Some form of large-scale and high-rise public or social housing estates exist in most of the major cities around the world. Their characteristics are different in many regions, and sometimes drastically different within a region, sometimes depending on from where certain influences have come. In some areas, there are even subtle differences and unique designs occurring in different regions of the same nation. This will be a multi-part series on so-called “commieblocks”, so named for their prevalence in the SSSR and nations in their sphere of influence. To some extent, they have evolved independently in many places around the world for the same purpose – to provide cheap but relatively high-standard housing to the masses. They are rarely built to this day with a few exceptions; in Russia, Japan, Turkey and Hong Kong, new estates are still going up. In the west, the concept and design of those buildings have become considered as discredited by social problems most clearly illustrated in the United States.
United States
In the United States, the city of most interest regarding housing estates is obviously New York City. The New York City Housing Authority has a great number of housing estates of some size, providing some 8% of the city’s flats and homes. As is to be expected from a country like the U.S. , the NYCHA is underfunded and delegated to managing by the best of its abilities an aging housing stock in dire need of renovation. Most of the housing estates were built during the 1950’s and 60’s, with the help of Robert Moses, a man who has been insulted in such rubbish books such as “The Power Broker” by Robert Caro, a piece of character assassination blaming motorway construction rather than other social factors for the decay of inner city New York.
The housing estates of New York are generally speaking of a poor standard, even when ignoring their poorly kept status. Often they were built on the cheap. In many of the older towers, there are no balconies. An interesting design is featured on the Luna Park Houses in Coney Island, next to the old Coney Island Amusement Park (what’s left of it) and on the site of the old Luna Park site. Built in 1959-1961, the 23 story towers feature a central elevator tower surrounded by an open space that serves the purpose of hall and a communal balcony. The flats are arranged in four wings connected to the communal balcony and elevator tower in the middle. The areas around the towers consist of lawns and trees, playgrounds and various recreational facilities. A metro station is found in the south of the estate, the West 8th Street – New York Aquarium station. There are five towers in the estate. They were also featured in the videogame GTA IV as the “Firefly Projects”, though significantly scaled down.
Close by is also the Peter Warbasse Houses, consisting of 5 more conventional but nevertheless interesting and in the New York area unique design. Also of some note in the Coney Island area are the Sea Rise Apartments, a greyish white brutalist complex of buildings of varying heights, to some extent reminding of classics such as the Trellick & Balfron Tower’s in London. Most housing estates in New York City have brownstone and brick façades, but the Sea Rise Apartments offer a pleasant change from this with stark grey concrete and curious alignment of building components, as well as an ornamental treatment of the façades themselves. The estate was completed in 1974 and has three tall sections of each 24 stories. Elevators for the complex are provided in elevator towers external to the main building bodies, clinging to them like ladders.
Of further interest in the area are (in Brooklyn): the Linden Plaza Houses (built over a metro yard) in East New York the many estates of Brownsville, Brooklyn, the Tompkins Houses and the Lindsay Park Houses (22 stories and with renovated balconies), the Bushwick Houses, and many more. Of special interest in the Bronx are the curious Morrisania Air Rights, a large complex of three towers with some brutalist ornamentation, tallest one being 29 stories and completed in 1980, the Concourse Village Apartments, six towers of 25 stories each in a more traditional commieblock design, completed 1963-64. Along the East River of Manhattan all the way up to the Trans-Manhattan Expressway, plentiful wonderful housing estates can be found, particularly the wonderful 27 and 26-story Esplanade Garden Cooperative complex deserves mention, found between 145th and 147th streets and 7th and Lenox Avenue, next to the Lenox yard of the New York Metro.
Last but not least deserving of a mention is the wonderful estate of Co-Op City, featuring wonderful towers in a nice park-setting on the outskirts of Bronx in Baychester. 
Housing estates do exist elsewhere, but they have typically been demolished, as in the case of Pruitt-Igoe and many of the estates in Chicago (Robert Taylor Homes, Cabrini Green) and replaced by the incompetent and fail Chicago Housing Authority with hideous so called “mixed-income developments” or exclusively more up scale housing.
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