I remember a very quiet little town, with pleasant residential areas with public parks and industrial plants at the edge of the city; difficult to imagine large scale urban violence in such a setting; still... Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
Tisza- (ex Sztálin)újváros was built anew on the fields next to a village in the early fifties as a Socialist 'model city', so it has nothing to do with regional city plan and arrchitecture traditions. On the other hand, due to WWII or bad construction or government programmes, other cities and big villages lost much of their older architecture, too, to be replaced by what I guess to be similar 'socialist' architecture, only less flashy.
Additionally, I ask: when have you been to Tiszaújváros? Because, even if I wasn't there, there is the issue that not many of the areas with concrete apartment blocks in the former Eastern Bloc have changed for the better since 1989... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Actually, I messed up completely. Sztálinváros was the other model city, called Dunaújváros today (it's on the Danube). Tiszaújváros was Leninváros ( = Lenin city), but only from 1970, until when it shared the name of the nearby village (Tiszaszederkény). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
And yes, from my recollection (only spent a couple of nights there -- days at the factory), it really looks like a planned community from the 1970's, with its checkerboard street patterns, small apartment buildings and public gardens, plus a couple of factories from multinational companies at the outskirts that provide employment to a large part of the population, I suppose.
So I guess this kind of towns may be the exception rather than the rule in the region that you described as rather impoverished. Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
As for the impoverishment, that is the result of the collapse of heavy industry (and Western private investors focusing their mone in the Western parts and big cities) -- Tiszaújváros was relatively lucky to keep one big industry. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
