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That's an idea that dominated construction in Europe after the war, and it just didn't work very well. See [1] for one of the better examples. There are others,

• vidarh 10y ago
  It works well many places. Maybe not quite 20-story appartment blocks, but Norway has plenty of examples of mid-density 5-6 story apartment complexes in groups pretty much in the middle of nowhere that are popular and function well. I think a key distinction is that to work well these developments needs to be demand driven, and social housing needs to be integrated without being allowed to dominate. Norway has its share of bigger apartment blocks built rapidly right after the war to cover a lot of social housing too, and they tend to have been a bigger problem. But most of the house building in Norway after the war was part funded by government through cheap loans etc., but were managed by private house-building associations that built based on which locations and types of housing was attractive to people. And that's what has driven a lot of the building of areas like the ones mentioned above. So there were fewer large scale attempts at building these huge social housing estates that have served to basically concentrate social problems in some countries. E.g. near where I live now in London we have a couple of major council estates that used to be big problems because they were basically a way of building cheap housing out in the middle of nowhere with no services, and dumping thousands of underprivileged people together there. It was thought of as massively progressive at the time - you built pretty much villages (these estates have their own shopping parades) out in the middle of nowhere. But while many of the people given flats there were regular families, many were also people with additional problems ranging from mental problems through drug/alcohol problems and other issues that contributed to making the estates themselves hotspots of social problems that affected everyone. One of these estates had a life expectancy five years below the UK average for a long time, and it took decades to normalise things there. Currently, partly as a result of financial constraints, partly as a result of harsh lessons like that, most new social housing in London at least comes in form of concessions by developers as part of the planning process that involves much lower concentration of subsidised or council run properties in any development, rather than building these large estates. So I don't think the problem with the more suburban apartment complexes had much to do with the concept, and much more to do with an execution where it was often driven by ideology and totally unproved theories about city planning that were allowed to run amok in the post war period in an urgent need for volume that favoured large projects even when how they affected the integrity of the cities was unproven.
  • matt4077 10y ago
    You're right: the outcomes of this sort of developments vary widely. In many cases (including, as far as I can tell, my example), they are now inhabited by older people who are quite happy with them. i just believe the evidence points at high-density mixed commercial/residential housing to be the dominant option. My second example, for example, is from Berlin's historically poor neighbourhood, with unemployment today still at 13% (3 times national average). Yet it's the place where everyone wants to life. Your example, of London requiring social housing as part of new developments, is the kind of policy that's made with an eye towards such observations. It's not just aimed at creating affordable housing, but something that will benefit everyone living there.
  • usrusr 10y ago
    To extend on your post, all the failed blocks seem to have one thing in common: too much density. Anything higher than maybe four story high packed or slightly higher sparsely packed tends to enter a downward spiral except when "risk groups" are consequently priced out (and even that is only possible in exceptional locations like New York City where low density would be completely unaffordable even for buyers of luxury apartments). In lower density environments (the medium density the article is advocating), the exact same mix of people seems to create much less of that downward spiral. My hypothesis is that it is not the relative fraction of potentially troubled individuals (for lack of better words) that makes or breaks a neighborhood, but their absolute density. No matter how many affluent, stable, nice people you add to the mix, they are pretty much invisible when it comes to creating a positive or negative impression. If "misery per acre" reaches a certain threshold, sad individual fates start influencing each other negatively, multiply and eventually dominate the whole place. Up to a certain, moderate density, stable individuals pull up the troubled, upwards of some undefined density threshold, the troubled start pulling their environment down.
• TulliusCicero 10y ago
  Your [1] is in Berlin. A suburban/residential area of Berlin, but still hardly out in the country.
• ikurei 10y ago
  Could you elaborate on why it doesn't work? That first example looks like a lovely place to live, at least compared to most urban landscapes... As long as it isn't far away from more lively areas.
  • matt4077 10y ago
    "It doesn't work" is possibly too harsh, see my other answer. But in the best cases, these developments turned into extremely boring places with almost no contact between neighbours. Today, it's exclusively elderly people living there. There are a few factors I've heard for this trend: - There are ample green spaces between houses, but they're too small for some of the purposes parks serve, like sports, or to have barbecue without someone calling the police. - At the same time, they don't replace gardens because you wouldn't be allowed to grow anything. - They are, however, large enough to lower the density of the neighbourhood, to a point where retail locations are no longer comfortably reachable on foot. It's not quite obvious from looking at it, but my second example has probably 4x the people per area than the first. - Depending on the social structures, these developments can further crime because they offer many small, unobservable spaces and getaway routes. Some of it may also be the result of the location where these developments were build, or that they were initially occupied by a very homogenous population (young families in the 60ies -> old people now). But the trend has moved decidedly towards higher-density mixed environments.
    • pbhjpbhj 10y ago
      >Today, it's exclusively elderly people living there.// That may be a measure of success. If people have chosen to stay in the same neighbourhood (or haven't chosen to leave) then it at least suggests the local community is functional?
      • Zach_the_Lizard 10y ago
        There are plenty of Rust Belt or coal country towns that are decaying where all have left except the elderly. My wife's grandmother lived in such a town, and when we visited it was clear the town had seen better days. Most things were closed, hardly any people our age, and those that remained were looking to leave. Almost everyone we saw was old. It can mean success, but doesn't have to.