Last time I was in Odesa, the shelter (which was our underground parking garage) had maybe 20-30 people each night. At the time, russia was firing cruise missiles and drones at the city literally every night.

I suspect the future reconstruction effort is going to involve quite a lot more investment in underground shelters. I don't think Ukraine is going to trust russia for at least the next 100 years. Similar situation to Finland.

Germany will finance it you will see

No one goes to shelters in Kharkov, the alarm can go on for 12 hours at a time.

The missile flies for 40 seconds, the alarm usually goes off after the explosion.

If you believe that building more housing is a solution to the housing crisis, then building large blocks of flats from prefabricates should seem like an attractive option.

You can build cheaply and efficiently because of economy of scale, and with large scale planning, entire settlements can pop up within 10 years complete with public transport, and amenities.

It really doesn’t have to look bad either. With modern materials, a bit of ornamentation, and greenery it can be a great place to live for hundreds of millions of people.

Oh god, anything but a country cottage!

Gotta love how in one conversation, Americans will be mocked for living in "cheap McMansions". Then in another, Americans will be mocked for having small houses. Mocked for being rural. Mocked for being suburban. Only urban apartment dwelling bus riders are spared, but even then they are called substandard.

> I grew up in a panel block, now live in a more recent building and my general impression is that while their build quality left much to be desired, I had no complaints about walkability. I could go to school, the clinic, the dentist or post office without crossing a road - only streets with heavily restricted traffic. Almost all parking spots were in a ring around my superblock.

Very few people had cars when these houses were built, so parking and car-friendliness wasn’t obviously a priority. With the number of cars these days we have major issues with parking and emergency service accessibility around commie blocks.