828
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] BCBoy911@lemmy.ca 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

We need this in North America if we ever want to solve the housing crisis tbh. I'm talking Soviet-style, grey concrete commieblocks. Yes the buildings are ugly, probably lack amenities, cheaply constructed and not well maintained, but we desperately need cheap, dense housing if we're going to bring down the costs. Building more luxury Manhattan condos and suburban single family abominations does nothing to bring down housing prices.

[-] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 week ago

We don't even necessarily need those, fucking row townhouses like old Chicago or New York would be a massive improvement in space usage and density alone. Just modify the design to have a garage in the back and make the alleyway larger. Hell you could narrow the front road if you do it right.

[-] possumparty 3 points 1 week ago

Hell you ~~could~~ should narrow the front road ~~if you do it right.~~ and turn it into a pedestrian plaza with a few shops and restaurants.

[-] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

While I like the enthusiasm we are still talking about the US here, even just for controlled semitruck or emergency service access it would still need to be wide enough for say a firetruck even compensation with utility alleyways and back end garages. But you could set it up to be relatively easily converted to such a thing if the required modifications to infrastructure and emergency services are done, but even then it'd be twenty years off even on a rapid timescale.

[-] possumparty 3 points 1 week ago

To be fair, I didn't say make it impassible, I said narrow it. It's easy enough to make a pedestrian plaza that a box truck or a firetruck can fit down. It works in the majority of the cities and towns in Scandinavia. They're not going to build affordable rowhomes or high density housing in the states anytime soon so this is literally allll wishcasting from top to bottom.

[-] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

Fair enough, though my point was moreso to do with how absurdly massive American fire engines and semi-trucks there are smaller tanks. A Stuart tank from WW2 or fuck even a M60 Patton are smaller than a standard American fire engine.

[-] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 week ago

Tanks are pretty small, even European fire engines are bigger.

What’s fucked up is that tanks get better frontal visibility than American pick up trucks lol

[-] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 week ago

3-5 story housing with no parking works in France/Europe. No elevators/pools is huge cost savings. Room for cars ridiculously expensive where land is ridiculously expensive. Bikeable/walkable communities FTW. 5th story units would be cheaper, but young people need cheaper.

elevators are required for ada compliance

[-] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

3 story houses/buildings exist without elevators. There is no proposal to outlaw ADA compliant buildings.

[-] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

The percentage of poverty among people with disabilities is much higher than in the general population, so if you're building for low-income you really need to make it accessible. Also there's a lot of old folks who can walk, barely, but not climb stairs.

[-] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

That’s how you create undesirable neighborhoods which eventually turn into ghettos. Many cities in Europe tried that and many of those neighborhoods quickly became unsafe and derelict. Like many of the banlieus in Paris or the Bijlmer in Amsterdam. Because people who eventually have the means to move out will leave asap. Nobody wants to settle in such a neighborhood. So only the poor and desperate stay. Which in turn means local business will leave as well.

[-] angstylittlecatboy@reddthat.com 7 points 1 week ago

I agree with the general mission of FuckCars, but it always seems full of people who don't care about anything of what goes into a prosperous city that isn't the amount of cars on the road.

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Look at how Vienna works. Contrary to other places, they did government housing blocks really well there.

  • The blocks are spread throughout the whole city. That means, there's no really bad place where all the undesirables are concentrated. This mixes the population. For example, I went to a school in one of the inner districts. In my class we had fresh immigrants that could hardly speak German. We had kids from poor families. We had middle class kids. We had kids who's parents were immigrants but who were born there. We had a kid who's parents played in the Vienna Philharmonic. We had two really rich kids descending from former nobility. We had a kid who was the son of a well-known lawyer.
  • The blocks do have an income limit when you get the flat, but that limit is very high (it easily covers everyone in the middle class) and it only applies when you move in. If your income increases afterwards you can still stay in that flat and still pay the same as anyone else. That means that you got a decent mix of people living in these blocks. There's not only poor people there.
  • Most of the blocks are actually really nice. There's parks between the blocks with nice, old trees. Many of the blocks even have swimming pools or other special extras.

Check out for example this one here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alterlaa

It can be done well. It doesn't have to be crap.

[-] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Yeah but that’s different from what the poster above is suggesting. They literally said cheaply build and no amenities.

[-] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 week ago

Yeah, there aren’t really any Estonians moving to Lasnamäe. Some live there because it’s cheap, but you’re going to have to speak Russian to talk to your neighbours. Of course if you do, you can get drugs fairly easily, which is a plus.

It’s not actually unsafe or super criminal though, it’s just very undesirable and tends to attract the lower strata.

[-] Ashelyn 8 points 1 week ago

The problem is that, for the property owning class, the unaffordability of homes is broadly a feature and not a bug.

[-] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 week ago

For the property investor class. I assure you, the average homeowner isn’t happy about the idea of increased property tax, nor having to spend more if the want to upgrade to a bigger home.

Of course if you’ve got a mortgage and property prices go up, you can leverage that into and easier upgrade because you can use the increased equity in your property as collateral. I know someone who got a huge boost during COVID that way. Tiny studio to 3 bedroom. But mortgage payment went up 2 or 3 times too, so that doesn’t work if property becomes unaffordable altogether.

[-] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

Yeah but I'd also like to see such huge buildings in the middle of nature. Imagine 10.000 people with their own daycare, school or even medic / doctor surrounded by fields and food forests so they can produce their own food. Generates it's own power, centralized super efficient heat storage system for winter, cleans up it's own water etc. And have a fast mass transport to the next hub, like a chain of such buildings a few miles apart linking to the next big city. That's my solar punk.

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

It's basically a whole city in a building. The big advantage for this is that the city is not taking up massive amounts of space.

American Fork, Utah, has 33k inhabitants on 19 square kilometres. The building in the OP has 20-30k inhabitants on 0.04 square kilometres, which would mean that if you house all of American Fork like that, you'd get between 18.92 and 18.96 of untouched nature in return.

[-] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Yeah exactly. Highly compact and energy efficient living while still living in nature and luxuriously, and little large scale infrastructure.

Restoring nature would be a major way to fight climate change too. Of course you'd want fields lined by hedgerows (Bocage?) and food forests to produce the food those 10-30k inhabitants needs right outside, so you save transportation energy costs. And it's self sufficient at least in areas with water sources nearby or rainfall to capture.

I can also imagine a "mini-monorail" with single seats that run on a simple metal beam build by a welding robot to connect such buildings and transport people, carry internet and power.

I've seen fancy ideas for "arcologies" in cities but never one in nature with enough food calorie production right outside. I'd honestly love to live in a skyscaper where each apartment has a beautiful view on unspoiled countryside.

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

It's kinda crazy to me that people want to "live in nature" and what they do is live in a suburb with their paved roads and fenced lawns that are biologically dead. They have some grass and that's it. Nothing lives in there.

[-] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago

I think that's where hyper-individualism leads us when people don't want to share spaces but want their own little castle. But sharing spaces and parks would be vastly more cost and energy efficient (so I assume these countryside arcologies would also be very cheap way to live). Also you'd want an association that is geared to be more democratic than typical HOAs are (they are designed to improve and maintain property values for the whole project instead of living quality or utility). So even the individualism of suburbs are a kind of scam.

[-] Pelicanen@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 week ago

Cheap construction and poor maintainability is more expensive in the long run, I think it's possible to create affordable housing while still having longevity and a reasonable access to amenities in mind.

[-] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

What's even the point of living if we have to live like packages sitting in a warehouse? Living for the sake of being alive sounds like torture.

[-] Entertainmeonly 1 points 1 week ago

I'd much rather a cleaner healthier city scape to live in than a slightly bigger personal home space. I'm a garden person though so i prefer to be outdoors.

[-] irelephant@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

I honestly think commieblocks don't look that bad.

[-] wabasso@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

Ok this is a soft rebuttal because I agree we need to fix affordability asap, but is intensification really the right path?

Like something else needs to be fixed or these super condos will just enable politicians to import even more people to maintain the unaffordability.

[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

Do you live in an apartment, a condo, a townhome, a home or...?

[-] BCBoy911@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I live in a wildly overpriced studio apartment. I would jump at the chance to move into a concrete block apartment with no AC and limited hot water if it took $500 off my monthly rent.

[-] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago

How much do you currently pay and how much do you think these commie block apartments would cost? Because where I’m from, a 1br commie block apartment is as much as if not more than a modern studio apartment.

The lack of AC and poor ventilation really show in the summer too.

Apartment blocks are nice, but I don’t want to live in the commie ones, they suck in many ways.

[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

if it took $500 off my monthly rent.

You think it would take $500 off your rent? Lol, they're not going to make things cheaper, just life more miserable.

[-] LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

Wouldnt that just be supply and demand? Why would less comfortable housing not be less expensive?

[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

If people want it, they'll pay more. If they don't, it will end up like the projects in Chicago.

[-] LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

Aren't the projects subsidised housing? I would assume that most people living there would want out if they had a chance

this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
828 points (100.0% liked)

memes

17601 readers
2101 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/Ads/AI SlopNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.

A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

Sister communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS