After the fall of the Soviet Union, every single ex soviet state in Europe (outside of Russia and Belarus) went on a spree to “decommunize” their architecture because it’s so soulless and terrible, and they’re better off for it
Their homelessness did skyrocket after the USSR dissolved though. So saying “they’re better off for it” kind of depends on what you value more, pretty buildings or housing people.
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 6 days ago
The homeless were always there, the Soviet Union intentionally didn’t count them. The ex Soviet states did genuine counts which revealed the actual rates
wpb@lemmy.world 6 days ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Russia
Unless the USSR set aside some funds to have wikipedia run propaganda for them in the future, it seems that you’re wrong.
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 6 days ago
The article doesn’t contradict what I said. The Soviet Union intentionally refused to count their homeless population because the state pretended that it didn’t exist. The real numbers showed up only after the communist regime fell because the ex Soviet states started counting. Academic studies have shown that the Soviet Union in the 1980s not only had homelessness, but they had it at a rate that was higherthan what the US had at that time.
wpb@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Yes it does, read it again. It claims homelessness, not recorded, not perceived, not logged, but real actual homelessness went up for reasons other than “when communism fell, the government was replaced by beautiful honest angels who would never tell a lie about their own performance”, namely something along the lines of the housing market being privatized and folks selling homes without being able to purchase a new one.
I’m not disputing this. I did have a similar conversation with someone about this earlier, who claimed something similar, and initially the “academic studies” they referred to were a listicle and an article written by someone from an institute whose mission statement was sth like “we’re here to write propaganda against communism”. I think eventually they found something that could more reasonably be called academic sources, but I’m curious what you’re referring to here.