Nowa Huta was a model city built by the Communist authorities to attract people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to the region as a counterweight to the middle class of Krakow who had decisively rejected Communism in the 1946 Polish People's Referendum. Nowa Huta, which means 'New Steel Mill', became the largest steel mill in Poland next to modern (for the time) apartments built in a way which mixed the Renaissance style with Soviet Realism. The steel mill had little economic rationale : coal had to be imported from Silesia and iron ore from the Soviet Union, while most of the finished steel was shipped elsewhere as there was little local demand. The original complex of apartment buildings is built on spokes which radiate out from the central square (Plac Centralny) which was renamed Ronald Reagan Central Square in 1984. Buildings constructed in Nowa Huta after 1956 are Modernist while those built in the 1970's and 1980's are mainly 'plattenbau', a technique which used pre-fabricated concrete plates and was common in East Germany. (from http://wikitravel.org/en/Krakow/Nowa_Huta).