I live in one currently. One of the early ones from the 60s.
Location is great, city provides hot tap water and heating. Cheap utilities.
Huge amounts of these were insulated all over the country starting from the late 90s. EU also provided funds for that after my country got in.
I honestly don’t remember seeing typical commie block not maintained well from the outside in cities nowadays.
On the negative side - walls are crooked and not soundproof, this is usual, flat sizes are a bit too small for families. 50m^2 is most common for ones built before 80s I think.
I did talk lately with retired construction engineer that knows these, he said that although these were built cheaply and were supposed to be temporary - as long as steel reinforcements don’t rust, probably will outlast all of us.
JustJack23@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
Actually in some places they are, they even look quite beautiful with new colourful isolation and stuff.
Of course not always, I have seen some where the walls act as doors.
BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 5 days ago
Nice coat of paint
But nothing can isolate those things, you can hear your neighbors breathing
JustJack23@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
First, not a coat of paint that is solid 20cm of styrofoam on the outside and that increases the energy efficiency of heating greatly;
Second, yes, they are loud and usually smell of sauerkraut but keep in mind these things we not made to be the perfect living space with all comforts, these things are a solution to homelessness and they are WILDLY successful in that. They are dirt cheap to make, making them dirt cheap to buy(at least in the beginning) and very space effective for housing large quantities of people.
So the question in essence is not would you prefer a commie block to a modern luxury apartment, but weather you will prefer it to being homeless.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world 4 days ago
But without homelessnes how will you scare a huge chunks of population into working harder?
Cethin@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
I see you’ve never lived in an apartment. Sure, these aren’t soundproof. However, they were made of concrete. It’s better than the US apartment made out of drywall and prayers. Still, I prefer one of these in a livable area than an isolated house you have to drive to get anywhere.
Commie blocks aren’t perfect, but they solve a lot of issues, and they were cheap. They were made for communities, being built in areas with access to everything else you needed to live. There’s never going to be a perfect solution, and anything like this is going to have an issue with hearing your neighbors. That’s just a compromise that has to be made to get the many advantages.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
i lived a lot of my life in concrete apartments, you can’t hear your neighbours unless they are being obnoxiously loud, or the apartment is obnoxiously small. which to be fair seemed to be some of those, but still.