4 ms·
You're right that the UK government bungled the high-rise housing in the 60s and 70s (as documented by Adam Curtis in "The Great British Housing Disaster" - htt
by smcl 7y ago
You're right that the UK government bungled the high-rise housing in the 60s and 70s (as documented by Adam Curtis in "The Great British Housing Disaster" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5VorymiL4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5VorymiL4).
But I'd like to explore the UK/Moscow comparison though. I don't have first-hand experience with Moscow but I am familiar with the Czech Republic where paneláky house a sizeable chunk of the population. Many of my friends live in them and they're generally quite pleasant, well served by transport and amenities (shops, bars, things like hairdressers and such).
What I'm getting at is that this - in the "west" there is a lot of misunderstanding about life in Warsaw Pact countries. From my Czech experience it would not surprise me in the least if much of the Moscow mass-housing you're referring to was planned and constructed better than similar developments in UK.
So I think the comparison between (say) Red Road flats in Glasgow or the Banana Flats in Leith and Moscow's suburbs might be unfair to Moscow.
- baybal2 7y agoI'd say Moscow improved since Soviet times. The issue with Moscow suburbs were that they were made to house a lot of lower end Soviet proletarians, densely, cheaply, and most importantly away from Soviet elites. They had no or bare minimum in terms of living infrastructure like shops, schools, daycare and people had to travel to Moscow for everything. The only connection they had to the city centre were busses, and trains whose routes and schedules were very peculiarly planned, again to frustrate residents from faring to city centre too often. Those bedroom communities were only linked to the metro like a decade or so ago.