In the years 1947 to 1949 the architect Alexey Shchusev developed a plan with the aid of a team of architects for the gradual reconstruction of the city. There was rapid population growth in the 1950s, to which the Soviet administration responded by constructing large-scale housing and palaces in the style of Stalinist architecture. This process continued under Nikita Khrushchev, who called for construction under the slogan "good, cheaper and built faster". The new architectural style brought about dramatic change and generated the style that dominates today, with large blocks of flats arranged in considerable settlements. These Khrushchev-era building are often informally called Khrushchyovka. The period of the most significant redevelopment of the city extended from 1971, when the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union adopted a decision "On the measures for further development of the city of Kishinev", which secured more than one billion rubles in investment from the state budget, which continued until the independence of Moldova in 1991. Currently, the share of dwellings built during the Soviet period (1951–1990) represents 74.3 percent of total households. On 4 March 1977, the city was again jolted by a devastating earthquake. Several people were killed and panic broke out. Many streets of Chișinău are named after historic persons, places or events. Independence from the Soviet Union was followed by a large-scale renaming of streets and localities from a Communist theme into a national one. Chișinău is located on the river Bâc, a tributary of the Dniester, at , with an area of . The municipality comprises . The city lies in central Moldova and is surrounded by a relatively level landscape with very fertile ground. Chișinău has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfa") characterised by warm summers and cool, windy winters. Winter minimum temperatures are often below , although they rarely drop below . In summer, the average maximum temperature is approximately , however, temperatures occasionally reach in mid-summer in downtown. Although average precipitation and humidity during summer is relatively low, there are infrequent yet heavy storms. Spring and autumn temperatures vary between , and precipitation during this time tends to be lower than in summer but with more frequent yet milder periods of rain. Moldova is administratively subdivided into 3 municipalities, 32 districts, and 2 autonomous units. With a population of 662,836 inhabitants (as of 2014), the Municipality of Chișinău (which includes the nearby communities) is the largest of these municipalities.