That’s because it was socialist modernism - a utopian vision that drove support. A sort of more sustainable socialist version of the American dream. I live in such a neighborhood myself - it’s not very glamorous but it’s what living should be like in the age of environmental collapse.
Yes, nations with less wealth, more poverty and lower productivity consume fewer resources.
So if the argument is Totalitarian Socialism of the late 20th Century kept us poor, and now we're green, well that would be an argument.
I don't believe there is any evidence to suggest that there is anything other than that going on, as those formulations for living are otherwise identical to those in more capitalist W. Europe.
The architecture itself I don't think lends to any argument one way or the other, other than most people who have to live with it don't like it.
The 'prison' analogy used by some commentors here is apt, the fist time I visited the areas in E. Berlin with those types of buildings I literally thought they were reformatted prisons.
