The old USSR did an excellent job of surveying the future population demands and building housing accordingly. This was called Central Planning and Americans scoffed at it as a thing that couldn’t work, because it didn’t immediately and immensely enrich the landed class.
Then the USSR collapsed, the Russian economy went into a nose dive, and Russia experienced an enormous population contraction as mortality rates and emigration surged. Suddenly, they had more housing stock than they knew what to do with, and even the newly implemented property class couldn’t squeeze people on the scale of your average Trumpy New York / LA / Dallas landleech. So now you’re still wildly overpaying what you’d have spent on housing thirty years ago, and the conditions have only deteriorated since. But you’re still somehow better off than some poor sap living in a Detroit slum or a San Fransisco closet or a Miami favela, paying twice as much.
These conditions aren’t going to last in Russia. But as Putin pivots back to a more command oriented economy (trading out old school soviet internationalism for new school national socialism) it does appear they’re positioned to avoid the American Techbro system of “Everyone must live in the pod and eat the bugs” that we’re currently headed towards.
The old USSR did an excellent job of surveying the future population demands and building housing accordingly.
Indeed. What USSR did really well is housing, healthcare and education. And looked into future. “We need to build school here because 30 years later current kids will have X kids that need to go to school”. Not that it didn’t have own downsides.
These conditions aren’t going to last in Russia.
I have to agree here for now. Degradation of education system is glaringly obvious. Healthcare in regions too. Housing… slowly deteriorates.
But as Putin pivots back to a more command oriented economy
Except Putin’s command economy will exist only to build more yachts for him and his oligarchs.
Not unreasonably, people in these very structured economies would balk when they felt they were on rails heading into a profession or career that lacked prestige or a high quality of living. Everyone wants to be the company boss, nobody wants to be the guy working the line.
Except Putin’s command economy will exist only to build more yachts for him and his oligarchs.
Hardly. One of the critical impacts of sanctions on the Russian economy have been a deficit of luxury goods. But they’ve got tons of legacy capital from back when they used to make shit and export it to their allies abroad. Russian commercial airlines may become a thing again. Russian automobiles already are. And there’s quite a bit downstream in the economy that’s very lucrative to produce without needing to be larcenous.
The string of wars Putin’s getting his country into makes these kind of industrial centers vital. He doesn’t have the luxury of building yachts.
In Russia we have plenty of single bedroom(they are just called single room) apartments for rent much less than 850. Even in Moscow.
Also don’t be worse than Russia. Please fix.
The old USSR did an excellent job of surveying the future population demands and building housing accordingly. This was called Central Planning and Americans scoffed at it as a thing that couldn’t work, because it didn’t immediately and immensely enrich the landed class.
Then the USSR collapsed, the Russian economy went into a nose dive, and Russia experienced an enormous population contraction as mortality rates and emigration surged. Suddenly, they had more housing stock than they knew what to do with, and even the newly implemented property class couldn’t squeeze people on the scale of your average Trumpy New York / LA / Dallas landleech. So now you’re still wildly overpaying what you’d have spent on housing thirty years ago, and the conditions have only deteriorated since. But you’re still somehow better off than some poor sap living in a Detroit slum or a San Fransisco closet or a Miami favela, paying twice as much.
These conditions aren’t going to last in Russia. But as Putin pivots back to a more command oriented economy (trading out old school soviet internationalism for new school national socialism) it does appear they’re positioned to avoid the American Techbro system of “Everyone must live in the pod and eat the bugs” that we’re currently headed towards.
Indeed. What USSR did really well is housing, healthcare and education. And looked into future. “We need to build school here because 30 years later current kids will have X kids that need to go to school”. Not that it didn’t have own downsides.
I have to agree here for now. Degradation of education system is glaringly obvious. Healthcare in regions too. Housing… slowly deteriorates.
Except Putin’s command economy will exist only to build more yachts for him and his oligarchs.
Not unreasonably, people in these very structured economies would balk when they felt they were on rails heading into a profession or career that lacked prestige or a high quality of living. Everyone wants to be the company boss, nobody wants to be the guy working the line.
Hardly. One of the critical impacts of sanctions on the Russian economy have been a deficit of luxury goods. But they’ve got tons of legacy capital from back when they used to make shit and export it to their allies abroad. Russian commercial airlines may become a thing again. Russian automobiles already are. And there’s quite a bit downstream in the economy that’s very lucrative to produce without needing to be larcenous.
The string of wars Putin’s getting his country into makes these kind of industrial centers vital. He doesn’t have the luxury of building yachts.