How Athens Became a Modern Metropolis

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The problem of Athens isn't the polykatikies but the general state of the urban environment. By that I mean, the quality of communal spaces (pavements, road infrastructure, bike infrastructure) the lack of maintenance of both the buildings and spaces and of course the lack of basic hygiene.

I once told an English friend that I hate Athens because it is ugly, he replied that he loves Athens because it is "honest"...which struck me as a very interesting description.

The fact that commercial and residential areas are mixed and not seperate makes greek cities very lively and it’s a great concept!

"Why do Athenians hate Athens?" I really don't want to come off as condescending, but I see the same attitude in many passerbys that have this removed, academic interest in this topic, and this romanticized idea of a city, divorced from its lived reality as an inhabitant. You can interview a lot of bon viveurs, urbanites, or professors, basically high-middle to high class citizens that will say the situation is not really this bad. Well, to understand their point of view, you need to see the polykatoikia as the scale model of social inequality that it is. When it pours, the top floor tenants can enjoy a hot chocolate inside, an almost impressionistic view of the city in the haze, through a window adorned by shiny raindrops. Meanwhile the basement dwellers fear an imminent flood, due to the terrible infastructure, that will turn their possessions into moldy trash and their spaces into even more putrid catacombs. You can take thee bus to the sea, yes. You will also suffer through endless traffic in the hot sun, to reach a riviera infested with private beaches that cut off a lot of working class people with their entrance fees, and of course terribly polluted water. And enjoying the view of dilapidated buildings is not quite the same as living in them, where absent soundproofing and faulty construction make the entire place a noisy (and quite cold in the winter), space. Soaring rents don't make it any more romantic either. Having immigrants live in the darkest recesses of these structures or in lower income areas is not an element of cultural pluralism, its just another layer of cement that keeps them out of sight and out of mind so the more xenophobic parts of our society can feel at ease. You can't really feel this guttural disgust for the mess that is Athens if you haven't sufficiently tripped on its wrecked pavements, slipped on its time-eaten marbles, woken up to the smell of fresh sewage in your hot, street level apartment, seen the corpses of hundreds of neoclassicals that await to become banks and Zara outlets instead of housing the poor and homeless, and I could go on.

Ok, I think this is my first comment ever on youtube. I just moved to Athens after years all over the world, including NYC, Shanghai and Dubai. It's an overwhelmingly ugly city that is full of beauty. You captured it so well. There's a story about dog and cat cities - a dog city being a place like Amsterdam - it comes to you. A cat city being a place like Athens (or Beirut or Tehran)....you need to explore and see the beauty. Athens is full of life, love, culture, & energy. There's ugliness everywhere. There's beauty everywhere. You just have to look. Love Athens.

I lived in Athens for four years back in the '90's, and have very fond memories. I fell in love with the city. Hidden alleyways, with cafes, bars and nightclubs. Charming neighborhoods, very livable, and always a bakery, a periptero ( a newsstand, but much more), a bakaliko and kafeneio always close by. My biggest complaint was its people who often didn't show much pride in the city and dumped garbage everywhere. Greeks I found very anarchic, never obeying rules.

I'm watching while tears coming from my eyes. God.... I missed Athens so much. Athens: Ugly at first sight and so lovely and beautiful after you getting know it. Ariel my friend, your approach is also so unique. So simple and so pure at the same time. Talking with the locals with such a friendly conversation. And they are opening their hearts... I don't have another word to discribe it. done again my friend!!!

I'm Greek and my wife's Japanese. I used to dread visiting Athens as a child, but seeing my wife's unfiltered love for Athens (and Greece in general) and asking me to visit whenever we can, I learned to appreciate the small things in this city. The small cafes and mom-and-pop stores in Plaka, Anafiotika, Thiseio, Koukaki etc, young and old people making the most of what they have with a smile on their face, always open for banter etc. I've lived in so many countries in my life so far, but every time I come back to Athens, I feel at home. Even though I know it's a piece of crap of a city, it's my piece of crap and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I can understand why Athenians may dislike the polykatokias. But as an outsider it does have so much more character than the apartments I see built in my city in the US. It's less cold and distant, it has an inviting feeling. I also think it actually does look incredibly nice. Of course this is just an outsiders perspective

I have beautiful memories of Athens in 1992 .Spent 15 days in the city, riding a 200 CC Vespa . Trafic was anarchic, the air was suffocating, streets were dirty, and many buildings were decaying. But, gosh, how i felt alive....I was where everything is born.

As a former resident of Athens center, that is when I was in my 20s and it was the 1990s, and the center was not so renovated as now, I did not care much of the architecture. I liked the way people meet in the same block and neighborhood: students, intellectuals and uneducated, young and old, rich and poor, even drivers and pedestrians. I could see my society in a glance, not just my community. This video brought me the insight I never thought for myself, and that's brilliant (and congratulations for). That time, Athens center was even more vibrant in this sense and I was a young man and I wanted to know people and things. Now as I grow older, I realize Athens is mostly impractical. You have to go to places, and that's not quick, there are still a lot to be done for public transport. You have to work and you commute, and that's expensive in time and money. You have to raise children and you have to feel they are safe; you cannot just keep them at home playing video games, neither you should expose them to dangers on the streets. There is the pedestrian warfare, people and vehicles cramped. It is not impossible to grow up in Athens, the contrary, but it is as difficult, and I notice "city people" becoming more individualistic. Athens made it because water, electricity, sewage, internet and the urban facilities made it in quality. That was a miracle. But fuel, energy and maintenance of infrastructure are costly considerations. So, Athens may not be ugly and appear mesmerizing to the visitor. But residents have a point of being not satisfied in comparison to a planned architecture.

In 2019 I had the privilege to live in Athens and I loved every bit of it. Even tho I had a very small salary, I had the best time of my life. The buildings, the atmosphere, everything. I lived in Voula and Agia Varvara and the most beautiful part is that I met the love of my life which I’m still together with. So I’m forever grateful to Athens and it has a special place in my heart.

You left the fact that Athens has really bad infrastructure. In the 19th century, people didn't want to give a part of their land to the state in exchange for money, to create bigger roads and bigger pavements. The city centre ( the non touristic parts, so real Athens, not Plaka, or Akropolis or Koukaki or Kolonaki that is a rich neighborhood) is dirty and smells like piss sometimes. There are cars parked in pavements that are already non taken care off, with cracks, which makes daily walk really difficult. All this cause there was no planning for cars in the 50s-60s when these polykatikies were being build. In addition, the polykatikies, have no soundproufing and no insulation and are not taken care off. The traffic is insane, so no, you can't go to the beach. In summer days you need at least 2 hours to go to and be back from the beach, by car. It's an everyday nighmare, when i can be somewere in 40 minutes on foot (on 20 by car) and the public transport can be there in there in 40-60 minutes. Public transports are also never on time, except from our beutiful and usefull metro ❤And bear in mind these buses and trolleys are old vehicles and not being maintained the way the should be, so they look older, are super dirty and everyone is packed inside like sardines cause we need more vehicles. Foreigners will never understand the strugle, for you it's colourful lively neighbohouds, for us it's uglyness and obstacles everywhere. It's different to live in Athens for a few weeks/months in a good neighborhood at the centre, than having to live there for decades, in a regular far from the centre neighborhood. Also, Athens has one of the lowest percentage of green spaces in Europe and no, plants on polykatikies are not parks. I really hope Athens gets better by the next century though 🤞 I would love for the city to be friendlier to those who actually live there❤

My family has been living in Athens since the late 19th century. The ugliest European capital - well, maybe, although it has many nice parts. But the ugliest city??? Who says that? Even Greece itself has many uglier cities... As for the apartment buildings ("polykatoikies"), it depends on which ones. Those built before 1960, and even more so before 1940, are really nice. The only problem with those is when they replaced a neoclassical or other older building. But, post 1960, these are ranging from boring to ugly. Also, before 1960, the apartment building was THE building of choice for higher incomes. (The refugees of the Asia Minor disaster were not housed in central Athens, but in peripheral settlements). But, after 1960, more and more apartment buildings for lower income niches were built. A problem with this otherwise interesting video is that it does not make this distinction at all, and it also rarely shows any beautiful buildings, it is as if it is focused on ugliness.. A lot of delapidation, graffiti and exposed side walls in most images. Speaking with Nikos was brilliant, very few people know the city and care about it like Nikos does. His remarks are spot-on.

Athens feels extremely similar to Beirut. A concrete jungle with very little greenery left. The vibes feel a lot alike where you feel it is chaotic and ugly, yet interesting and charming oftentimes when moving from a place to another.

Last year i traveled for the first time outside of Greece to Budapest Hungary and i was so excited to see some refreshing good architecture. When we arrived there from day one i felt depressed and started to question myself. How could i feel like this, when i had great architecture around me in comparison to Athens's concrete buildings? I later realized that it was because almost everything was the same. Square buildings with windows and decorative features and while stunning, they felt mundane and cold. In Athens every single polykatoikia is different, they have balconies which add depth and greenery (unfortunately most people leave them empty), you can hear and see people sitting or looking out from them. I believe that if polykatoikies start to have a more architectural exterior and add color, Athens could become a more likable city by Greeks.

I really do feel like polykatokias are an optimal form of building at least for southern European cities. In Palermo, the areas with polykatokia-like buildings are usually considered to be good neighborhoods, whilst areas with apartment buildings that look like more those of central and northern Europe with big green open spaces between them are usually very degraded.

Thing is, if the polykatoikies were properly maintained, they wouldn't be ugly. Many that have been maintained are indeed nice. But they're still few in numbers in comparison to the total. Plus, we call them ugly as they replaced objectively beautiful neoclassical buildings, with which Athens was entirely made of them until the 60s. We miss that beauty and we call their replacements ugly (which, they are for the most part, excepting these who've been maintained, as mentioned). For the comparison with Paris: Athens is also designed in perfect blocks, if you'll see from the satellite. But the buildings built in these blocks are chaotic.

I love Athens. Its like an overgrown Greek village. The people brought their own villages into growing metropolis and made it a organic, beautiful mess! Nothing like it. A Unique modern and ancient city.