YIMBY Poland 🇵🇱🥟
@YIMBYPoland
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I started this profile because I discovered that, shockingly, in other countries, people are not happy when there's new construction in their neighborhood
San Francisco
Joined June 2021
This article pops up here and there on both leftist and housing Twitter and every time I'm so infuriated by all the wrong tankie takes I decided to write a short thread about housing construction in socialist Poland.
These Soviet-era structures are the housing blocks communism left behind. All were built after World War II to cheaply house the masses in a way that jived with communist ideology: near-identical two- and three-bedroom apartments. 📸: Zupagrafika.
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Do you want to know the real answer? Basically it is: because Poland does everything opposite to the what people like you want:. 1. We fund public transit.2. It’s impossible to get a gun .3. We accept tons of immigrants who clean our cities .4. We have universal healthcare.
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Just a reminder, this thing was first opened in Lublin and Vilnius in 2021 and it operated in these cities without any issues for years. Makes you think what kind of society Dublin and NYC have
Hilarious that they turned off the portal *and* added barriers so people can’t reach the camera. The social experiment is going well
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“We cannot be like Europe with their walkable spaces”. Europe wasn’t like Europe either. Wrocław 1979 and now.
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Obsessed with this Polish Facebook group "idyllic life in the countryside" where some woman recreated that Turkish olympic shooter with a garden hose
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You’ve all heard about people getting Chinese tattoos that say „dumb foreigner” or something similar but it seems Polish Americans do the same with Polish 😅
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@RareNotion Every year since 2016, Poland has been accepting more than half a million immigrants annually
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Crazy story but apparently Vifon, a Vietnamese instant soup manufacturer popular in Poland, advertises in Vietnam by… citing its popularity in Poland. They even use Polish-language packaging, Miss Poland 2022 and Polish consumers’ choice certificate. lol
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I walked 10 min from my apartment in Katowice to the train station and I’m taking a train that’ll take me to downtown Warsaw (180 mi, like Seattle to Portland) in 2h for $35 in peace and quiet. I love America but the lack of trains and high speed rail is such a miss.
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Right after this dance, there is dinner, and after dinner, everyone changes into provocative clothing and dances to rap and techno while getting completely drunk lol . Not to mention free healthcare and college, very welcoming immigration policy, and rapid secularization lol.
This shocking prom video emerging out of Poland might be very disturbing to the progressive Westerners. Viewer discretion advised!
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This is a video from Wrocław, where at least 1 in 8 residents is foreign born. Not sure if this is what Radio Genoa is trying to say here.
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@kferrDC 1.2M foreigners paying towards social security. Not to mention their kids and spouses who don’t work. 1.2M of 37.5M is already more than 2% thought.
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Before and after new rules about outdoor advertisement in Kraków
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@Lib_Development Subway in the U.S. isn’t clean in part at least because medically unwell people like Jordan Neely roam it. In Poland, they get treatment before they get released back into society.
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Gdańsk v. Kaliningrad is a similar story. Both formerly German cities severely destroyed during WW2. Taken over by Poland and Russia respectively. 70 years later, Gdańsk is a blooming metropolis with a meticulously rebuilt old town. Kaliningrad looks like it's in Siberia.
Average neighborhoods in Finland and russia, 10 kilometers apart from each other.
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@mattyglesias If you were born in Karvina in 1910, you were born Austro-Hungarian citizen, started school in Germany, graduated in Czechoslovakia, married in Poland, had your first kid in Germany, had your first grandchild in Czechoslovakia, and died in Czechia. All without leaving Karvina.
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Okay this must be trolling. This is my neighborhood. There is a Żabka on literally every second block. And that's only Żabkas, I'm not counting other chains :D
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Amazed at the pro-Palestine people eating this up. This guy is a pro-Russian, trad-Cath antisemite with like 1% support. He believes Israel is building underground infrastructure to take over Poland and resettle all Israelis there.
Polish Presidential Candidate Grzegorz Braun:. Israel should be considered a terrorist state.
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My post about the market square in Wrocław getting rid of the cars got viral, so I thought people will appreciate a follow-up. Same place, different perspective. 1960s v. now
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@RareNotion Poland has 1.2M immigrants paying into the social security system alone… and that’s not even counting kids and those working on contracts that don’t pay social security.
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@winebox_papi I mean you’re not necessarily wrong but there’s no one Lithuanians hate more than Poles so by your logic they should be making obscene gestures at one another.
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God I hate American commies. In the 70s, my grandpa (head of logistics for a coal mine) got awarded a cruise from Odessa to Batumi. The ship had 1/100th of these amenities, and he still talks about to this day. Meanwhile an American truck driver can afford this thing every year.
Late stage capitalism is so absurdly comical at times. This new cruise ship has: . - 23 restaurants .- 22 bars / clubs .- 7 full sized pools + 9 hot tubs.- Full waterpark .- Rock climbing wall .- Ice skating rink .- Surf simulator .- Golf course .- Basketball court.- Rooms for
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My grandpa grew up without shoes in the summer. My mom grew up wearing hand-me-down clothes send by relatives in Germany. I grew up thinking McDonalds is a treat. My nephew and niece are growing up now and their lives are identical to those of German or British children.
Polish Tiger. When do we start to talk about economic development lessons from Poland?
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Another great street transformation in progress in Katowice. Warsaw street used to be a truly disgusting place, even despite some of the nicest buildings in the city lining its both sides. Now it's going to be green, with wide sidewalks and small architecture.
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Abandoned building turns into high-end apartments in Wrocław
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Lots of people saying “oh they’re just fun”. Seriously? You live in NYC of all places and the largest dopamine boost you can think of is showing your asshole to a rando across the Atlantic? That’s truly depressing. Live a little! Download Tinder.
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"I hate capitalism because it made America so car-centric". meanwhile socialism:
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Kraków is banning large outdoor advertisement (billboards etc.) in most of the city starting tomorrow. You love to see it
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Poland is the number one EU country by new migrant inflows for 8 years straight! We take more migrants than Germany! And it’s not just Ukrainians (although they’re a bit majority). A growing portion comes from India, Colombia, Philippines.
Europe didn't need mass migration. The United States doesn't. Poland doesn't take them in and Poland is doing great.
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I mean these have to be engagement baits… and I fell for it
You can drive 9.5 hrs in North Carolina and still be in North Carolina. The European mind cannot comprehend this.
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After and before in Poznan, Zwierzyniecka St. Poznan is by far the most bike-friendly city in Poland. Great developments there!
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In 1990, Lech Wałęsa’s election slogan was „second Japan in Poland”. At that time, an average Japanese was able to buy 3x as much stuff as an average Pole. Today, there’s virtually no difference. 33 years later, Wałęsa’s promise is Poland’s reality.
This is the best economic measure of living standards we have. EU average is a 100 here, UK would be 107, US 164, Japan 90.
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Poland will simplify immigration for citizens of Ukraine, Saudi, Iran, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey, UAE, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Nigeria and Moldova to accept “at least 400k immigrants a year”.
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@KonstantyKrzem You should tell this to our local gun enthusiasts who complain that getting a gun in Poland is nearly impossible and cite statistics of much higher gun ownership literally everywhere else in Europe.
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I’m in Poland this week and here are some of my observations as someone who has left the country 7 years ago. 1. Progress EVERYWHERE. Warsaw pictured here is an obvious example but I come from a small village that now has so many more amenities than when I was a kid.
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While we are at discussing the superiority of Polish-made buses over the American-made ones, can we discuss the interior layout in American buses which is insane? A few posts --->.
Bucharest is at last getting a new batch of trolleybuses. Solaris eventually won the order for 100 trolleybuses with In Motion Charging. N. American transit advocates note: this vehicle cost about $650k before tax -about half the price US manufacturers would charge. @ChittiMarco
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When I was in Chicago for the first time, I’ve tried to imagine I’m an early 1900s peasant who’s just arrived from rural southeastern Poland and saw this. Minds must’ve been blown.
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I'm bored before my evening call at work so let me do a quick thread on my subjective opinions of Polish cities: . 1. WARSAW. Fantastic city. I used to hate it (as every Silesian should), then I've moved there and fell in love. A true metropolis. Highly recommend, 9/10
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I’m a simple man; a see a tram with historic buildings in the background, I press „like” . (Katowice, photo by Michal Pietruszewski)
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@MaryleeUSA 250k people from Muslim-majority countries accepted under the government who publicly claimed they don’t allow Muslims in.
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By comparison, 40% of housing units in Kraków were built in the last 25 years. Krakow as in the medieval city that’s protected as a UNESCO heritage site.
Literally how is it possible that in San Francisco 71.41% of housing units were built in 1969 or earlier. I know the NIMBY situation there is bad but they continually manage to fall below my already rock bottom expectations.
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Reddit moment: someone asks on r/Socialism_101 “why Eastern Europeans don’t like socialism?” and the answer given is “because of US propaganda” lmao
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Immigrants in Poland now send more money back home than immigrants in the UK. Literally unthinkable 10 years ago.
Migrants in Poland are able to send more money from Poland back home than the migrants in the UK. For the first time in history.
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It's Saturday, so it's time for a thread 🧵 on another Polish urban phenomena - *pasteloza*! . If you have ever been to Poland and some other Eastern Bloc countries, perhaps you've noticed that the socialist-era housing estates in Poland tend to be more. colorful. But why?
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This reminds of a story of when I've first moved to the US (2020). A Korean (born and raised in Korea) colleague of mine has moved to the US a year earlier and I saw her IG story about a racist white Uber driver who dared to ask her about where she's from. 1/.
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One of the craziest thing about Poland is that as a country, we're heavily subsidizing the dying, rural East at the expense of urban areas. Example: this massive freeway in Eastern Poland has lower traffic figures (and forecast) than a regional road in my village in Silesia.
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"It's a normal small talk people do. The two of us literally did that to one another when we first met", I added. She told me that I'm incredibly insensitive and I don't understand racism in America. You've guessed it, she's a Berkeley graduate. 3/3.
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It’s truly fascinating how the current Polish government manages to have an image of staunchly anti-immigration while at the same time making Poland literally the #1 country in terms of accepted immigrants (total, not even per capita) every single year.
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Some crazy stat about construction in Poland and Czechia. Katowice and Ostrava are cities of the same size 1h away from each other. In the 2016-21 period, Ostrava completed 1083 new housing units. In Katowice, more is built every 6 months.
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@e_dot_exe If you don’t have universal healthcare, what is your proposal for dealing with mentally unstable people? Lock them up? Kill them? In Poland and elsewhere, they get treatment and meds and come back to society.
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In fact, Kaliningrad is so bad that when Russian TV did a material of how it's developing despite sanctions, they had to use clips of Elbląg, Poland, instead of the actual Kaliningrad
Czyżby Rosjanie docenili urok polskich miast? 🤔. Na antenie prokremlowskiego kanału telewizyjnego Rossija 1 pojawił się program o rozwoju obwodu królewieckiego. Problem w tym, że materiał zilustrowano ujęciami z. Elbląga 🤷♀️. Źródło: rusnews
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And then the mayor of Warsaw said "Let there be construction" and she saw construction was good and she doubled down on construction.
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Nothing radicalizes you as a YIMBY more than the fact that there is more housing units under construction in this small part of downtown Katowice (285k) than in the entire city of San Francisco (875k).
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The Catholic Church is truly in a free-fall in Poland. Next year, more people will marry outside the church than in the church.
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Poland and California are similar in population. But California chose to ban new housing construction. As a result, Poland builds twice as many new housing units as California, despite being nearly 5x poorer
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I mean this is literally from that party. The song lyrics go as follows:. "This is a barbecue as Gawron's place, the dogs [the police] film it from a drone.Carla is dancing on the table, her ass in my friend's hands.She's fast as Maradona, sweet as coke".
moj bracie w chrystusie pół godziny później studniówka wygląda tak a wszyscy są najebani w 3 dupy
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I posted this already but I'm reposting adding one more view of the same place. It's just absolutely crazy how much better a space can get with just a few little changes. Katowice should do this on more streets in the city center.
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@montes_narayana If this is a challenge, try being white from Poland and explain Americans that no, I don't hate socialism because I'm an imperialist who would like to colonize and enslave non-white people but because a socialist dictatorship did pretty much that to my white ancestors.
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You can now get a hot dog subscription in Poland. Get one hot dog a day for PLN 69 a month (~$16)
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20 years ago, unemployment rate in Poland was at 17.3%, with over 3M people unemployed. Many left the country to find jobs abroad. Today, it's at 5.1%, with merely 850k unemployed. Almost 1M foreigners work in Poland to fill the demand for workers. Truly a remarkable story
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Meanwhile in Poland, you can go to the movie theater, order popcorn and soda, and watch the conservative government finally losing power . Aside from these on the video, a quarter million people are watching the live stream on Youtube right now.
Tymczasem w "Kinotece". (filmik: Michał Marszał IG)
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American NIMBYs: No you can't build new apartments in this historic district of 1930s Sears mail-order catalog homes . Polish YIMBYs: we live in Wrocław, a literally medieval city, and we're extending old buildings and building news ones next to them bc we don't hate our children
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I replied asking why is this a problem, and she said it's because when you ask Asian Americans this question, it implies they're not American. "Ok, but you are NOT Asian American. You have an accent, just like I do, and people also ask me where I'm from", I said. 2/.
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I'm sick and bored today, so let's review skyscrapers under construction in Poland. 1. THE BRIDGE, WARSAW - 174m (571 ft). Yet another office skyscraper in the Rondo Daszyńskiego cluster, which boomed after the new metro line was opened a few years back. Coming in 2025.
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Myth 1: Everyone got free housing in socialism. There are two claims here: everyone got housing and the housing was free. Both are wrong. Let's start with the second one. You absolutely paid for the apartment - and you paid upfront!.
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My favorite thing about SF is that the red areas with tall buildings is where rich/tech ppl live, while the socialists live in the yellow area which is full of SFHs, Victorians and low-rises. Then the socialist complain that housing is expensive in SF because of the rich.
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Wrocław in socialism (1963) v. Wrocław in capitalism (2022)
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It’s 11:41pm on a weekday in Warsaw and the subway comes every 7 minutes and the station is clean. *cries in San Franciscan*
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The Polish dream has come true; we’ve been evicted from Eastern Europe.
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Polish men are either total masc or femboys, there's no in between
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@kevigi I’ve been to Dublin and while I love Irish people in general, I have to say that there’s a large subsegment of Dublin youth that’s absolutely feral and unchecked and indeed, the city can’t have nice things because of them.
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One of the few culture shocks I had after moving to the U.S. was how fixated on restaurants upper middle class people are, at least in San Francisco. It’s all they talk about! If they go to a new city, instead of visiting the museums and walking the streets, they try restaurants.
Bill Maher says something completely inoffensive, that McDonald's is delicious, and his panel acts as if he has just dropped a bombshell piece of information. Part of assimilation into upper middle class norms is to pretend fast food isn't delicious.
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Men only want one thing and it's an urban canyon of dense mid-rises leading to two skyscrapers oh and also there's a high-speed train in the picture too . Katowice, photo by Michał Pietruszewski
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This is pretty funny when you realize that the European highway system is denser and in better condition than the interstate system. Like, European highways have proper collector roads, extensive on-ramps and traffic separation.
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I’m constantly impressed by the massive transformation Łódź is undergoing
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Krupnicza St in Krakow over the years. From chaotic ads and unregulated parking to walkable, elegant, tree-lined street. (From Reddit)
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Original proposal for a residential building in Zamość’s old town (a UNESCO heritage zone) v. what was actually built after local community’s input. I think its’s a very positive change! cc @michael_diamant
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Housing under construction in Poznań: a thread. 1. Modena Jeżyce - infill development in the hip district of Jeżyce, 200 units
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Before and after in the small town of Śrem in Greater Poland (population 28k). Notice the chicane!
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I saw an older dude at the gym today and thought I recognize him somehow. Guys it was Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple lol.
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