INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT UNITED NATIONS POPULATION FUND URBANIZATION AND EMERGING POPULATION ISSUES WORKING PAPER 9 Russian urbanization in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras by CHARLES BECKER, S JOSHUA MENDELSOHN and POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT BRANCH KSENIYA BENDERSKAYA NOVEMBER 2012 HUMAN SETTLEMENTS GROUP Russian urbanization in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras Charles Becker, S Joshua Mendelsohn and Kseniya Benderskaya November 2012 i ABOUT THE AUTHORS Charles M. Becker Department of Economics Duke University Durham, NC 27708-0097 USA
[email protected] S Joshua Mendelsohn Department of Sociology Duke University Durham, NC 27708-0088 USA
[email protected] Kseniya A. Benderskaya Department of Urban Planning and Design Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
[email protected] Acknowledgements: We have benefited from excellent research assistance from Ganna Tkachenko, and are grateful to Greg Brock, Timothy Heleniak, and Serguey Ivanov for valuable discussions and advice. Above all, the BRICS urbanization series editors, Gordon McGranahan and George Martine, provided a vast number of thought-provoking comments and caught even more errors and inconsistencies. Neither they, nor the others gratefully acknowledged, bear any responsibility for remaining flaws. © IIED 2012 Human Settlements Group International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) 80-86 Gray’s Inn Road London WC1X 8NH, UK Tel: 44 20 3463 7399 Fax: 44 20 3514 9055 ISBN: 978-1-84369-896-8 This paper can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=10613IIED. A printed version of this paper is also available from Earthprint for US$20 (www.earthprint.com) Disclaimer: The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed here do not represent the views of any organisations that have provided institutional, organisational or financial support for the preparation of this paper.