It would appear that the Marzahn area of Berlin is very
similar to the new development Harbour Landing in Regina in several ways. Those
mainly being that there are green spaces such as parks, doctors and shopping
all in the same area as the housing developments in both locations. However the
focus of this field question is to identify the differences of these locations.
To me there are a few that stand out right away. The first being that the
housing in the Marzahn area is all high rise apartments that were fully
furnished, ready to live in right away places. In Harbour Landing this is not
so much the case. Here most of the housing is single houses or duplexes, that
are not fully furnished and ready to live in unless you win a home lottery.
There are also some condominium complexes as well, again not ready to live in.
Second, the Marzahn buildings were built in a short amount
of time (90-120 days). In Harbour Landing this is not the same, here
construction can take minimum 6 months to finish one home for one family.
Definitely not as efficient as in Marzahn. A third difference would be that Marzahn
has some schools in the close vicinity of the area that we visited, according
to google maps there are 3 about 5 minutes walking distance from the market we
saw. In Harbour Landing however, there are no schools in the new development
area. Children would have to be bussed to the closest school. This is by no
means the only differences between the two locations, this is simply the tip of
the iceberg.
4 comments:
Do you think the potential addition of a school/seniors home combination would help Habour Landing have a greater sense of community like Marzahn?
I'm curious where it says they were fully furnished. Rubin's article explains that families were influenced on what to buy to furnish their houses through a combination of social and policy influences and that there was very little choice of where people could go to buy furniture (p.39). But that they came empty and new arrivals often had little to fill them at first since they moved from much smaller apartments (p.37).
Taya is right, The East German 'Plattenbau' was equipped with kitchens and bathrooms but nothing else (ie. apartment were not fully furnished). People still had to buy their own furniture. Designers had been tasked with designing furniture that fit the dimensions perfectly. It was still hard to get all you needed due to the slow production of furniture for the thousands of families that moved to housing developments such as Berlin Marzahn (and other areas in Berlin and of the GDR).
Jaret, I think that Harbour Landing does need a school and a seniors complex. It would make the area even more attractive than it already is. And I know that now there are lots of finished houses in this area sitting empty, so maybe if a school was proposed this would help to fill them.
As for the apartments I misunderstood. So since designers had to come up with special furniture for them are they still producing this for them now?
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