[badpun]

Very similar thing happened in Poland. I remember growing up in the 80s in a typical soviet-style appartment block house of 30 flats. My mother used to know almost every family in the building, she roughly knew what was going on in their lives, sometimes helped them in small ways or have gotten the help from them. It was like a small village community. Partly it was dictated by neccessity - due to constant shortages of goods, it was crucial to have "connections", that could help you buy things like refrigerators, cars or even stood in line for bread for you.

After the transformation of 1989, which in Poland was performed by the government in the form of the "shock therapy" (their term), lots of inequality appeared almost right away. Some people did well, some were barely getting by, and some lost their livelihood and were in very bad shape. The community atmosphere of the building vanished, it started to become vandalized or occupied by drunkards/homeless. Ties between families have loosened, the "connections" became unnecessary as the material needs were now efficiently satisfied by the market forces and basic capitalism. The building is now just a bunch of people that share the same roof, but otherwise don't want to have anything to do with each other (as is standard in other capitalist countries).