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Features of socialist microrayon
30-160 acres.
Mixed function, has schools, doctors, sports facilities.
Built near industrial zones
Roads around outside

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Similarities:
The use of SCC (Self Compacting Concrete) giving the tower blocks a brutalist style.
Apartments were small and overcrowded, densely populated.

Differences
Separate kitchens to dining rooms in socialist urbanism
Right to buy.
Better housing was offered for 'responsible workers' in Eastern bloc.
We find more large-scale mass housing projects in Eastern bloc
quality of construction is lower in the East
In Russia, communal housing aimed to lessen the need to a nuclear family support. Everyday life was more communal in socialist housing estates, as in capitalist estates people were from more varying backgrounds.

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Socialist urbanism was concerned with preventing revolts, as well as slum clearance to rapidly modernise the country's image.

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The two had more in common than differences, however in the West, under Capitalism, there was chance of ownership, but in socialist urbanism housing was state owned. Both had segregation based on occupation. Some socialist urbanisation, e.g. in China (where housing for a whole factory's workforce was together) created strong community.

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- Cheap material
- Design for cheap housing
- Don't integrate the new building unit inside the global city plan
- Separation of difference populations

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modernist urbanism & socialist urbanism (Q1) 

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modernist urbanism & socialist urbanism (Q1) 

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Bater, J. 1984. The Soviet city: continuity and change in privilege and place. In J. Agnew, J. Mercer, D. Sopher. The City in Cultural Context London: Allen & Unwin. [on Minerva].

Monclús, J. and Díez Medina, C., 2016. Modernist housing estates in European cities of the Western and Eastern Blocs. Planning Perspectives, 31(4), pp.533-562.

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1.    What are some of the characteristics that modernist and socialist urbanism have in common? Did socialist urbanism offer any different solutions to high modernism in the West?

2.    Why was housing a central concern of socialist urbanism?

3.    Compile a list of similarities and differences between modernist housing estates in capitalist countries and socialist countries. How would everyday life differ in a ‘socialist’ and ‘capitalist’ housing estate? What different approaches do they show to solving urban problems?

4.    Outline the main features of the socialist microdistrict (microrayon), with a focus on how it relates to other modernist urban plans that you have encountered in the course, e.g. Howard’s Garden City, Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse.

5.    How far was socialist urbanism concerned with expressing political and ideological visions, and how far was it concerned with solving problems of everyday urban life?

6.    Discuss some of the problems and failures associated with the socialist implementation of urban plans.

7.    Discuss how the image you have brought in can be interpreted as reflecting both socialist and modernist principles.