Environs of Russian cities: A case study of Moscow

Ioffe, Grigory; Nefedova, Tatyana

doi:10.1080/09668139808412600

Cited by 33 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Russia also has an "inner" hinterland-the glubinka, large tracts of virtually dead space that interpenetrate and separate the economically responsive archipelago of the integrated economy. Ioffe and Nefedova (1998) calculated that in European Russia the average distance between cities of 250,000 is almost 190 miles, twice as great as in Western Europe. The primitive hinterlands between and beyond the major metropolitan centers remain deprived of the most elementary physical and social infrastructure.…”

Section: Eurasian Geography and Economicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on a Geographic Dichotomy: Archipelago Russia

Dienes

2002

Eurasian Geography and Economics

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A noted economic geographer and Sovietologist conceptualizes Russia's current economy as an archipelago, consisting of widely scattered nodes of viable, integrated activity separated by an enormous expanse of "dead space." The dichotomy between metropolitan Russia and its hinterland is developed through an examination of contrasts in such major indicators of well-being as natural gas consumption, access to education, the middle class, retail trade and services, undeclared income, and port-hinterland multiplier effects. Also discussed are the major types of hinterland (classical, or resource frontier, versus backwater), the special case of the Russian Far East and Transbaykalia, and contrasts with developments on the North American continent. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O10, O18, O50. 38 references. eographically, economically, and socially, Russia today is an archipelago. The country's integrated economy is entirely confined to a set of urban agglomerations plus a few more isolated cities and resource-extracting centers, separated by vast geographic space. Only 62 million people, some 43 percent of the country's total population, reside in cities with more than 250,000 inhabitants and the two "provinces" (Moscow and Leningrad oblasts) immediately surrounding Moscow and St. Petersburg. Perhaps an additional 10 million inhabit places within a two to three hour commuting distance to these large cities, but all of these sum up to less than half of Russia's total population. And some 20 of these cities of a quarter million population or larger are located deep in Siberia or in the Arctic. 2 As two specialists of Russia's rural economy once noted, "Like oases in the rural vastness, the urban nuclei have been unable to cast the web of intense social interaction over more than a relatively small part of the inter-urban space." In most areas of rural Russia, the "vicinity of big cities appear almost the only pockets of viable commercial farming" Nefedova, 1998, p. 1329). Beyond the depressed rural hinterland of European Russia, stretches the "classical frontier" of the North and Siberia, comprising more than three-quarters of the country's territory. That frontier is much larger geographically than Canada's North, Alaska, and the sparsely settled High Plains and intermontane regions of North America combined.The continuity of geography (i.e., distance, global position, and physical-environmental conditions) has stamped its mark on pre-and post-Soviet developments as a quasi-permanent structure. Geographic space has been a constant in Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet history in two ways. First, it acts as an obstacle to be overcome. The economically responsive archipelago must be interlinked over that dead space in order to function effectively as an integrated 1 Professor, Department of Geography, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045. 2 Even in metropolitan areas, of course, many millions are left out of that integrated economy entirely, or live on its very margins.

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Section: Eurasian Geography and Economicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on a Geographic Dichotomy: Archipelago Russia

Dienes

2002

Eurasian Geography and Economics

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“…Moreover, it effectively helped counter the effects of the food shortages that were a relatively frequent occurrence in the Soviet Union. In more contemporary research literature, the summer house settlements have been referred to in using the concepts of seasonal or recreational suburbanization, quasi-suburbanization, or even exurbanization (Ioffe and Nefëdova, 1998;Lovell, 2003;Rudolf and Brade, 2005). Wanting to stress both the seasonal and the suburban nature of the settlements, we choose to refer to them by the concept of 'summurbia'.…”

Section: Summer Houses From the Socialist Planning Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our summurban case study areas were typically created around larger cities to provide a way for some urban dwellersparticularly apartment dwellers (French, 1995) -to enjoy weekend getaways and summer living, and to engage in private kitchen gardening (Ioffe and Nefëdova, 1998;Lovell, 2003). Although this "individualist" recreation function of the dachas (as the summer houses are called in Russian) was not considered to be genuinely socialist because of its excessive proximity to the concept of 'private property', it was tolerated by the authorities mainly because of its long tradition in Russia (Shaw, 1979).…”

Section: Summer Houses From the Socialist Planning Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…We refer to these areas as 'summurbia' to reflect their simultaneous suburban and summer-seasonal nature. Although we focus on one post-Soviet planning example in Estonia, these areas are a near-ubiquitous feature of the urban regions of postsocialist countries (Ioffe and Nefëdova, 1998;Fialová, 1999;Pócsi, 2011;Vágner et al, 2011). Summurbia represents the strict planning and functional regulations that characterized the socialist years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Planning post-summurbia: From spontaneous pragmatism to collaborative planning?

Nuga

Metspalu

https://orcid.org/

et al. 2015

Moravian Geographical Reports

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“…The province surrounds the city on all sides, which is good for combining the labour pool of the province with that of Moscow. The province is the most developed part of Russia, both in the Soviet past and recently (Ioffe and Nefedova, 1998). …”

Section: Human Resources In Moscow Provincementioning

confidence: 99%

Transformation of cities in Central and Eastern Europe: towards globalization

Hamilton¹,

Andrews²,

Pichler‐Milanovič³

2006

Choice Reviews Online

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United Nations University Press is the publishing arm of the United Nations University. UNU Press publishes scholarly and policy-oriented books and periodicals on the issues facing the United Nations and its people and member states, with particular emphasis upon international, regional and trans-boundary policies.The United Nations University is an organ of the United Nations established by the General Assembly in 1972 to be an international community of scholars engaged in research, advanced training, and the dissemination of knowledge related to the pressing global problems of human survival, development, and welfare. Its activities focus mainly on the areas of peace and governance, environment and sustainable development, and science and technology in relation to human welfare. The University operates through a worldwide network of research and postgraduate training centres, with its planning and coordinating headquarters in Tokyo.

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Environs of Russian cities: A case study of Moscow

Cited by 33 publications

References 3 publications

Reflections on a Geographic Dichotomy: Archipelago Russia

Reflections on a Geographic Dichotomy: Archipelago Russia

Planning post-summurbia: From spontaneous pragmatism to collaborative planning?

Transformation of cities in Central and Eastern Europe: towards globalization

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