I don't think you're romanticising at all. I visited (of all places) Mariupol, in 2013. As a city built around the Azovstal steel works, it was still horrendously, actively polluted when I visited. But it also beautiful. Dozens of parks with ice rinks, sports grounds, lakes. Each soviet era block was surrounded by greenery, and despite the wide thoroughfares the city was indeed quiet and friendly. Not to say it was idyllic - the pollution was horrific, the poverty was grinding. With little in the way of pensions, the elderly people were forced to sell jams and preserves from their apartments to survive. Each building had an aging guardian in the doorway - and I was told my by Ukranian partner that part of their function was to prevent the apartments being stolen and sold out from under their residents. But in terms of urban greenery and place spaces, few places I've been, including relatively green bohemian cities like Berlin, come close.