“Authoritarian” is (generally speaking) a word used to describe governments’ usage of violence or other means to either establish or maintain rule over their populace.

So all governments

Yes, see basically every revolution, but look at Cuba for a prime example

We have those, they're called projects.

You mean those criminally underfunded, means-tested and over-policed apartment blocks in red-lined cities?

Crazy that those weren't as effective as rhe communist housing initiatives

Call me crazy, but I've had this thought about a lot of "boring" architecture. Why don't we just say it's an open graffiti spot, so that these large boring walls turn into something colorful on the outside? It's most likely only gonna be as high as you can get a ladder, but I feel that's better than nothing. Some people will certainly spray profanities on it, but graffiti spots already exist in some recreational areas, and those bits tend to get sprayed over by someone else, whereas more beautiful sections tend to remain far longer without being touched.

For real. It's like living in a very old NYC apartment building and being like "It's still standing, truly a testament to the politics of the robber barrons who built it!"

Yeah the soviet block housing is architecturally DEPRESSING. Not that they are the only ones who built joyless prison boxes.

wouldn’t liberals approve of this?

The government of the PRC is planning to build 200,000 new public housing appartments in hongkong, tyranny i tells ya

Looking at old pics of Hoovervilles is depressing. They were so much nicer than modern homeless encampments. I’m talking real wooden cabins, built on a grid, with stoves/chimneys, and even mailboxes/actual mail service. People who were homeless during the Great Depression were better off than people who are homeless now, because the larger community tolerated them rather than constantly sweeping them.

why won't something think of the children investors!!!???

Everything is better with murals. Also plants, lots of plants.

But at what cost???

You just compared people's houses to prisons. I hope you didn't mean it that way.

soviet onion is RED

The ones built on polluted land no one else wants, that have zero amenities nearby, leading to food deserts and lack of healthcare, and that have zero green spaces nearby? Yeah those resemble Soviet block housing in the same way a fart smells like a rose.

What do you actually know about soviet housing? I've done significant academic research on the topic. It's not just a simple "they built a certain type of building". The reason they all look so similar is that their construction method was pre-fab concrete panels. It was a revolutionary technology at the time, and allowed them to solve their housing crisis. They were called "Khrushchyovka" after whom you can guess. He made it his mission to solve the Soviet Housing crisis when he took over and was largely successful.

You have to keep in mind the historical context. The people moving into these buildings were coming from a pre-industrial society where they commonly had so electricity, dirt floors, and no insulation. These were a significant upgrade from the pre-USSR constructions. They started construction in the 1940s, and really took off in the 50s.

I think the main takeaways from them shouldn't be "We should build these exact things". and I don't think that's what people who support them are advocating for. I think what they are trying to point out is that if you standardize production, and use economies of scale, it is entirely possible to build tons of housing quickly and cheaply. And considering the way housing prices look these days I'd expect that to be an idea anyone can get behind.

If you are interested here is an article about how modern China is using similar practices: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10695

Step 1: Abolish Government

Step 2: Establish absolutely no institutional infrastucture to ensure nobody else makes a new government. Because that would be authoritatian.

Step 3: Someone makes another government by establishing a monopoly on violence.

Step 4: Abolish Government... wait what?

Nah this is praise lesser evils time

The term authoritarianism is utterly meaningless because all governments rely on coercion to maintain their authority. The state is fundamentally an instrument that’s used by the ruling class to maintain its dominance. The whole notion that political systems can be neatly categorized into authoritarian or democratic binaries is deeply infantile.

The reality is that every government derives its authority from its monopoly on legal violence. The ability to enforce laws, suppress dissent, and maintain order is derived from control over police, military, and judicial systems. Whether a government is labelled authoritarian or democratic, the fundamental basis of its power lies here. Therefore, the only meaningful questions to ask are which class interests it represents, and to what extent can it be held accountable to them.

I honestly think we should have a bot where anytime someone says the word authoritarian it just spits this out at them.

When it's designed for pure efficiency, housing often starts to take on a more prison-like architectural style. After all that's how they design prisons as well, just on a much more brutal level. It's good that post-war civilians were saved from homelessness, but it's not really an architectural style to emulate, and the fact that they're still around isn't a virtue in its own right.

I'm not saying the people who live there are in prison, but rather that it's a bleak and inhumane way to design things. You see the same mindset in the design of many overpriced condo blocks in the US, they just dress it up with bigger windows, as well as kitchen islands, Murphy beds and other glitsy bullshit.

Straw man
noun

• An argument or opponent set up so as to be easily refuted or defeated.
• A doll or scarecrow (particularly one stuffed with straw).
• An insubstantial concept, idea, endeavor or argument, particularly one deliberately set up to be weakly supported, so that it can be easily knocked down; especially to impugn the strength of any related thing or idea.

why is the outside so neglected?

I wonder why the Soviets stopped tending to their infrastructure around 1991 surely nothing happened around that time?!?!

Specify how what I described is different than what you'd do then. What mechanisms or institutions would you put in place to prevent step 3?

So you think they just came in and bulldozed everything? If they hadn't done anything since then, it would look nicer

I don't care about the graffiti, I wish those ugly walls weren't visible at all. Give me some green space

Ok so maybe I wasn't clear that the housing built in a hurry to house people post war was left to rot and not modernised post 1991 as the soviet union collapsed this was followed by shock therapy and capitalists in power who don't give a shit thus leaving the modern "commie blocks" in eastern Europe today ugly neglected and rundown.

Seriously, I find there are just a handful of tropes libs regurgitate like trained parrots. You really can just have a templated response to them.

Careful, If the communists are asian, white liberals will fully believe they’re open dog/cat eaters because they already believe that. Joe himself prob believes that asian people eat babies until they come on down to Californ-i-a and get nice big ol fake titties

How is it bleak and inhumane to build free, strong, effective houses? HAVE YOU SEEN MODERN APARTMENT BUILDINGS IN USA?! I feel like I’m going crazy. The only people that like those new fuck ugly “mixed use” developments is rich old smarmy people who’s family left their home town 20 years ago. And they have the worst fucking interior taste I’ve ever seen it’s all white and sanitized and they got nothing on the shelves or walls. I don’t wanna hear shit from Americas about “inhumane design.” My house is sided with fucking asbestos.

People like you are being willfully stupid, imo. Why wouldn’t you, “comrade”, “brag on the blocs”? What’s not to brag about effectively working at solving homelessness in the 50s? That you think it looks ugly? You ever been to America buddy?

Famously Communist Vancouver, Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_special

How are you gonna defend your country from fascism if you won’t express authority on hostile invasions? You think Hitler was defeated by just chillin and giving up authority? I gotta stop taking the bait.

When OP asked "why is the outside so neglected?" I believe you have interpreted the question as "why has the outside been neglected?" As in, the outside has been allowed to become ugly. What I believe they meant, however, is "why was the outside neglected?" As in, the people who designed it neglected to consider the outside. OP is arguing the blocks were ugly at inception, not just since 1991.

Why does it suggest liberals are scared of this? Aren't they okay with Projects for affordable housing? So liberals aren't communists? Then, why are the red hat clowns so grumpy?

With weapons, voluntary training programs (both in terms of participation and guidance), and organization.

If some group of bad actors try to coup your community, you don't just lie back and take it.

Going to copy paste my previous response:

With weapons, voluntary training programs (both in terms of participation and guidance), and organization.

If some group of bad actors try to coup your community, you don't just lie back and take it.

Perhaps but they appear to be talking about the current. Either way, the answer however is largely the same just reframed and rephrased. They were built to be functional and quick to deal with the fact hundreds of thousands if not millions would be homeless if nothing was done due to the destruction of fighting the Nazis. They then were not able to be maintained and modernised post 1991 for the reasons outlined.

How is it bleak and inhumane to build free, strong, effective houses?

That is obviously not what is being complained about. The chief complaints are:

1. Large areas consisting of one or two buildings copied-and-pasted dozens of times.
2. The area between buildings being more-or-less featureless.

The only people that like those new fuck ugly “mixed use” developments is rich old smarmy people who’s family left their home town 20 years ago.

I'm not sure what you mean by mixed use developments but if you mean this, then you are flat out wrong. Mixed use developments are the cornerstone of the kinds of urbanism that encompass walkable neighbourhoods and the 15 minute city, which is overwhelmingly preferred by the non-car-brained.

And they have the worst fucking interior taste I’ve ever seen...

Not really relevant since interiors can be ugly or not independent of the ugliness of the buildings.

Remember when Jane Byrne tried to vacation at Cabrini? Good times.

Say's who? The community is supposed to just organically resist this? There's no organizational structure? Because that would be a government.

That’s authoritarian

Edit: if you abolish the government already before this theoretical invasion there is no voluntary training, there is no organization because you need authority to back those systems up otherwise some Nazis are just going to act cool until you train them and then they’ll take all your shit. Or just come in and kill you while your random decentralized groups are training and organizing.

So now your back @ square one, no government, everything is decentralized (no one group of organizers because those who organize into hierarchy are authoritarian) Nazis took all your weapons, and I ask again, how are you going to defend your country which has now been violently invaded and destroyed by fascists?

That is the exact type of building I am talking about. I work in one. It was built by a company that is worth over 50 billion dollars. It has not made our city more walkable. It has made our city less affordable, less walkable, and they are building an identical “mixed use” building right across the street from it with competing businesses.

This building I work in used to have a clinic, it failed and is no longer there, a realtor office that failed and is closed, and my own boss tried to expand the restaurant I work in and failed spectacularly and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own personal money that he is now indebted to (it was probably the dumbest thing my boss could have done but you know business owners)

The Montessori school in this building complex is a private school that costs over 13 thousand dollars for one child K-12.

There is a section of “green space”, in the middle of the parking lot inside that is about 20-30 square feet of grass and about 4 cherry blossom trees. They are quite pretty to look at out the window while I’m working, but I would hardly classify it as an adequate green space.

What you are describing as an effective communal living area for all people (not just the rich) would be a commie bloc. These 5 over 1 buildings are cheap money grabs that do not function correctly, raise rent prices wherever they are placed effectively gentrifying entire neighborhoods, and are meant to serve a rich subset of capitalists thru “rent controlled” apartments that have a minimum wage requirement for you to even apply. That wage requirement is way higher than I make working in the same exact fucking building.

The areas between communist blocks are not “featureless”, and that is a hilarious accusation when trying to defend these money holes of a building. They are literally cheap imitations of commie blocks that are uglier, not made as well, and don’t work as well. These 5 over 1 buildings being “Cornerstone of urbanism” is the best joke I’ve ever heard about American infrastructure. Those pictures in the Wikipedia article you linked are perfect examples, those don’t have ANY green space. I bet for private residents in the back parking lot there’s a few square feet of grass. Is that what you want over this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sídlisko ?

Go and walk down the street in one of these gentrified neighborhoods and see how fun it is, buy a 16$ sandwich and 4$ coffee, have to walk a quarter mile to where you parked and by then your 2 hour limit is up so you got a ticket and now you gotta park where all the homeless people are. (that got pushed out by the development of this multi-million dollar building).

Not really relevant since interiors can be ugly or not independent of the ugliness of the buildings.

I don’t know about you but I actually like hanging out in the cafe to drink my coffee, these are “public spaces” and to you they are cornerstones of urban development, wouldn’t you want people to oh, I don’t know, spend time (and therefor more money) in the business and schools that this company paid millions of dollars for? No? Oh, so we’re only interested in mass housing/ending homelessness when it’s under a capitalist society and you can walk from your apartment to the cafe without going outside. And it has to LOOK SUPER NICE RIGHT AWAY. And we need THE TINIEST GREEN SPACE SURROUNDED BY A PARKING LOT! THATS THE KINDA GREENERY WE LIKEEEEE

You really think these buildings are better than the blocs because what, they look better to you? Solving homelessness isn’t aesthetically pleasing enough? I know a certain GERMAN political party that agrees with your sentiment…

Soviet onions belong to us all, western onions only to a few, obviously

We have a very simple purity test, don't support genocide or wars on the global south and we have no issue with you. If you can't agree on that much then there's no reason why we should accommodate you.

keep malding fash

This Vancouver? https://www.columbian.com/news/2026/aug/19/share-encampment-cleanup-leaves-many-who-are-homeless-looking-for-shelter-answers/

I don't either but I'm not going to aid fascists by out casting moderates. You can do that and reap what you sow.