One thing I’ve noticed in viewing footage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is how every city there looks the same. It doesn’t matter if its Kyiv, Mariupol, or Lviv the drones fly over the same line of apartment building after apartment building after apartment building. All the same–gray, concrete, monolithic in appearance.
This, of course, is a result of the Soviet system of both economics and society. Private home ownership was banned in 1918. The people of Russia, Ukraine, and all of the other satellite republics were herded into the cities to work in the new state-owned factories and housed in state-owned apartment units. And those cities were divided into regimented districts for the purposes of local governance and services. The idea of a “neighborhood” was lost as many of the things that made one part of the city unique from the next–whether it be architecture or enclaves of certain ethnicities–were replaced by the sameness demanded by the government.
In the past couple of decades, China has taken the Soviet model and put it on steroids. Entire cities that didn’t exist at the turn of this century can now house millions of people–in block after block of nearly-identical, high-rise apartment buildings. Tianjin, Zhengzhou, Ordos City, and dozens of others could swap names tomorrow and nobody outside of those that live there would know the difference. Which brings up an interesting side angle: Surprisingly few people actually do live in those apartment buildings. Those I listed are what are known as China’s “ghost cities”. All of the infrastructure for a modern metropolis exists–down to mass transit systems that already operate. The country just hasn’t gotten around to forcing people to live there yet.
And that is where we are now headed here in the US. As planners relentlessly push the idea of “urban density” as the only approach to development, out cities will become nothing more than row after row after row of rental units. And I’m not talking about just big cities like Chicago or San Francisco–but the smaller ones like Green Bay, Appleton, and Oshkosh. Apartment buildings next to apartment buildings next to apartment buildings. The only difference is the exteriors of ours will be a little more colorful that just dull gray.
There will be lame attempts to create “neighborhoods” with things like community gardens, or street music festivals, or cute names for parts of town that refer to things that used to exist in that area. “I live in the Warehouse District!” “Oh, I’m over at Cannery Flats!!”
But renting where you live makes you transient by nature. When you don’t own something, you are less invested in it. Not many people sell their home and move to another house in a different part of town just to save 50-dollars a month on their mortgage. Renters care less about property tax rates or utility rates. And when those increase–resulting in higher rents–who do they blame? The landlord–and not any elected city officials. They also care less about garbage pickup, street conditions, property crimes and noise ordinance violations.
Even things that were initially being sold as “unique” are becoming ubiquitous. There isn’t a city in the Fox Valley now that doesn’t offer “riverfront living”–lining our waterways with endless views of small patios and sliding glass doors. Of course, no one in on those patios. The wi-fi reception is pretty poor and you can’t stream anything on your tablet.
I wonder if at the end of the hostilities in Ukraine, when those who have fled and those who have had their apartment units destroyed will come back and say, “You know what? I think I’d like a place of my own from now on.”
