Path-Dependent Development of Mass Housing in Moscow, Russia

Abstract

Since the 1950s, Moscow's housing development has been underlined by modernist planning schemes. From the 20th to 21st centuries, the quality and appearance of apartment buildings changed, but housing estates designed as coherent neighbourhoods not only remain the principal type of housing organization but are still being constructed in Moscow and its suburbs. Though the concept itself has not been challenged by policy-makers and planners, by the end of the 20th century it became apparent that early housing estates have become a problem due to poor quality of construction. In 2017, the Moscow Government announced a highly controversial program suggesting the demolition of housing estates built between the 1950s and 1960s. Our contribution analyzes the history of housing estates development in Moscow aiming to understand what has led to the adoption of the 2017 "renovation" program. If this program ends up being fully implemented, along with planned renovation of former industrial areas, the cityscape of Russia's capital will be completely redefined.

Urban Governance in Russia: The Case of Moscow Territorial Development and Housing Renovation

“…Enthusiasm about the opportunities of urban redevelopment, in conjunction with the economic growth of the 2000s, resulted in the emergence of new urban research centres, such as the Strelka Institute, established in 2009, and university departments and study programmes, such as the Higher School of Urbanism (Vysshaya Shkola Urbanistiki) of the Faculty for Urban and Regional Development at the HSE 11 and graduate programmes run by the Strelka Institute 12 among others, 13 working alongside research institutes, such as the Institute for Urban Economics (Institut Ekonomiki Goroda) that had emerged during the post-communist transition and some that dated back to the Soviet period, for instance the MARKHI and the Institute for the General Plan of Moscow (Institut Genplana Moskvy). There were also international cooperation and community initiatives in Moscow, such as the Moscow Urban Forum, 14 online voting platforms (Khmelnitskaya 2017a, p. 324;Gunko et al 2018) and international urban design competitions for the development of specific urban areas and projects, such as Skolkovo (Revzin 2012;Evans 2017). 15 In addition to the policy community concerned with economic and urban development, another group of bureaucratic actors connected to the social ministries-the Ministry of Labour and Social Assistance, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Constructionworked on housing development and demographics.…”

“…Robert Argenbright writes of the differences in Luzhkov's and Sobyanin's approaches to city governance: 'Sobyanin's government … has been smarter, respectful of the citizenry, and much more open to public opinion' (Argenbright 2016, p. 112). Yet, such consultative forms often were of a formal character and concerned insignificant issues, whether to leave the autumn leaves on the city lawns, how to name the local 'centre of culture' 29 or the sports to be included in a family winter games competition (Gunko et al 2018; Zhelnina forthcoming). 30 They nevertheless represented a step change from the Luzhkov era of public disengagement, intimidation and violence against Muscovites protesting over urban issues.…”

Toward Regeneration of Public Open Spaces within Large Housing Estates–A Case Study of Niš, Serbia

“…We have chosen two representative areas within inherited LHEs for detailed analysis, based on previously defined criteria: 1. areas have a similar type of functional organization, morphology and architectural characteristics and period of development; 2. areas have a different disposition in the structure of the urban matrix of the city of Nis, namely the first is located in the wider city center, and the second is located on the outskirts of the city; 3. within the areas at least one rooftop extension and construction of a new residential building are present. In choosing the areas to compare it with, the logic of extreme cases has been applied [12]. It was based on the assumption that if various problems and a high level of devastation exist in extremes, it, will exist in all in-between cases-POSs in inherited LHEs at the local level ( Figure 1).…”

“…The types of transformation in inherited post-socialist LHEs depended on the way national and local authorities responded to their development. In that context, three modes of transformation were identified [7,[9][10][11]: (1) complete demolition of existing dilapidated LHEs and construction of new residential buildings [9,12]; (2) uncontrolled and partial interventions resulting from inadequate policies and insufficient financial interventions with minimum national and local government participation, whereby the focus was most often on the improvement of residential buildings' energy efficiency and POS regeneration; and (3) fully renovated urban regeneration projects, based on an overall spatial, functional, environmental, and social development [13].…”

The impact of social structure and physical characteristics on housing estate renovation in postsocialist cities: Cases of Vilnius and Budapest

“…In Vilnius, the brick houses remained important through the whole period, one fifth of the HE dwellings are brick buildings. A large part of them, the already mentioned called khrushchyovkas of the 1960s are low quality buildings (Gunko, Bogacheva, Andrey, & Ilya, 2018), their low renovation level can be explained by the supposedly low status inhabitants. The explanation is similar in the case of the typically low quality mixed houses.…”