Adam Something
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2022–2024
5:24 · 1.9M views · Nov 15, 2021
Adam Something gives a short, tongue-in-cheek defense of Soviet-era prefab apartment blocks. He argues they offer efficient, dense housing with schools and services built nearby.
Linked in housing and urbanism threads as a fun, deliberately provocative case that dense blocks are better than their reputation.
4 comments from Hacker News
I know this is an unpopular opinion in the US, but the tenements can be pretty great. I grew up in Eastern Europe (Warsaw) in "commie" blocks and there was a lot of valid criticisms and problems (like poor quality of buildings, small apartments, or thin walls - but consider that they rebuilt whole Warsaw after it was completely grounded in WW2 in a decade or two!), but also a lot to love. Extremely walkable, safe, all amenities (cinemas, stores, cultural centers, playgrounds) in the walking distance, lots of trees and green, easy access to public transit. As a kid or teenager they were great. I preferred it 100x over suburbs where my parents moved later, and to typical American cityscapes. (And this is why I moved to NYC and love it) Here is a fun and a bit provocative/exaggerated video this video Everyone is different so I'm not forcing my perspective onto anyone, just worth considering - especially if you have not had such first hand experience (and the main objection to tenements comes from how depressing they look or American association of "projects = crime", which misses a lot of "why"). Feel free to disagree! And apart from that, I don't think "more of small houses" solves anything. It has to create more car dependence and social isolation. And it does not really scale, where would you fit more of smaller homes in SF?
Higher density happens because investors want to maximize the use of land in desirable areas, not because land is unavailable or difficult to zone. I live in Bucharest, a city of incredibly high RE development, and most of the new buildings are more compressed and crowded in on each other than they were under communism, which is a common occurrence in the former Soviet satellite states [1]. From my window, I can see across the Delta Vacaresti, a wildlife reserve that was once a neighborhood that Ceausescu just had time to raze to the ground for some new insane scheme before his people shot him. Across the way, I see three massive multistory residential blocks going up, crowded together like pedestrians on a metro train at rush hour - only one side of the front-most block has any view of the Delta, while the others literally live in each other's shadows, lacking sunlight. By contrast, communist design principles designed a whole neighborhood, with schools and hospitals and doctors, with the 'megablocks' seen as small cities in themselves that needed dedicated support systems. this video
I will contribute by adding a couple of references to AdamSomething's views on skyscrapers [1] (we shouldn't build them) and commie blocks [2] (surprisingly pleasant and efficient housing): [1] [LINK] [2] this video As an Eastern European who lately has developed a casual interest in urban planning, I wholeheartedly agree with a low to mid-rise approach to urban development. Both in my home town (Bucharest) as well as in my current place of residence (Amsterdam) by far the least pleasent areas are the places where high-rises concentrate (Pipera and Zuidas respectively).
From what I have found watching this this video and [LINK] is that very tall buildings are cool only for the very rich but they are not very liveable. Burj Khalifa does not have a severage system. Trucks are used to take the human waste away every single day from burj khalifa.