Urban planning in the Soviet Bloc countries during the Cold War era was dictated by ideological, political, social as well as economic motives.

Most socialist systems exercised a form of centrally controlled development and simplified methods of construction already outlined in the Soviet guidelines at the end of the Stalinist period.

The communist planning resulted in the virtually identical city blocks being erected across many nations, even if there were differences in the specifics between each country.

The housing developments generally feature tower blocks in park-like settings, standardized and mass-produced using structural insulated panels within a short period of time.

The Stalin Allee (subsequently named Karl-Marx-Allee) in East Berlin was also flanked by buildings having the same Stalinist style, though their concept was different from the Moscow high-rises.

A more recent example was the Demolition of historical parts of Bucharest by Nicolae Ceauşescu who aimed to rebuild the capital in a socialist realist style.

In other cases, the Soviets preserved historic structures and attempted to erase their non-Soviet significance; instead, they focused on aesthetics and perceived beauty.

As a result, most communist countries adopted the solution used in the USSR which included strict limits on the living space to which each person was entitled.

These trends of the early post-war years were just a sign of what was to follow in the next decades when the constraints of the reconstruction had been overcome and development was undertaken on a much greater scale.

The development of new neighborhoods in order to extend the housing capacity of cities required an extensive urban planning effort.

Even more disparaging, significant developments in the quality of life for the villages of the European west greatly surpassed those in the communist east (the majority of which only had electricity).

In the Soviet Union, this policy came about through the systematic construction of urban types of residences, mainly multi-story modern apartment blocks, built on the idea that these buildings could provide a degree of comfort that which the older peasant houses could not.

The mildest consequence was the village could be slated for reduction of services, given a timely notice of demolition, or the workers were asked voluntarily to leave.

In time, large-scale demolitions and enormous reconstruction projects of hamlets, villages, towns, and cities, in whole or in part, began to take shape.

The demolition campaign erased many monuments including 3 monasteries, 20 churches, 3 synagogues, 3 hospitals, 2 theaters and a noted Art Deco sports stadium.

There are no suburbs in Pyongyang as the government's city planning policies substitute lower density suburban expansion for high rise residential development in central areas.

The development of urban planning in the People's Republic of China (PRC) demonstrates a unique approach with Chinese characteristics.

[9] These policies influenced China's urban planning significantly and at the same time were clearly defined by the main direction of the state – centralised economic and industrial development.

[6] In this period, vast physical development projects such as industrial bases, community facilities and housing for workers were established to achieve national needs and goals.

For example, Mao Zedong allowed Beijing's city walls to be demolished despite their historical significance in order to make room for other uses.

[6] However, due to the severe limitations of fiscal and labor resources, the first priority of urban planning was given to utopian socialist principles and then the second place to people's livelihood.

Thus, giving little attention to the establishment of residential amenities and facilities, there were significant social and physical imbalances resulting in urban development.

[7] For instance, in the historic hutong neighborhoods in Beijing, courtyards were routinely replaced with new residential structures in order to accommodate more residents.

The purpose of setting up a commune, seen as a sub-community within cities, was to spread industrial values from urban to rural areas so that eventually the urban-rural gap would be eliminated.

Post-WWII SFR Yugoslavia followed in line with the earlier urbanist experiments of the Soviet Union, and often delved in urban planning projects.

The project was started by the mayor of Zagreb, Većeslav Holjevac, as there was a large expanse of empty and undeveloped land south of the Sava river.

The first complete solution for habitation with public and commercial contents was made for the neighborhood Trnsko by urbanists Zdenko Kolacio, Mirko Maretić and Josip Uhlik with horticulturist Mira Wenzler-Halambek in 1959–1960.

[14] The project was lauded as a great success, the district being known for its large amounts of foliage and recreational areas, including parks, museums and sports fields.

A lot of care also went into building a modernized and efficient system of transportation and mass transit, such as tram and bus lines which were built by 1979.

Lauding a typical Eastern bloc architectural style, it was designed to house a large capacity of residents, as the construction of the area was in part driven by the need for workforce to fuel the Zagreb industrialization projects recently put in motion.