The government of the PRC is planning to build 200,000 new public housing appartments in hongkong, tyranny i tells ya
But at what cost???
It’s a bargain
why won’t something think of the
childreninvestors!!!???Time for the CIA to activate the student riots one more time
But how are landlords supposed to extort a living if there’s plentiful government built housing? Did you monsters even think about your local landleech? They might have to go get jobs if we build thousands of identical apartments all over the country and made them available for 2-3% of average incomes.
I always tip my landlord. After all he’s doing a good job fixing the leaks and molding. (Okay he hasn’t done it in decades but he said “I will so stop asking and I am increasing rent by 3 times!” so he’s still going to do it!)
These apartments had working plumbing, something most of the people moving into them at the time had never had before. It was a huge step up to most people, regardless of how ugly the buildings look.
identical apartments
Under Communism, we were forced by the government to live in Poor People Houses. It was illegal to tip your landlords. If you updated your wallpaper, the local Commissar would murder your first-born child and eat your dog.
Incredible.
Careful, If the communists are asian, white liberals will fully believe they’re open dog/cat eaters because they already believe that. Joe himself prob believes that asian people eat babies until they come on down to Californ-i-a and get nice big ol fake titties
They don’t even have to be communists, per say. Just being Asian and unaligned is enough. Or Haitian, for that matter.
Honestly, the “commie blocks” are really good idea and should be built more often in areas with high homelessness and housing issues. Why should US taxes go to blowing up elementary schools/other people’s homes when it can go towards building homes and helping others in need?
why
The capitalist military industrial complex
Ooh fair enough lol
We have those, they’re called projects.
You mean those criminally underfunded, means-tested and over-policed apartment blocks in red-lined cities?
Crazy that those weren’t as effective as rhe communist housing initiatives
The ones built on polluted land no one else wants, that have zero amenities nearby, leading to food deserts and lack of healthcare, and that have zero green spaces nearby? Yeah those resemble Soviet block housing in the same way a fart smells like a rose.
Yeah the ones chosen for their similarity to the Moscow cityscape to be sprayed with radioactive cadmium to test the effects of nuclear fallout!
https://proteanmag.com/2022/11/28/pruitt-igoe-a-black-community-under-the-atomic-cloud/
The hardest part about getting anything done in America is that every decision has to be approved by people who aren’t going to use the solution anyway.
School funding is decided by people who either don’t have school-aged children or who send their kids to private schools. Social Security laws – which only change to affect future generations of retirees, not current and soon-to retirees – are decided by retirees.
And so, the ability to put up large apartment complexes (and let’s make them nicer and include proper green space and all that) is decided by people who won’t live there and who aren’t going to walk, bike, or drive to the place where we would build the goddamn housing in the first place.
That’s the part that riles me up the most: the number of people who will vote to stop someone else from getting something they need, because the voter doesn’t agree with the choice or the outcome. Like, if we could affordably build houses for everyone, Karen P Asshat would vote yes. But ugly apartments? With all the apartment people living there? She votes no.
I’ve been in politics 35 years now and i have no answer for how to fix that. America is a nation of cockblockers, fundamentally.
Unless it’s a data center, those seem to he pretty streamlined at getting approved and built.
Ever heard of those folks they found in the wild parts of Russia in the late 70s who never even realized the Second World War happened?
Fucking life goals there
IDK
They wore clothes woven from homegrown hemp, used birch bark for shoes, and routinely faced near-starvation (the mother, Akulina, starved to death during a crop failure in 1961).
I’ll take my chances. Plus those clothes and shoes sound durable and cheap.
Nobody’s stopping you, or Darwin
To be fair, being good enough isn’t the only reason for something to be in current use.
Thats not really the ussrs fault tho, thats current capitalists government fault that they dont give a shit about making new public housing or taking care of the old ones
For real. It’s like living in a very old NYC apartment building and being like “It’s still standing, truly a testament to the politics of the robber barrons who built it!”
What do you actually know about soviet housing? I’ve done significant academic research on the topic. It’s not just a simple “they built a certain type of building”. The reason they all look so similar is that their construction method was pre-fab concrete panels. It was a revolutionary technology at the time, and allowed them to solve their housing crisis. They were called “Khrushchyovka” after whom you can guess. He made it his mission to solve the Soviet Housing crisis when he took over and was largely successful.
You have to keep in mind the historical context. The people moving into these buildings were coming from a pre-industrial society where they commonly had so electricity, dirt floors, and no insulation. These were a significant upgrade from the pre-USSR constructions. They started construction in the 1940s, and really took off in the 50s.
I think the main takeaways from them shouldn’t be “We should build these exact things”. and I don’t think that’s what people who support them are advocating for. I think what they are trying to point out is that if you standardize production, and use economies of scale, it is entirely possible to build tons of housing quickly and cheaply. And considering the way housing prices look these days I’d expect that to be an idea anyone can get behind.
If you are interested here is an article about how modern China is using similar practices: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10695
Lol I wouldn’t brag on the blocs comrade, there are many problems with them.
It’s true, this is a much better solution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tent_cities_in_the_United_States
One has nothing to do with the other? I thought we were talking about blocs.
I mean, either you have a state that actually spend the resources to house people, or you get that.
How so?
Maybe I’m just bitter about the boatload of money I paid for repairs only for the fucking elevator to work only 3 months of the year. I was on floor 13. I remember similar complaints from others.
So you’re mad that the Commies are no longer there to maintain and improve them and they’re instead left to rot so the capitalists can point at them and say communism bad.
Vast majority of commie blocs don’t stand up today. Those who still do are incredibly riddled with issues.
They were cheaply built designed to keep the workforce next to the factories and nothing else. Living in them is miserable.
The “commie blocs” you see today for the vast majority were built after communism ended.
Vast majority of commie blocs don’t stand up today. Those who still do are incredibly riddled with issues.
So it’s an issue from the absence of communism.
They were cheaply built designed to keep the workforce next to the factories and nothing else. Living in them is miserable.
As opposed to living out in the street? In tent cities?
So it’s an issue from the absence of communism
Uh, no? These were shit during communism too. There was basically no maintenance or planning, the materials used were garbage.
As opposed to living out in the street? In tent cities?
As opposed to a properly built housing a factory worker could afford.
Like I get it y’all really love stacking humans in oversized rabbit hutches but the commie blocks were terrible, stop using them as an example.
As opposed to a properly built housing a factory worker could afford.
You know what? I agree. It’s actually really evil of the soviets that they did not build a Versailles for every single factory worker! It’s not like they couldn’t! Evil Stalin decided to just house people in bad houses because he’s evil, it’s really too bad they didn’t have a genius like you there to say “hey guys, how about we build nice houses instead?” You could’ve made it all so much better.
ah yes
Shitty run down unmaintained building that is rotting from the inside and the outside
Versaille castles
The only two options when it comes to building housing
Nonono I agree with you, why did they decide to construct pre-rundown buildings? Such fools!
It just looks like ugliness is the point. Grow some fruit trees or community gardens or something so we don’t need to be surrounded by concrete and empty patches of grass.
Call me crazy, but I’ve had this thought about a lot of “boring” architecture. Why don’t we just say it’s an open graffiti spot, so that these large boring walls turn into something colorful on the outside? It’s most likely only gonna be as high as you can get a ladder, but I feel that’s better than nothing. Some people will certainly spray profanities on it, but graffiti spots already exist in some recreational areas, and those bits tend to get sprayed over by someone else, whereas more beautiful sections tend to remain far longer without being touched.
IDK about “open” spots, but many boring/ugly buildings actually get murals painted on them officially.
I don’t care about the graffiti, I wish those ugly walls weren’t visible at all. Give me some green space
Yeah the soviet block housing is architecturally DEPRESSING. Not that they are the only ones who built joyless prison boxes.
You just compared people’s houses to prisons. I hope you didn’t mean it that way.
When it’s designed for pure efficiency, housing often starts to take on a more prison-like architectural style. After all that’s how they design prisons as well, just on a much more brutal level. It’s good that post-war civilians were saved from homelessness, but it’s not really an architectural style to emulate, and the fact that they’re still around isn’t a virtue in its own right.
I’m not saying the people who live there are in prison, but rather that it’s a bleak and inhumane way to design things. You see the same mindset in the design of many overpriced condo blocks in the US, they just dress it up with bigger windows, as well as kitchen islands, Murphy beds and other glitsy bullshit.
How is it bleak and inhumane to build free, strong, effective houses? HAVE YOU SEEN MODERN APARTMENT BUILDINGS IN USA?! I feel like I’m going crazy. The only people that like those new fuck ugly “mixed use” developments is rich old smarmy people who’s family left their home town 20 years ago. And they have the worst fucking interior taste I’ve ever seen it’s all white and sanitized and they got nothing on the shelves or walls. I don’t wanna hear shit from Americas about “inhumane design.” My house is sided with fucking asbestos.
How is it bleak and inhumane to build free, strong, effective houses?
That is obviously not what is being complained about. The chief complaints are:
- Large areas consisting of one or two buildings copied-and-pasted dozens of times.
- The area between buildings being more-or-less featureless.
The only people that like those new fuck ugly “mixed use” developments is rich old smarmy people who’s family left their home town 20 years ago.
I’m not sure what you mean by mixed use developments but if you mean this, then you are flat out wrong. Mixed use developments are the cornerstone of the kinds of urbanism that encompass walkable neighbourhoods and the 15 minute city, which is overwhelmingly preferred by the non-car-brained.
And they have the worst fucking interior taste I’ve ever seen…
Not really relevant since interiors can be ugly or not independent of the ugliness of the buildings.
at the risk of whataboutism, have you ever seen a suburb in the USA? there are entire neighborhoods of exact duplicate houses that go on and on and on.
That is the exact type of building I am talking about. I work in one. It was built by a company that is worth over 50 billion dollars. It has not made our city more walkable. It has made our city less affordable, less walkable, and they are building an identical “mixed use” building right across the street from it with competing businesses.
This building I work in used to have a clinic, it failed and is no longer there, a realtor office that failed and is closed, and my own boss tried to expand the restaurant I work in and failed spectacularly and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own personal money that he is now indebted to (it was probably the dumbest thing my boss could have done but you know business owners)
The Montessori school in this building complex is a private school that costs over 13 thousand dollars for one child K-12.
There is a section of “green space”, in the middle of the parking lot inside that is about 20-30 square feet of grass and about 4 cherry blossom trees. They are quite pretty to look at out the window while I’m working, but I would hardly classify it as an adequate green space.
What you are describing as an effective communal living area for all people (not just the rich) would be a commie bloc. These 5 over 1 buildings are cheap money grabs that do not function correctly, raise rent prices wherever they are placed effectively gentrifying entire neighborhoods, and are meant to serve a rich subset of capitalists thru “rent controlled” apartments that have a minimum wage requirement for you to even apply. That wage requirement is way higher than I make working in the same exact fucking building.
The areas between communist blocks are not “featureless”, and that is a hilarious accusation when trying to defend these money holes of a building. They are literally cheap imitations of commie blocks that are uglier, not made as well, and don’t work as well. These 5 over 1 buildings being “Cornerstone of urbanism” is the best joke I’ve ever heard about American infrastructure. Those pictures in the Wikipedia article you linked are perfect examples, those don’t have ANY green space. I bet for private residents in the back parking lot there’s a few square feet of grass. Is that what you want over this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sídlisko ?
Go and walk down the street in one of these gentrified neighborhoods and see how fun it is, buy a 16$ sandwich and 4$ coffee, have to walk a quarter mile to where you parked and by then your 2 hour limit is up so you got a ticket and now you gotta park where all the homeless people are. (that got pushed out by the development of this multi-million dollar building).
Not really relevant since interiors can be ugly or not independent of the ugliness of the buildings.
I don’t know about you but I actually like hanging out in the cafe to drink my coffee, these are “public spaces” and to you they are cornerstones of urban development, wouldn’t you want people to oh, I don’t know, spend time (and therefor more money) in the business and schools that this company paid millions of dollars for? No? Oh, so we’re only interested in mass housing/ending homelessness when it’s under a capitalist society and you can walk from your apartment to the cafe without going outside. And it has to LOOK SUPER NICE RIGHT AWAY. And we need THE TINIEST GREEN SPACE SURROUNDED BY A PARKING LOT! THATS THE KINDA GREENERY WE LIKEEEEE
You really think these buildings are better than the blocs because what, they look better to you? Solving homelessness isn’t aesthetically pleasing enough? I know a certain GERMAN political party that agrees with your sentiment…
I’m not American, I’m British. Towns and cities all across Europe are filled with “5 over 1s” and similar, and it’s fine, and works well. Just because the US can’t not fuck it up, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for everyone else.
Solving homelessness isn’t aesthetically pleasing enough? I know a certain GERMAN political party that agrees with your sentiment…
Lemmy.ml user try not to accuse another user of being a Nazi for literally no credible reason challenge: impossible.
We’re a discussion about architecture and urban planning, my dude. Commie blocs solved the homelessness relatively quickly and relatively cheaply. Great. Fantastic. That doesn’t they were best and most ideal solution possible at the time, and it certainly doesn’t mean they’re the best and most ideal solution now.
Now, as it stands, I don’t think commie blocks are that bad, I just felt like pointing out that your arguments seemed somewhat unserious, but in case you’re curious, here are the things I think are non-ideal about commie blocks:
- People tend to prefer “human scale” architecture in places that are supposed to be comfortable and large clusters of high rise buildings tend to make people feel small.
- They require steel and concrete to build, which is a concern in terms of carbon footprint, whereas 5 over 1s and similarly sized buildings can get away with using wooden frame construction.
- High rises cost more per occupant to maintain than a similarly constructed mid rise, as a general rule.
- The need for access to lighting, etc. means that the buildings must be spaced a fair distance apart, so the effective footprint still ends up being similar to a wider-based mid rise bulding. And while this does allow for green space, it’s green space that has to be kept low (so as not to interfere with the lower floors) and needs constant maintenance, so it tends to be fairly bland.
- The physical separation between the blocks and the reliance on public transport to reach facilities tends to promote social isolation in a similar way to suburbs.
- High rises mean that the vast majority of the occupants must either rely of lifts (and there are never enough working lifts) or be able-bodied and fit.
If you’re asking me what I’d prefer instead, I’m thinking something like Eixample.
Famously Communist Vancouver, Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_special
Yeah, I figuredy sarcasm was obvious here given what this thread is about, but I forgot about the terminally online Lemmy users who always choose the interpretation they can get the most mad about.
I think you forgot lemmy is full of people who would write what you write in full seriousness.
Ussr can do good thing. Can also do bad thing.
Problem with bad things, like bad arguments, lack thought or think about self. Also call self reflection.
Ask self, apartments good, yes. Ask self, stalin good, on whole probably not. Ask self, authoritarianism good, on whole no is bad. Ask self, shit posting on lemmy good, depends.
The term authoritarianism is utterly meaningless because all governments rely on coercion to maintain their authority. The state is fundamentally an instrument that’s used by the ruling class to maintain its dominance. The whole notion that political systems can be neatly categorized into authoritarian or democratic binaries is deeply infantile.
The reality is that every government derives its authority from its monopoly on legal violence. The ability to enforce laws, suppress dissent, and maintain order is derived from control over police, military, and judicial systems. Whether a government is labelled authoritarian or democratic, the fundamental basis of its power lies here. Therefore, the only meaningful questions to ask are which class interests it represents, and to what extent can it be held accountable to them.
What ultimately matters is which class controls the institutions of state violence. In capitalist democracies, the government represent the interests of the economic elites who fund political campaigns, own media outlets, and control key industries. Western public lacks the mechanisms necessary to hold the government to account, and the ruling class is disconnected from the broader population. That’s precisely what’s driving political discontent all across western sphere today.
Ask yourself is guzzling western propaganda uncritically good, on the whole no is bad.
Every government is authoritarian, so the logical solution would be to abolish government altogether.
Signed,
An anarchistHow are you gonna defend your country from fascism if you won’t express authority on hostile invasions? You think Hitler was defeated by just chillin and giving up authority? I gotta stop taking the bait.
Going to copy paste my previous response:
With weapons, voluntary training programs (both in terms of participation and guidance), and organization.
If some group of bad actors try to coup your community, you don’t just lie back and take it.
Step 1: Abolish Government
Step 2: Establish absolutely no institutional infrastucture to ensure nobody else makes a new government. Because that would be authoritatian.
Step 3: Someone makes another government by establishing a monopoly on violence.
Step 4: Abolish Government… wait what?
Straw man
noun- An argument or opponent set up so as to be easily refuted or defeated.
- A doll or scarecrow (particularly one stuffed with straw).
- An insubstantial concept, idea, endeavor or argument, particularly one deliberately set up to be weakly supported, so that it can be easily knocked down; especially to impugn the strength of any related thing or idea.
Specify how what I described is different than what you’d do then. What mechanisms or institutions would you put in place to prevent step 3?
With weapons, voluntary training programs (both in terms of participation and guidance), and organization.
If some group of bad actors try to coup your community, you don’t just lie back and take it.
I have a feeling youre going to take this as disingenuous because it challenges your notions and people typically get defensive when pushed on something that does not have the most solid of foundations, which it seems to me to be whats going on with you, but these questions are genuine.
An organization of armed vigilantes fighting against whomever they decide is a “bad actor” wanting to “coup” “their” community? Sounds authoritarian.
Also, try to be less vague.
Who decides what a “bad actor” is?
What makes it a “coup” compared to just a change in leadership?
What makes it “their” community and how are the “bad actors” separate from said community?
What if you don’t have any volunteers?
Where do you get the weapons from?
Who organises the training and how?
What happens if a volunteer won’t participate in the training?
What if I disagree with your volunteers?
What if I, as a volunteer, disagree on the course of action?You seem to be imagining some sort of situation where you have a society that’s organised well enough to be able to supply itself with arms and all other logistical needs for a prolonged conflict. Such a society is one with a remarkable industrial base, meaning it is quite large. How did that come to be at that point?
How are the materials passed around, who decides what goes where and why does everyone go along with it? What happens when needs change or there is not sufficient material?You also seem to imagine everyone just agreeing on a course of action. How is said course organised?
You seem to imagine that this volunteer corps springs into action with unilateral support against some vague “bad actor”. How does this “bad actor” manage to come to a position where they can “coup” (and what is it they are “couping”?) yet also one where everyone agrees that this bad actor is an outsider that must be fought and not just a political reformer?
Capitalists aren’t going to let you abolish their rule without an organized violence that they will tell others is “authoritarian”.
You mean a revolution? In that case, I can agree with all but the very last word.
“Authoritarian” is (generally speaking) a word used to describe governments’ usage of violence or other means to either establish or maintain rule over their populace.
The capitalist class (or, more generally speaking speaking, the powerful elite) will more often use terms like “barbarians,” “rioters,” or similar language. They will reserve the word “authoritarian” as a separate method of propaganda to go to war with countries they want to steal natural resources from or to otherwise invade to expand their empire, though I’m not a historian by any means, so the idea of “regieme change” might be a bit newer than I’m thinking.
“A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?”
― Frederick Engels
Is there a real world example of the bourgeois specifically calling revolutionairies authoritarian, or is that limited to theory?
Western media regularly calls China and DPRK authoritarian.
Now with suicide nets!
I thought that was the China Foxconn propaganda: “they work 23 hour days and they are all 8 years old and they had to put suicide nets on the buildings because they try to flee out the windows from the men with whips like rats from a sinking ship and their skin rots off from chemical exposure because China man too stupid for safety gear and too cheap, all money in communist society goes to the bosses and the elites while the people starve, anyway they built ghost cities for show and they’ll be BANKRUPT AND GONE in 10 years time” he confidently posted from the west
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.
I feel like we’re conflating several things here. Not every multi-appartment building is a commieblock, not even every multi-appartment building build in soviet times is a commieblock. That term refers to very specific type of housing, one built with the motto of “See this open field? We’re going to relocate 250 thousand people here next year. We would prefer most of them not to die right away. Start building”.
The exact context in which the word “quality” was used, since you seem to have glossed over it was:
they were made with enough quality that they are still used today
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.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 agree
Why does it suggest liberals are scared of this? Aren’t they okay with Projects for affordable housing? So liberals aren’t communists? Then, why are the red hat clowns so grumpy?
Why does it suggest liberals are scared of this?
Because OP wants to straw-man for clout.
Aren’t they okay with Projects for affordable housing?
Yes, an overwhelming majority of liberals are in favor of that.
So liberals aren’t communists?
No. Also I’m not sure why you’re asking this question.
Then, why are the red hat clowns so grumpy?
I’m also not sure why you’re asking this, but:
Red hats will get grumpy about virtually anything because it helps motivate their perpetually angry and afraid base; one of the defining segments of the deeply conservative mindset is that potent mix of fear and anger.
you described radlibs very well
If most liberals are “radlibs,” then it’s just “liberals.”
