Years of Poland in the EU - assessment of pros and cons

Sorry, you need to be more precise next time because nobody knew it. We were talking about communist "slums" with Milo and suddenly you wrote that the ones built before 1960s were the worst. How should anyone know what you meant? :)

I wanted to write a few more things but looking through the posts I can see that they have been already mentioned by mafketis, Lenka, Kaprys and I generally agree with them.


Yes, but Britain wasn`t destroyed during WW2 as Poland. Fulfilling the housing needs in urban areas has always been a challenge here, since WW2.


Easy, easy. Poland`s detached house population is 55% while British 85%. But in Germany, Spain, Italy, Switerland over 50% people live in flats so Poland isn`t so backward as you suggest.

I am not suggesting that Poland is backward.
I am well aware of how many people in Western Europe live in flats.
My point is that it is not good, not healthy and not desirable.
Poland is a huge country for only 38 million people.
Time to get building houses.

Not another one...
The fact that it's your prefered British way doesn't mean everybody wants to live that way. I personally find British architecture completely impractical. Houses the size of flats or smaller but with stairs taking a lot of space and no benefit of isolation as most houses are built without any cellar, just on the ground level. Is the 'garden' is supposed to make up for all that ? Not everyone would agree.

OK, now I know what you meant. Some people will always prefer to live in apartment blocksm though. My GP loves talking to his patients about matters unrelated to their disorders, so I recently learnt he sticks to his flat because he doesn`t have time to take care of the house - e.g, repairs, heating duties, taxes.

PS. I wonder if we haven`t gone off topic too much.

How about getting back on the track?

One thing about the EU might be looked upon both as an advantage or drawback. I mean the rising price of CO 2 emission allowances. When they cost 5 euros per ton, it was OK. Now, due to European Commission`s pressure, the price is over 20 and this leads to rising price of energy in Poland which largely depends on coal burning.

So, what is the double nature of the CO2 allowance trading system? On the one hand, it presses power plants and energy suppliers to reduce their dependence on coal which heavily contributes to air pollution in Poland. On the other hand, nobody likes paying more than before. The rise has been four-fold within a year and it is not the end.

ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets_en

Only the new builds.
They are terrible.
Houses built in the twenties and thirties are perfect.
Who needs a cellar when you have a fridge?


I am sure you are right, but I can't for the life of me understand why.

There is no concern


Dear oh dear. South catholic coal blighted Katowice The only reason people still live there is:
a) Work in the local coal mine, and that's dying fast.
b) It's cheap. And families can't escape, or through miner heritage pride, don't wish to.
My view is that a lot of buildings should be condemned (maybe not there, but whole swathes of Chorzow stary, Bytom, Swietoclowice.....) You don't ask the population to move - you legislate for them to move. The buildings are slums according to WHO guidelines. Nothing to preserve; they're not even historically old.

AS for Nikiszowiec....those flats are not healthy though and nobody would wish to live there through choice so please stop lauding such places as something to be proud of. I have 2 or 3 books and DVDs of Nikiszowiec and Giszowiec - both areas are tatty and poverty stricken to put it mildly and who is going to pour money into a historic housing scheme of what are now basically slums.The first named properties were amazing homes for the miner of the 1920s, who for the first time had the marital bedroom, and also a separate room for his children, as well as bathrooms for some. But for today? Even the second named, which was a garden suburb of self sustainability in the 1920s when it was built is now surrounded by miner co-operative blocks and is just another urban blight.

Clear the bloody lot, and start again. Kazimerz Kutz and others live in a museum like world, but in the meantime,in todays# world of cost cutting and public accountabilitym a working class hero is not something to be.

Brawo! I've long since stopped expecting leftists to care about the human wreckage their policies cause... at least you're honest about it!

To the streets with all of them! Better homelessness than housing that doug disapproves of!


Again, points for honesty! The left sides with capital over the working class now, every. single. time.

@Dougpol1
Luckily, it's not for you to decide what parts of the past are to be preserved. Personally, I think it's great there are places we call skansen in Polish which show how people lived in the past.

Also, who knows? Perhaps one day they'll want to remake Billy Elliot in Bytom.

As for poverty stricken areas in Poland and elsewhere, I doubt we are the very last.

There are lots of places that have been renovated thanks to EU funds but the reality is that the funds don't cover all the costs.

There's no excuse for it in 2019 kaprys. Government should be held to account ( probably they just pay the fines - taxpayers' money is cheap) Of course you need to retain core centres of old mining towns - but not kilometre after kilometre after kilometre of busy roadside bloody buildings from the early 1900s that no-one in their right mind would rent.

They are not fit for purpose, and in any real democracy regeneration or return to brown field, ultimately to greenery, is what should be happening. Enforced by legislation too.



I thought I made it clear I was referring to successive Polish governments, who simply pass the inner city housing probelm to the next administration, and act as though the widespread slums don't exist. It is they for whom "There is no concern."

And who exactly is going to pay for the millions of people living in bloki? You think pis costs a lot the cost to condemn, destroy and rehouse everyone would be exponentially more.

Maybe the EU can pay for it. They've already given Poland billions, why not a few dozen more?

Kamieniczy...

First off it's kamienicy not kamieniczy, and kamienicy refers to the the buildings in city squares which are extremely expensive with many in wroclaw plus going for 7 figures plus. They are historical buildings most of which have been rebuilt after ww2 according to old photos, blueprints etc especially in warsaw

These kamienicy definitely need to be condemned...

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There are lots of kamienice which are in a terrible conditions but again it's mostly because of property issues.
Also I don't think it's the government who deals with mieszkania socjalne but samorządy and they don't have enough money.
And let's face it, it's not only a Polish problem. It happens elsewhere, too.

It depends. Some are owned by corps/llcs, others by associations, but almost never by government. Some old dilapidated buildings are at the very bottom of polish peoples and governments list of concerns.

Yes.

Dougpol
No need to hurry. When the man hurries, the devil rejoices- remember that old saying. Or - when suddenly done, it is satanic plan! :):)

Gradually, the renovation process will also comprise those dilapidated zones. When communism fell, they started to renovate cities from their centres like Market Squares. Dirk `s photo of Wrocław`s Market Square shows the difference between now and then. Soon, all the cities and towns will look like that. It doesn`t matter if it takes 10 or 20 years`s time, but it is going to happen with the rising prosperity of the nation and country. Poles certainly want to live in decent conditions, but such serious changes must take time and be gradual. Why are you so impatient??? :):)

Wrocław then and now - southern side of the Market Square. I could show such photos from each Polish city but Dirk started with Wrocław, so let it be.

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  Communist times
  
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It's the same buildings.... Just updated

Considering it costs 30k z's a month plus to rent a tiny commercial space on the ground floor you bet they'll be renovated without the government telling them to since the market will.

There are some whole towns made iup of decrepit kamienicy - Grudziaz, Chorzow, Pabianice etc - it will decades to fix them

It is funny, this thread started out with people defending, or in denial of the fact that Poland has many homes that are frankly, not fit for purpose.

And it has gradually switched to an acceptance of a problem.
Sure, it won't be cured overnight but Poles need to admit that there is a problem.
Without that admittance, nothing will ever be done to cure the problem.

Don`t be silly again, nobody accepts the problem, we only reject the revolutionary way of dealing with it proposed by Dougpol and supported by you.

Polish people are well aware that there are problems with housing, but the solution is not to turn the country into an imitation of the UK with English crackerboxes... next your're going to complain about the electric outlets and mixed hot-cold water faucets...

Things are also far, far, far better than 20 years ago (I see improvements unlike some old misery addicts who just like to moan and complain) and there's no reason to believe the problems won't be addressed as living standards rise. But it will never resemble the UK in terms of housing because people's priorities are different. It will probably be more like Germany...

Off you go again!
You just can't help it, can you?
I don't think I or Doug were proposing anything "revolutionary", just that the problem needed to be addressed.
I think you may have a problem comprehending the tone of British speech.
Which, in your defence, can sometimes be a little "bombastic".

doug just keeps yammering on about how thousands upon thousands of people in Silesia need to be made homeless.... sounds pretty revolutionary to me.


is that a british thing? harry (rip?) always used to drone on and on about people's 'reading comprehension'... if people don't understand you then you're not writing clearly enough.

I think I am, perhaps people don't choose to understand me.
As for Doug, he is perfectly capable of defending himself.
I don't for one minute believe that a left leaning person like Doug would want to make people homeless.
And neither would a right leaning guy like me.

statista.com/chart/18794/net-contributors-to-eu-budget/

Wow, Polish politicians are pretty good ::

They were pretty good when PO made the government. Now, with PiS in the government, Poland will get much less money. And I don`t take into consideration the loss of British contribution.

Poles are wise. They will find way to escape from EU. No amount of milk can`t compensate for all excrement that flow onto Poland from EU.

Thanks for reminding us about milk. For 30 years, until 2015, the EU imposed limits on milk production. Polish farmers also complained about it and feared exceeding the quotas. Fortunately, the restrictions are not supposed to come back.

natemat.pl/114925,unia-polscy-rolnicy-sprzedali-za-duzo-mleka-wiec-zaplaca-kare-900-mln-zlotych-kolejny-bzdurny-przepis-ue

Well, the Polish politicians who negotiated the last budget were. If the rumors are true, then the amount of money allocated for Poland will be reduced significantly, thanka to the PiS politicians.

as far as I know the budget draft includes very similar cuts in the funds Germany receives - would you call Mrs Merkel a failure then - btw it is not rumours - there is a draft of the EU budget by the EU Comission already proposed for negotiantions - negations are still ahead of us


very similar percentage-wise

No, because the German government pledged earlier than any other country that it would help to fill the hole in the budget left by Brexit. Poland however did no such thing.