Differential urbanisation in Russia

Abstract

Rapid yet delayed urbanisation close to that seen in the Third World, a history full of troubles, and a demographic condition that today has a Western look -such a combination makes the Russian case not an easy one for the differential urbanisation theory. Testing the latter for over 100 years by a period of time and population dynamic (with a sliding city class scale), the authors find that the all-Russian advances in the urbanisation stage were interrupted twice by the cataclysms of the century. After its third start, the stage lasted until the 1980s when signs of polarisation reversal were observed (this time in migration). The recent crisis was marked first by a steep turn to a premature counter-urbanisation, and then by a 'swing back'. On 'average', the reversal looks most 'normal' for the 1990s' stage.Several regional and local studies proved that the dates of stages depend on the general and the urban development level, although the relationship may be far from linear or even paradoxical (in the South and in the East of Russia). Also, the size-distance regularity is observed for the case of the Moscow agglomeration, prescribed by the differential urbanisation theory during the polarisation reversal stage.All these lead to the conclusion that the theory can explain the Russian trends when they are not deeply distorted by some extraordinary events, which, however, were and are so common in this country.

Towards a Theoretical Exploration of the Differential Urbanisation Model in Sub‐saharan Africa: The Botswana Case

“…For Italy (Bonifazi & Heins 2003), Turkey (Gedik 2003), South Africa (Geyer 1995; Kontuly & Geyer 2003a,b) and India (Mookherjee 2003), progression has occurred sequentially from the urbanisation stage to polarisation reversal. In Britain (Champion 2003), West Germany (Kontuly & Dearden 2003) and Russia (Nefedova & Treivish 2003; Tammaru 2003), the cycle of consecutive stages was observed as a general temporal progression, rather than a series of uninterrupted stages. This could be explained by severe policy interventions, significant changes in political‐economic conditions, or unique local political circumstances.…”

Post-Soviet forest fragmentation and loss in the Green Belt around Moscow, Russia (1991–2001): a remote sensing perspective

“…If new reforestation is considered, the loss was only 12.4%, while the region experienced a population growth of about 17%. As the relative attractiveness of Moscow continues to grow according to the differential urbanization theory (Nefedova and Treivish, 2003), the population growth is only likely to continue. In comparison, New Jersey lost only 0.8% of its forests between 1986 and 1995, while gaining 5% of population (MacDonald and Rudel, 2005).…”

“…Like other post-socialist societies, e.g. East Germany (Ott, 2001;Nuissl and Rink, 2005), Russia is experiencing accelerated decentralization of settlements, especially in the vicinity of the largest, wealthiest cities (Nefedova and Treivish, 2003). The standard compact Soviet city model of multistory residential neighborhoods surrounded by green wedges of space (Rodoman, 1974(Rodoman, , 2002 is being rapidly replaced by a North American-inspired suburban sprawl of single-family homes in 20-100 home subdivisions, frequently gated and blacktop connected to the city 15-30 min away (Blinnikov et al, 2006).…”

“…Its suburban development has been the subject of some previous research (Blinnikov et al, 2006;Ioffe and Nefedova, 2001;Nefedova and Treivish, 2003). Since the fall of Communism in 1991 land use and ownership has changed rapidly in Russia, because of major changes in the underlying economical and political systems (Bater, 1994;Iyer, 2003),.…”

“…Offe (1991, p. 875) describes the transition to capitalism as "a systematic change that includes a triple transformation of central planning into a market-based economy, of totalitarianism into democracy, and of the empire into nationstates." Nefedova and Treivish (2003) provide a broad overview of the Soviet and the post-Soviet differential urbanization in Russia. They analyze demographic changes in selected large urban agglomerations in the country in the 20th century.…”