THOSE of us who were born on the ruins of the socialist Eastern Bloc know how purpose-built, industrial “monotowns” are meant to look.Rusting steel mills, cracked and potholed roads, weathered sheets of corrugated metal strewn about. Thick smog and poisoned soil. Drunks passed out on the train platform. Emaciated stray dogs. A lone child skipping down the muddy path of a panel-block neighbourhood silenced by demographic blight.
