I grew up in a panel block, now live in a more recent building and my general impression is that while their build quality left much to be desired, I had no complaints about walkability. I could go to school, the clinic, the dentist or post office without crossing a road - only streets with heavily restricted traffic. Almost all parking spots were in a ring around my superblock.

Very few people had cars when these houses were built, so parking and car-friendliness wasn’t obviously a priority. With the number of cars these days we have major issues with parking and emergency service accessibility around commie blocks.