It doesn't really matter that much, if your city wasn't destroyed during the war, it was destroyed during the 70's or 80's (in a process continuing to this day) when the communists governments decided to ruin every larger town in a same manner as the Americans did 20 years before them, massive tear-downs, urban freeways (right through the city center, see Prague), uniform large scale housing projects on the periphery. Admittedly, the scale was not that large, but it was the same kind of destruction.

Krakow's greater center is just gorgeous, I really loved it. But it was a similar experience, to a certain degree, as well. On a train from Katowice, the first sight was something called "Krakow Business Park", disgusting office park, a place that doesn't belong anywhere, I work in a similar project and it is almost the same. Glass blocks surrounded by an endless parking lot. Then some recent suburban development, complete clusterfuck under all circumstances. And looking from Kazimierz across Wisla, what I saw on the other bank was also very disappointing. Or this https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-dO_Cw7ayCQk/Tx2LuPNmF0I/A..., seen right from the castle Wawel. And this was not built by the soviet engineers. Not much has changed after 1989. Maybe nothing at all.

This sums it all. You don't need a war. http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/4967/houstons-cars-...