Architecture of Ideology: How Soviet Cities Were Built

To be honest Soviet blocks were planned thoroughly, they have all you need close by, they are spaced out, and have parks around them. It was made for a living.

Western housing is made for profit so you have a lot of units packed too close together.

Every time I click on a Setarko video I expect there to be a flame war between tankies and non-tankies per every comment section regarding soviet topics
In fact, I can start one right now!
AHEM! 15 MINUTE CITIES ARE UNSUSTAINABLE AND SUCK!

Almost succeeding and country collapsing don't seem to mesh very well..

yep, and the Soviet Union ALMOST became a prosperous country. in communism, everything was made....almost. But, of course, never!

As a child in the Soviet Union I must say that the city was wonderful and still is to this day (with some caveats). My parents lived in an apartment high rise with 20 stores tall. The was about 3 kindergarten all in walking distance from my home, one elementary school and two or three sports fields, also many play parks for children. The public transport was perfect. One main tram train that branches off in many directions and busses. About a few bus stations away was the central shopping area with a huge plaza (of course with a Lenin statue) and next was a huge park with fountains, this all ended in the river Akhtuba. In the city all walking distances away are libraries, theaters, and so on. The caveats are that the city was build around a huge factory that became bankrupt in the 90s and now half of the people are jobless. The friendly neighbors are all drunk. The tram wasn't updated since the 60s and the buses are all from the 50s. The streets are all horrible.

Best benefit of Soviet residensial is people who living there have proporsional body shape, why? Because they are walking everyday, not use car or transport, that make body more healthy. You can see today in former Soviet country and most Europe not much people who has body weight problem like in US.

ngl eastern european housing in general is a lot less depressing than the uk equivalent

Real Soviet city planners were better Workers &Resources players than me.

I also think: I think the common ideas (kitchen factories and the like) weren't bad ideas. The problem was making them compulsory, instead of as an enticing option. It would have made more sense to build these cities so people could live privately if they wished, but to then make the more communistic approaches genuinely enticing. Maybe some clever advertising to promote the possibilities of such a thing. The problem came because instead of joining these things of their own accord, people were forced to do so from above.

The fact is that even capitalist pigs have something to learn from Soviet Urban planning. Ironically, despite being one of the most polluted countries, the USSR was ahead of it's time in terms of urban planning in a way that reduced greenhouse emissions because everything you could possibly need or want in a Soviet city was always in walking distance or there was a tram or bus if it wasn't.

Besides, the idea that there shouldn't be a world where all the nice things were in the center and nowhere else is a good one.

Soviet urban planning was great!

great video

Britain tried to do this in 1960's but never put their heart fully in to it. Park Hill in Sheffield, Hulme Crescents in Manchester, and many more examples in other UK cities. Every decent sized town got tower blocks shooting up but they didn't have the infrastructure.
By the mid 1980's a lot were hell holes, dumping grounds for the unemployed millions created by thatchers governments.
Some survived, especially in London where a selection, like The Barbican have become desirable and expensive places to live.
The socioeconomic climate of the UK was never really suitable for such things to fully succeed.
It's a period in modern history vastly overlooked , but something I find fascinating.
Thank you for the Soviet view of it 👍

soviet city is perfect

Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, is absolutely a soviet city. It was designed according to the very principles created in the soviet union. Brazil's president at the time, Juscelino Kubitscheck, was a staunch communist who had visited the USSR. Both of the architects who actually designed the city were also communists, and idolized the USSR.
I lived in Brasilia for 14 years, (in the 1970's and 1980's) and I can understand what they were aiming for.

Compared to American cities, this model is so nice. Poorer areas here have no green areas, small parks, convenient stores, recreation, day care or schooling. There are a set of rules that all public housing are supposed to follow in the US but the reality is very different. I got lucky in that my local housing authority does real repairs and maintenance, rather than let things rot. Criminals are are evicted and we gave less violence. The local HA also looks the other way when we plant small gardens in the spaces. We also have a few trees.

Its a nightmare for me to get to the movies or parks. They are too far away and my welfare wheelchair can't bare the stress of much use. There are no buses to take to the parks either.

I live in a country with more empty habitable housing than there are homeless. Its artificial created scarcity. I know people who work two mid range paying jobs that are homeless. I live in a small three room apartment and my rent in a low income complex is more than disability money. So my sons still live with me. Without each other we would be homeless.

The stores in poorer areas of American cities charge twice the price for items than in the middle class or wealthy areas. Public transportation is a joke here.

amazing material. Adam something vibe but less quirky. nice ✌️

I see these buildings every day, i dont think gray buildings are depressing or ugly. But what i do think is communist are the least intelligent people on earth when it comes to politics and economics.

Chinese state owned factories also built blocs with hospitals, post offices, markets, kindergartens, schools in walking distance. Not a luxurious life, but still nice.

Concrete box with everything within walking distance is infinitely better than living under a cardboard box outside a porno theatre.

and the funniest part about is that those concrete block are better place to live than modern housing

On the geto part, I've heard that some districts around Moscow start kind of transformimg into gettos where immigrants from Central Asia live in overcrowded appartments. This whole situation just shows that the american myth of blocks creating gethos is just a myth. As long as the USSR existed people didn't have to move en masse to a couple big cities to earn a living and the planned cities actually optimized human living in an urban area. Now Eastern European cities start transforming and getos are appearing after socialism was abandoned.

So, to summarize: the buildings were crappy but the urban planning was on point?

Это ирония?

Can you make video Soviet microdistrict vs USA Suburbia

I lived in a communist block in Romania in a city redesigned by Ceasescu, and despite the ugliness of the buildings, it was actually easy to walk around and nice to live in.

Socialist architecture ruins my view every day as a citizen of Sofia 🇧🇬

Population growth agenda for economic development is negative profit business case. Communist and capitalist alike.

War is a net loss, not the net profit they've made.

Lol, I much rather live in a small town in Central Jersey on a acre of land than in a Soviet apartment I was born in:)

This city model was tried all across the world after WW2. A famous example is Tlatelolco in México, which followed the same formula of "city within the city".

They are just so dystopian to look at. They look a lot like modern American suburbs of copy and paste and just a few different deisgns.
One suburb near me is just the exact same white duplex deisgn used over 50 times. It is genuinely one of the ugliest and depressing housing developments I ever seen. And it looks nearly exactly like this.

Despite the shortcomings of the Soviet system, Soviet cities were better planned than American cities.

Ну хоть кто-то затронул эту тему без антисоветчины, спасибо :)

And Putin did also a lot for them.

Mmm... let me see...

1. Tsarist Russia was not a capitalist society (WHOA), but a feudal one, aka one of the worst countries to live by the end of the 19th century.
2. Housing was not something available to all citzens - a plan to create cheap and comfortable homes WERE A MUST, doesn't matter if it looks like lego or not.
3. Rent was pretty affordable, something like 2-8% from your minimal wage. South Carolina: min. $ 7.25/an hour ($ 1.3K monthly), and 45% avg rent price. Is this fine?

as western people start to get priced out of the residential real estate market, they start to realize the USSR wasn't so bad......

Except that commie blocks are actually really ugly and unappealing..

revisionist buildings 🤢

Hi! I would be interested to have a look at the mathematical models you mention. Can you give a source?

Is this a joke?

It may be an anthill, but I rather live in an anthill where I can walk to anywhere I need or want to be at, rather than this suburban disconnect we have.

I think those commie blocks look actually pretty nice, in spring and summer because the greenery contrasts so well with them.

Also if most of them had only some renovations and power wash they would look so much better.

For example some of the big brutalist commie blocks, in Serbia looked actually pretty cool. Especially the Eastern Gate complex on old images. They looked really damn, nice with a very white color.

Most of them just need a good ol, power wash and renovation or recoloring.

It's also important to mention that the USSR and the soviet nation state as a whole was not (and was never intended to be) a hive mind monolith. There were many schools of thought and rigorous debates over stuff like housing, ideology etc. in all strata of society. From the local soviet/city council to the prestigious universities. Questions ranged from "how much should the architecture reflect local culture and history" to "Will not having comunal urinals create dialectical class contradiction that the Nazi enemy will exploit." We tend to dehumanize or invalidate people from places like the USSR or other 'enemy empires' and forget to realize that at the end of the day the ones we call the 'bad guys' are fathers, mothers, children who all like ourselves strive for self fulfillment in thier lives.

Bollocks.

and now they've been left to deteroriate.
i feel like Russia could bring this kidn of planning back, just add more historical / cultural buildings and offer more space.

To me, such cities are illogical, disorganized and chaotic. Space is used inefficiently. I like cities whose streets are alive, and these Soviet cities don't even have streets. Buildings are supposed to form a street, it's always been that way.

"perfect cities" lmao
cities so perfect russkis migrate to the west every opportunity they get ahahaha
russia was the country affected by braindrain the most yet somehow propaganda channels liek these always make it up to be so epic and good

Big concrete blocks aren't that bad, maybe something in the roofs could make it more appealing, like gardens or other commodities.