Talk:Urban planning in communist countries

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The main problem with 'sistematisation' was that the new blocks of flats were built in the "hei-rup" style (or in the officially-then/ironically-now called "socialist contest" - the attept to complete the "cincinal" (five years plan) in less than 5 years. Year after year it was demanded that work must be done faster and faster and with less and less material, all that without a practical approach, just for propaganda. Of course that very quickly all posible invention were done and then the result were false reports. That meant blocks with resistence strucure and front part done and little else (no plumbing, no doors etc).

Just wanted to thank Mihnea Tudoreanu for NPOV'ing an article I wrote on a topic where it was hard for me to be neutral. Sometimes I need editing. -- Jmabel 17:23, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

You're welcome. :) Mihnea Tudoreanu

Probably not quite important enough to cite in the article, but here is a January 1989 letter in New York Review of Books protesting systematization: [1]. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:21, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Slang

Are these called something like Matchboxes (Cutie de chibrituri) in slang? - FrancisTyers 08:55, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes. :-) bogdan 09:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Strenuous objection

I strenuously object to the move with no prior consultation (and not even the decency to inform me as the primary author of the article) of the Romania-specific Systematization article (Systematization (Romania)) to this more general title and the mixing in of material related to other countries. The move was then followed by prod'ing the old title (which I have reverted) on the dubious basis that a word with over 600,000 Google hits "does not exist".

As the 600,000 G-hits attest, "systematization" is a perfectly good English word. As for whether it is used with reference to Ceauşescu's urban planning schemes, here are some immediately available online references:

User:Afil, you have stated that the word "doesn't exist" and that I "don't know how to translate into English." Unless you wish to extend your criticism to, among others, the Library of Congress, the Encyclopædia Britannica, and the New York Review of Books, you would do well to withdraw it. And I suggest that the next time you accuse another contributor of incompetence, you might make some effort first to deterimine whether they might, in fact, be correct. - Jmabel | Talk 20:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Afil has apparently chosen not to respond here, responding instead on my talk page, where he again asserts that this word does not have this meaning in English and says that "I don't think that there is any point in carrying out this discussion." - Jmabel | Talk 21:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify:

  1. It is possible that this move was correct, but moving a longstanding article without some sort of prior discussion is unusual to say the least.
  2. I am absolutely steaming mad at the claim that this is a matter of my not knowing how to do translation, especially given that the evidence above strongly suggests that I was not even wrong, let alone incompetent.

-- Jmabel | Talk 21:05, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

To be blunt, I think it was Afil's move that showed incompetence (and arrogance). I also think that his new principles for what the article ought to be about, his poorly-phrased and hopelessly POV additions to the text, and his failure to provide sources all confirm the suspicion. Dahn 21:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Jmabel, I feel you should call the article like the Encyclopedia Britannica: Village systematization in Communist Romania. Dpotop 12:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd have no problem if the topic were that narrow, but the focus also included the cities. Bucharest is not a village. I would have no problem with Systematization in Communist Romania; the previous title was Systematization (Romania). - Jmabel | Talk 20:52, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
It is strange how this morphed into something broader before it seems that a broadening was taking place in the original article. It would be wonderful to have a page on urban planning in communist countries, as the ways in which urban planning was undertaken in such diverse cities as Moscow, Leningrad, East Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Bucharest, Pyongyang, Havana, Tirana, Tblisi and Beijing. A fascinating article could arise on the theories and results, as well as the economic, architectural, environmental, cultural and industrial impact they had -- then the huge undoing necessary by post-communist urban planners undertaken differently or similarly in many of them -- and the comparisons to similar-scaled modern urban planning done in places like New York (esp under Robert Moses), Tokyo (post war), London, etc., and contrasts to the impact of miserable lack of urban planning in cities under arguably leftist or statist regimes during their biggest growth periods, like Bombay, Delhi, Sao Paulo and Mexico City. See where an article with the current title needs to go? That ain't this article, folks. I support switching it back to the more narrow title referring to Systemization in Communist Romania or similar. And the switcher should start a new one and stub info from this one into it, and keep the Moscow stuff and move outward from there. NYDCSP 18:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)