From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] Soviet?
Is this really a Soviet or socialist peculiarity? Sounds like modernist urbanism in general to me. Zocky | picture popups 06:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- It is. It's very hard to explain, but it is. The main difference, I guess, is that all these microdisricts were planned and built by the government with no private interference whatsoever. Renata 12:23, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- Soviet Union pioneered many things which are only now embraced by the modernists in the West; the microdistrict model being one of them. Just because the Soviet implementation was flawed and is unsuitable for modern capitalist world in its original form (as Renata mentioned above, there were no private investments) does not mean the whole idea has no merit—modernist urbanism trends illustrate that extremely well. Some modern concepts are indeed quite similar, even though they do not mention "microdistrict" per se. The article, however, is about microdistricts as a very specific phenomenon, not about urbanism trends in general. However, feel free to add a link to an article on modern urbanism which you think would best show the analogy you speak of. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 12:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- I'm still not persuaded. Large residential blocks were built by large construction companies, in the West as well as the East. The precise ownership of such companies is hardly a real differentiatng issue. In both cases, the local authorities provided the planning, and in both cases the governments encouraged the construction of cheap residential housing to different extent at different times. Zocky | picture popups 21:39, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
-
-
- See also New Towns. - FrancisTyers 22:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
- In the West, local authorities provide the planning based on local laws, regulations, policies, procedures, and local politics in general. In the Soviet Union, local authorities had very little control over city planning. A so-called General Plan was devised in Moscow for every Soviet city, outlining the precise borders of industrial, commercial, and residential zones. Some microdistricts (especially the early ones) were very poorly planned because central planners had no idea of local specifics. The ideology behind microdistricts was also different from the ideas of Western urbanists, although, of course, the similarities in general implementation are often striking.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 22:34, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
A solution could be to narrow the scope of the article in the intro. The bulk of the article deals with USSR, and probably the intro should reflect that. Basically, microdistrict seems to be the Soviet implementation of an urbanist approach present in much of the world. As it is now, it's not clear whether the article wants to say that this was an urbanist approach peculiar to socialist countries, or that the Soviet implementation of a common approach was uniformly used in all socialist countries. Neither of those statements is true. Zocky | picture popups 22:07, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
- I browsed through the history and discovered that the original version was explicitly about the Soviet Union, which is quite logical, since the article refers to specific standards which were obviously applicable only inside USSR. I will restore the original intro to make the article logical again. We should link to the implementations in other countries and to the general concept (the English name of which I unfortunately do not know, but I know it was first developed in Vienna after WWI). Zocky | picture popups 22:30, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
- (after edit conflict) It was my intent to write about Soviet implementation only. The intro was tweaked by other editors to make a note of China and Warsaw Pact countries; unfortunately those editors did not provide any further details. Ideally, there should be a section for each country that utilized microdistricts model, describing the differences. I myself may add a section comparing Soviet urban planning with Western urbanism trends, but I cannot promise when it's going to happen. If someone beats me to it, I won't complain :) You may also want to check out the references and the external link provided in the article for more information—Michael Gentile's work, for example, has a lot on the topic of urbanism/disurbanism and the Soviet interpretation.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 22:34, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
- The urbanist decision-making was concentrated at different levels at different times in many countries, so that's still not a real peculiarity and it's not a defining feature of the model, at least as far as urbanism is concerned. There are certainly political dimensions, but they should probably be dealt with in the general article about the phenomenon (which is common at least throughout Europe). But my real problem with extending this article beyond USSR is the name - "microdistrict" seems to be a particular Soviet term, based on specific standards. Does anybody know the correct English term for a "semi-self-contained block of residential housing with basic communal services and often representing a unit of local autonomy"? Zocky | picture popups 22:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Add sample addresses
Add some sample house addresses etc. --User:Jidanni 2006-07-12
- What purpose would that serve? Sample addresses might be of some use in an article about addresses in Russia, but there is nothing all that special about addresses in microdistricts. On an unrelated note, there is a sample address in the selsoviet article.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 01:37, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
