Prague 4: Prague

Just south of Prague 2 lies the city's biggest municipality: Prague 4. A quiet and peaceful area, Prague 4 is largely residential. Due to its proximity to the center, good transport links, parks and leisure centers, many Czech people see this suburban neighborhood as a great place to raise a family. Its number of pleasant family homes are a testament to that.

Not all of this area's housing is quaint, however. It is largely covered by panelák housing estates, blocks of pre-fab concrete apartment buildings that were built during communist times by Czechoslovak leaders looking to deal with a major housing shortage. The uniformity of the paneláks not only cut costs but represented the government's ideology. In reality these buildings suffer from shoddy workmanship (their walls are paper-thin) and soul-crushing dreariness. Václav Havel actually called them "undignified rabbit pens." Because they are still the cheapest option, many Czech people still make their homes in these buildings so certain residential conveniences, from markets to parks, surround the paneláks of Prague 4.

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