Russian Federation is undoubtedly the main world center of Soviet urban-planning model. This is due to historical peculiarities of country’s development, when during 74 years the state was trying to conduct and experiment of building a new Communist society. During the Soviet period not only 62% of all urban settlements were founded but also a great leap in urbanization was made – from 1920s till 1960s the number of citizens raised from 15% up to 70%. As a result in 1990 95% of Russian population lived in urban settlements of different kind. Nowadays we have to admit that after 20 years of post-Soviet development overwhelming part of population still lives in the urban-planning reality which was formed by means of planned economy.
What was the typical Soviet city? It was not only the complex of typical multi-storey apartment houses but more importantly – the model of urban structure which was created entirely for the needs of working class and industrial economy. Russia owns hundreds of millions of square meters of apartment houses and thousands of square kilometers of urban landscape which are characterized by dominance of typical urban-planning and architecture decisions, strict approach to functional zoning and strong bond between living areas and industrial sites. Such kind of non-dynamic and industrialized settlement forced citizens to live in a simple circle “apartment-job-apartment”.
Negative aspects of described type of urban settlements were identified by urban professionals and city dwellers a long time ago. Such simplified kind of a city was designed for a simplified model of urban life. In terms of planned Soviet economy, when people were not allowed to change their place of work and living freely, Soviet city played a role of penal colony for its dwellers.
Obviously, after the collapse of Soviet system of economic management and living its basic components, which included Soviet city, also fell into a deep crisis. But as the city is by far more rigid construction than economy or political system, its transformation was much more slower.
During 2000s fast growth of economy in Russia gave an impulse to a construction boom in the country. This situation formed a possibility for transformation of Russian city from industrial strictly-planned state towards dynamic and creative centers for work and living. After 10 years we can say that opportunity of cities positive development and transformation was almost completely lost, even if you take into consideration huge negative Soviet background.
Unpleasantness of most Russian urban settlements is most vividly characterized by migration trend when school graduates and young professionals are constantly leaving 95% towns and cities. Such situation is caused not only by territorial disproportions in economic development between different Russian regions but, more importantly, by lack of urban environment of decent quality. Overwhelming majority of urban settlements are still not able to provide their citizens with comfortable living conditions – there is no historical city centers, level of cultural, leisure and infrastructure development is low. As a result cities are doomed to be in a vicious circle: reliance on Soviet legacy – conservative economic policy –– weakness of creative and innovative social groups – fragmentary and spontaneous development on city infrastructure instead of strategy-based urban environment development.
Established negative situation is a result of two basic problems:
Absence of well-defined state policy in the sphere of urban development regulation: both at lower level (lack of municipal management mechanisms) and upper level (lack of measures to stimulate priority urban development issues).
Rigid orientation of private and state investors on highly profitable construction projects with higher rate of return and at the same time – low effect from state investment into capital-intensive infrastructure construction projects.
As a result, in the majority of Russian cities where population exceeds 50 000 citizens (30% of Russian urban settlements) the only positive result was primary consumption and leisure sector revolution. Retail sector was booming, leisure, office and hotel infrastructure were also developing in a decent speed. Rapid growth of budget revenues gave an opportunity to fulfill some local projects in sphere of city transport, engineering and urban infrastructure.
But this positive changes are insufficient to reverse overall negative trend as they are not characteristic for 70% of Russian urban settlements (mostly small ones). Moreover, those changes often have low quality and in longer perspective could reduce towns appeal in terms of living and business.
Taking into account all the forecasts of socio-economic development of Russia for the nearest 5-10 years, one should not expect high-rate economic growth and customer’s activity which we could witness in the in the first decade of the century.
Taking these circumstances into account, the country needs to reload the mechanisms of urban space development; otherwise, ineffective costs and low tempos of economic growth will not allow creating well-developed and attractive urban centers even in ten years.
New urban politics means setting a concrete goal and it [politics] has to be based on solving those specific issues which are being stagnated at the current stage of urban development in Russia.
The goal of urban development of the Russian Federation can be described in the following way:
The country needs to create an effective and world-competitive chain of cities along all the inhabited territory. Those cities have to be a core source for domestic and outward investment. Domestic investment can be produced by educated and gainfully occupied local population. Outward investment will also be brought through labor resources and available basic infrastructure.
To be able to make the goal true, the country needs to intensify actions in the following directions:
Including citizens into the control process in the field of urban development. Lack of feedback from citizens (who appear to be the main customers of the service “city”) actually means the continuation of the centrally planned urban planning model when the decision-making center is outside the urban community. Such situation leads to predominance of urban projects aimed on getting only short-term commercial or political dividends against public interest.
Modernization of the building complex of the country. 90% of all the construction facilities have been created in the Soviet time and they are designed to copy typical architecture and urban planning decisions. The growth of real estate development volumes in Russian cities in 2005-2008 has not led to increasing the level of affordable housing and the used technologies have not provided the new level for the building complex. Further copying of the typical urban planning projects of high rise apartment buildings has shaped new considerable volumes of energy-intensive and short-life objects
Improvement of effectiveness of state investment in basic infrastructure and transport infrastructure of cities. Soviet cities were designed and built following the logic of low level of motorization and mobility of population under conditions of non-market value of energy resources. The building boom in the first decade of the century has only exacerbated those problems. The state could not increase the pace of the infrastructure construction in the proper amount. The government expenditure race in the absence of new modern solutions, technologies and cutting of products costs has led to lagging behind the needs.
Long-term private investment in developer’s projects. Situation when a developer will take responsibility for further maintenance of a building and bear all reputation risks caused by property future costs decrease will be able to motivate adjustment of the technologies of a better quality for private co-financing of infrastructure projects. In case the existing situation continues, it might lead that Russian cities will be built-up with buildings that have a maintenance cycle less than those in the Soviet past.
Modernization of the system of education and project activity in the field of urban planning in construction. Research, urban planning and engineering schools in Russia following the logic of gaining quick profit have finally lost the ability to generate brand new ideas and strategic solutions. Ten years of a building boom allowed multiple increase in the production volume but did not allow making this production up-to-date and suitable for international challenges of urban development. The system of education has also come down since it is focused more on quantitative but not qualitative criteria to professional training.
Including goal-setting practice into the field of urban development. There is no clear state approach towards the cities of the future, therefore, there are legal opportunities for realization ineffective and, quite often, harmful urban projects.
It is clear that realization of all the approaches mentioned above is impossible without making investment climate in the country better (which is a certain condition for long-term investment). Though the situation of further lack of goal-setting practice in the field of urban development will unavoidably lead to step by step creation urban systems which are even more ineffective than those used in Soviet time.