like, more than moving the contents around? That’s just not a thing I have a desire to do. (This isn’t sarcastic. I’m being sincere.)
A lot of apartments dont even let you paint the walls. And often living in one is an aspect of leaving it nice “for the next person” which is an annoying feeling.
If you wanna nail up a nice cedar wall, good luck.
I don’t even mean just large remodels, a lot of times in most Apartments the appliances are whatever you get and you can’t put your own in. Many apartments have rules and limitations on what can or can’t be hung on the walls personally I’m a huge fan of shelves on the walls a couple L brackets and some stainless steel string make for a very aesthetically pleasing and very useful shelf space most Apartments don’t enjoy you doing that.
Electricity bill getting really high and you wish you could have a heat pump dryer instead of the cheap ass piece of s*** they put in? Well that’s just too damn bad etc. Want to modify your balcony? Put up special netting or something? Some places will let you some places tell you don’t even think about it. And don’t you dare leave stuff sitting on the balcony we can’t have that it has to look nice
There are plenty of rules and limitations on apartments that go well beyond just Mass renovations
Ah, I see. This apartment doesn’t have any rules (that I’m aware of) about what you can put on the walls, but I don’t have anything more than some picture frames up.
I’m also lucky that heat and hot water are included - a friend of mine had electric heating and it was really expensive.
Anyway, point taken that there are some limitations. I guess I’m lucky enough that I’ve never run into them, personally. Thanks.
Right wing architcture:
those are FUCKING SPIKES to keep people away, the fact that they don’t use daggers instead is strangeThe last one is an actual safety hazard. Imagine someone slipping and falling (think icy sidewalks) and taking one of those to the face.
i think the things on the green bench might be anti-handholding or anti-cuddling things instead. you know, to aid against the display of lewd activity in public (/s)
Instructions unclear: one person sits on other’s lap
i believe this is called “task failed successfully”
You can’t even cuddle these days!!!
If someone walking by, falls over that, that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
only commies walk.
And “commies” don’t get to sue?
Sorry you got downvoted because that might actually be a good catalyst for undermining hostile architecture.
Talk about taking one for the team though
They keep the homeless at bay, but wait until the Ayurveda Yoga crowd discovers them. They’ll be worse than a pidgeon infestation.
HOMELESS PEOPLE ARE NOT PIGEONS
*yet, theirs always a chance
/s
Actually, they are. As far as the average conservative cares, both of them are dirty pests that should be driven away.
And under no circumstances should you feed them or they’ll become dependent on you and keep coming back. It’s better to let them die.
Might as well just put em out of their misery note then.
(For anyone who does not know, right wing lunatics are starting to openly advocate for this!)
They’re still shitting all over the park I wish my toddler could more freely play at.
The difference is if you build public bathrooms, the pigeons won’t use them. If humans are shitting outside to a degree it becomes a problem, the problem isn’t the people doing the shitting.
Now, if we could get pigeons to use a bathroom, or even a shitting mat, that would be an achievement.
You’re not wrong but people gotta defecate and frequently have no where to do it. If we cared for our people, with housing in this case, it would benefit literally everyone else too.
SPEAK FOR YOURSELF *coo coo*
Well, not usually.
I have met a homeless furry who was kind of a pigeon.
Or one of those homeless camps that are everywhere now.
Oh they sweep those at least weekly.
Still, some colors. And we know now a lot more about livable non-depressing urban planning.
Homes are better than homelessness 100% but those commieblock suburbs can be pretty depressing. And I’ve lived in a few. Different colours and some evergreen stuff helps a bunch. Even some other marerials, some wood panels etc. But it all ads cost.
tbf, they were built after ww2, the goal was to rebuild as many homes as possible as fast as possible. which was accompanied.
I’d rather live in a commie block post ww2, than be homeless through a few Russian winters.
These sort of housing projects popped up in many parts of the world and sometimes they definitely were needlessly austere. Better than nothing though. A lot better.
As someone who’s grown up in one of those and now rearing a child in Canada, I’d like to tell you that it was an absolutely incredible place to grow up in. The urban planning is such that there’s parks with kid playgrounds sprinkled between the buildings. There’s ample trees. There’s schools and kindergartens at walking distance where kids would often walk alone to/fro. There’s convenient public transit stops. There’s density that lets kids make tons of friends and always have someone to play with without “playdates.” Parenting in such a social environment is so much easier than what parents face in Toronto, it’s not even funny.
E: Oh and the square footage in the average commie block apt is equivalent to a large old-school 2 or 3-bedroom apartment in Toronto. Most are family-sized units.
There’s density that lets kids make tons of friends and always have someone to play with without “playdates.”
man, that’s what i missed as a kid sooo much. i would have needed this.
In Germany?
in austria, but it was some conservative rural backwater nowhere
Ah. That makes sense. Let me make you feel better. In some provinces in Canada (or all?) children can’t be left alone, without adult supervision until the age of 12. It’s illegal and parents get in trouble for it. Even leaving your kid to play in your backyard in the suburb while you’re in the shower can become a problem if your bored neighbour calls the authorities. Imagine growing up with that kind of lack of autonomy. Even if there are kids around and even if there’s public transit. I still heven’t figured out how to workaround that for my kid but I suspect I’m gonna be breaking the law. 😂
man, that sucks. i wish you good luck :D
It’s probably fine if you’re used to it but man I’d be so depressed living in such a densely populated city.
Same here. I guess different people like that but I cant be around that many people.
Pandemics happen easier because of dense populations too.
I still live in one of these, walking my dog is a treat, so many trees, kindergarten, school, pharmacy, groceries, even a pub all within 200 meters.
The part I hate about this place the most is that they made a roundabout in front of the school so parents can drop their kid off by car easier, it’s the most americanized aspect, absolutely disgusting, there are literally two bus stops next to this school going in both directions.
square footage? what kind of weird camera are you using?
That’s my Canada goose brain talking. 😆🪿 It’s literally the common term used to refer to the total area of a housing unit. Here for example a major real estate firm explains the importance of square footage measurement.
For extra entertainment, this is a handy flowchart of Canadian units of measurement:
It’s similar in the US. We use gallons for milk and fuel, liters for mid size beverage (like a liter of water or two liters of soda) and fluid ounces for single servings (12 oz can). Pints are used to measure beer served from a keg into a glass. Medications use mililiters.
Large quantities of weed use Pounds and ounces, smaller quantities use grams. Hard drugs pretty much exclusively use metric. Medication uses metric exclusively while most other commerce uses pounds and ounces. Firewood is sold by the “cord”
Yeah. That said, I think on average there’s more imperial in the mix in the US than Canada. Canada went through an intentional Metrification process but it didn’t go all the way through. In part due to trade with the US. 😅
FWIW, a lot of the bougie drinks (fancy soda water, juices, pre-mixed cocktails, etc.) now come in 330mL cans, probably because at 11.7 fl oz, it’s a form of shrinkflation. And those mini cans of soda are technically 222mL.
Also, do note that a U.S. customary pint is different than an imperial pint. (You get 20% more beer in Britain.)
Wtf 😱 is that real?!
100% and it’s accurate. It’s how we do here. 😅
💀
I would measure my apartment in square meters, but I’ve realized I would use the phrase “square footage” to refer to the surface area of a living space. Is there an alternative? “Square meterage” doesn’t work.
“Area”
Area, surface, size.
Living space, m2, usable area
Surface? That’s the term we use in Italian ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I didn’t realize an expansive category of political ideologies had adopted a unified architectural language. 🤦
