I think that there is a lot of "the grass is always greener" type of feeling in Eastern Europe. The panel houses are not fundamentally bad places to live, but there is this default feeling, that it is somehow worse than the west. A lot of people in Prague have this feeling that the entire US looks like the New York that they know from the sitcoms.

Those panel houses which have been renovated and their elevators replaced are really nice. All of the buildings are painted different collors and the whole place looks prety idilic. Only real problem for the residents, is that it is hard to rase kids when you have one and a half bedrooms...

Now, Czech culture has become generational. For almost the majorty of my friends, the older generation lives in a panel house. Those are the grandmas and grandpas of my peers. The parents of my peers have bought a newer appartment somewhere else. And they have left the appartment in the panel house to their batchelor children, who like having cheep/free housing to live in till they get married.

However, there are also some massive developments at the edge of the city, where there are 20-30 panel houses, all huge, and no good public transport. The green areas have been replaced with parking lots and anyone who comes close wants to kill themselves.

It is shocking to me, how two buildings built from the same plans, 30 minutes appart, can give such a different impression. One seems like a dream and the other seems like dystopia.