No, they just declared housing to be affordable (in the $20/month ballpark region) and people had to apply 10 years in advance to move to a larger apartment. This is my parent's experience in east Germany, should be similar to Soviet Union.
It was! Also, in early 1990s we had food shortages and long lines in stores for basically everything (in Moscow! things were much worse in the regions), which was a direct result of the government controlling the economy for many years through directives and completely ignoring the basic laws of economy.
Sadly, the examples of economies of Soviet Union, and Cuba, and Venezuela, and North Korea etc. are somehow not sufficient enough for people to realize the danger of such control.
Exactly, it was really good if you happened to live in an appropriate apartment already, but was an absolute nightmare if you wanted to move. The same will happen (to a much lesser extent) in Berlin now.
The curios thing about these anecdotes is that as dysfunctional as somewhere like the Soviet Union was, getting a affordable apartment in only 10 years would be a great deal for many today. In many metro areas property values have increased more the savings from the median income, meaning that the application, or aspiration, of the majority of people is going in reverse.
The apartment was subsidized, but not free. Unless you were a part of Nomenklatura (the ruling class government officials), you could probably hope for a 40 sq.m (430 feet) apartment somewhere in Khruschyovka (a poorly built 5 floors block housing) at the outskirts of your city. After 15 years of hard work.
Perhaps it is better than nothing, however, living in Soviet Union's surrealistic "economy" was not worth that.
> In many metro areas property values have increased more the savings from the median income, meaning that the application, or aspiration, of the majority of people is going in reverse.
That's because a lot of people want to live in cities like Berlin. But don't worry, the Soviet Union had a solution for that, too!
You would get assigned a job by the central committee, based on grades, people you know, who you're married to, things like that. So a lot of people would get assigned to very undesirable places, such as villages or very small cities, thus solving the problem of too many people in large metros. Do you think that's an acceptable tradeoff?
> getting a affordable apartment in only 10 years would be a great deal for many today
I agree, but the same applied for buying a car and other rare goods as well. The whole system was unsustainable. The almost comical dysfunction of it is probably hard to believe if you didn't experience it first hand. 10 years after the wall came down my dad came into the kitchen announcing that today we could have picked up our first car, which was one of those [1], in the late 90s.
That is what is curious. Something comically dysfunctional should be be absurd and outlandish but isn't. Saving 15 years for down payment so you can have some sort of cost control and housing stability in a modest apartment outside of a city is the reality, or even unattainable, for many people without assets today.
