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My wife and I had an interesting observation about these apartment blocks. They were built really quickly, often on the outskirts of cities, where there was pl
by koliber 10y ago
My wife and I had an interesting observation about these apartment blocks.
They were built really quickly, often on the outskirts of cities, where there was plenty of undeveloped land. They were often placed in large groups. The landscape was bleak at the beginning. Huge gray apartment blocks spaced in a random fashion.
There was a lot of space between them. Large empty spaces. Sure, footpaths were set down, grass was sown, and small trees were planted. But in the beginning, they looked bleak.
Fast forward thirty or forty years. The trees have grown huge. The playgrounds are no longer depressing. On the outside, they are actually very nice. They were insulated and painted and are no longer drab. These developments have a park vibe to the, with the large trees, asymmetric building placement, and large open spaces.
This is not taking into account the conditions inside, as those varied from country to country, city to city, and development to development. Many have been modernized, but some still have the fundamental problems mentioned by others.
The moral of the story is that large trees and open spaces make for pleasant living.
- agumonkey 10y agoIn France the melody played backwards. Housing blocks, which I've read were also praised by communists there, started as little paradises. Not too disconnected, out of the box parks, daily shops (groceries, hair, ..), some tiny lakes, sport fields even some times. Fast forward decades, many of them became ruins and barely liveable places (for tons of different factors). Now they've been a thorn in France's shoe, some neighborhood have been recently deeply remodeled. A good 50% of blocks, towers and bars have been destroyed and replaced by smaller blocks. The difference in scale makes the place liveable. I couldn't believe the impact on the city.. Having smaller heights and tinier blocks instead of prison like huge and dense structures brings back life and peace. Previously there were renovation plans but they just fixed breakage and applied a new layer of paint. These would quickly become dirty, with graffitis back soon too. But the new blocks are still clean after 2 years. My feeling is now that housing projects were a necessary error of the post war era; but they're far from optimal for a sense of good life.
- varjag 10y agoCould it be that as the capacity of the neighbourhoods decreased, prices soared?
- agumonkey 10y agoMeaning the poorest just ran away from the place, and a new wealthier population is now living here, explaining why the new buildings are still "clean" ?
- varjag 10y agoWell, something had to change, and I doubt it was the effect delta from high rise aesthetic. We all probably seen plenty of run down, broken glass and graffiti yet low-rise neighbourhoods. What often happens with projects in Europe is as metropolitan areas expand, the then-outskirts where the blocks originally were become attractive located land. Not sure the mechanics of this in France though, but could be the same dynamics.
- agumonkey 10y agoha, I messed up.. I added a complementary comment but I answered the wrong post .. Here's the added paragraph https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13841394 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13841394
- varjag 10y ago> That said the population didn't change much, still cosmopolitan, 3rd gen of immigrants from Africa (north or west). I don't think ethnic composition matters as much as income bracket. Middle class people tend to have both means and priority to care after their property.