Not really true - there are plenty of buildings for the common folk from say 1920-1950, large apartment complexes where your middle class people would live. They aren't grandiose but the level of attention to detail, design and fitting into the landscape is unmatched by anything from the Communist era. I'll dig up some example photos when I get home.
The real problem is how uninspired everything from the Communist era is - dirty industrial buildings, concrete slabs randomly thrown all over the place, built with terrible quality control.
It really feels like it went from being a part of the civilized world (it was an important natural port for a long time in history for Austria) to a depressing city of old poor people slowly dying away - and there is so much potential there - the coastline is beautiful (industrial pollution can be cleaned up since the industry is also mostly dead), on a river bed and sunk in between hills (next to Opatija which was a summer place for monarchs). It has all hallmarks of a city and could be turned into an amazing place to live - but the people and the mentality left over from communism just make this impossible - there aren't enough quality people.
The real problem is how uninspired everything from the Communist era is - dirty industrial buildings, concrete slabs randomly thrown all over the place, built with terrible quality control.
It really feels like it went from being a part of the civilized world (it was an important natural port for a long time in history for Austria) to a depressing city of old poor people slowly dying away - and there is so much potential there - the coastline is beautiful (industrial pollution can be cleaned up since the industry is also mostly dead), on a river bed and sunk in between hills (next to Opatija which was a summer place for monarchs). It has all hallmarks of a city and could be turned into an amazing place to live - but the people and the mentality left over from communism just make this impossible - there aren't enough quality people.