This article argues that the importance of housing and the urban environment in East Germany in the second half of its existence grew in tandem with a new vision of socialist society and the means that the state should employ to create it. The East German Housing Program, inaugurated in 1971, made space the primary category in which individual and social transformation was envisioned, replacing the pedagogical processes that had originally stood at its heart. In doing so, architects and urban planners drew on three strands of urban planning that have often been seen in conflict in other contexts: the Soviet concept of the Mikroraion or socialist neighborhood, the modernist housing ensemble of Le Corbusier, and the new urbanism of Jane Jacobs.

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BOIS OUTSIDE PARIS to Zahradn ı M esto-v ychod outside Prague, and from Singapore's Toa Payoh to Rio de Janiero's Realengo, mass-produced modernist high-rise housing estates span the globe. For decades these housing developments stood as iconic symbols of the failure of social engineering. 1 In recent years, however, modernist mass housing has had a revival of sorts. Architectural and cultural historians have explored the variety of its manifestations around the globe. 2 Historians of Eastern Europe have discovered a vibrant array of modern architectural experiments that echoed, but did not imitate, their Western counterparts. 3 The transnational culture of borrowing and exchange that marked modernism's heyday has been a further subject of historical inquiry. 4 Motivated in part by nostalgia for his For their thorough and thought-provoking feedback, I thank Robert Schneider, the board of the American Historical Review, and the anonymous reviewers who read this manuscript and improved it immeasurably at every stage. I also thank Eli Rubin, Peter Eisenstadt, Suleiman Osman, and Geoff Eley for their extremely helpful comments. Finally, I thank the residents of Marzahn and Co-op City who shared their stories with me. Research for this article was supported by grants and fellowships from Oberlin College, the University of Michigan, and the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst.

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