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. ii CONTENTS SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................................... 1 1. Russian urbanization and urban growth patterns, 1897–2010 ..................................................... 2 1.1 Urbanization in one country ............................................................................................. 3 1.2 Patterns of urbanization ................................................................................................... 6 1.3 Urbanization, natural population growth and age structure .............................................12 1.4 Russian urbanization issues ...........................................................................................16 2. Demographics and war ................................................................................................................... 19 2.1 Defining urban areas ......................................................................................................19 2.2 Historical urbanization: spatial density gradients .............................................................20 2.3 Natural population growth: changing fertility ...................................................................22 2.4 Famine, war and ongoing premature mortality ................................................................27 2.5 Rural–urban migration ....................................................................................................33 3. Socialist planning and urban change, 1921–1991 ........................................................................ 36 3.1 The distribution of Russian cities ....................................................................................36 3.2 Political forces in urbanization ........................................................................................37 3.3 Housing shortages, militarisation and urban growth ........................................................44 3.4 Social processes in urban Russia ...................................................................................47 3.5 Policies and urban growth ..............................................................................................51 4. Post-Soviet urban change ............................................................................................................... 55 4.1 Post-Soviet cities: mobility and urbanization in one country ............................................55 4.2 Adjustment to the market economy: housing and use of space ......................................61 4.3 Social processes in contemporary urban Russia ............................................................63 4.4 The market and migration ...............................................................................................64 4.5 Leaving extreme conditions ............................................................................................70 5. Post-Soviet suburbanization: St Petersburg case study .............................................................. 72 5.1 St Petersburg’s decentralisation: an overview ................................................................73 5.2 Housing in St Petersburg: the fuel for out-migration ........................................................76 5.3 Suburban life in Vsevolozhsk ..........................................................................................82 5.4 Suburbanization and its consequences ..........................................................................87 5.5 Who suburbanises and why? ..........................................................................................93 6. Post-Soviet, post-transition .......................................................................................................... 102 References .......................................................................................................................................... 110 Recent Publications by IIED’s Human Settlements Group .......................................................... 123 iii FIGURES, TABLES AND BOXES Figure 1: Population of Russia, 1897–2002 ........................................................................... 5 Figure 2: Russian urban population, 1897–2002 ................................................................... 6 Figure 3: Urban growth rates by oblast, 1900–2000 .............................................................. 7 Figure 4: Russian city populations, 1897–2002 ..................................................................... 8 Figure 5: Russian regional populations, 1897–2002 .............................................................. 9 Figure 6: Russian urban population growth by region and city type ..................................... 11 Figure 7: Urban population by age group, 1897–2002......................................................... 13 Figure 8: Total and urban population by age and sex structure, 1897–2010 ....................... 14 Figure 9: Russian regional urban and rural populations with age structure, 1897–2002 ...... 16 Figure 10: Russian urban growth rates: total and urban populations by age, gender, and urbanization across census years ....................................................................................... 17 Figure 11: Krig extrapolations of the Russian population gradient, 1897–2002 ................... 21 Figure 12: Proportion of population under age 10, various Russian regions, 1897–2002 .... 24 Table 1: Estimates of total fertility rates, historic values ...................................................... 24 Table 2: Life expectancy in Russia and comparator nations ................................................ 28 Figure 13: Russian population in the presence and absence of catastrophes, 1926–1961 .. 31 Figure 14: Population growth-rate comparisons: Chinese and Russian sides of the Amur River, 1959–1989 ................................................................................................................ 32 Figure 15: The ‘millionaire’ effect: distribution of city populations in Russia, 1979–89 ......... 33 Table 3: Urbanization in the USSR and USA (thousands) ................................................... 38 Figure 16: Russian urban and rural population, 1900–2000 ................................................ 39 Table 4: Rapidly growing Russian cities, 1959 and 1970 .................................................... 41 Table 5: Population in different city-size groups, 1989 and 1999 ......................................... 42 Figure 17: Comparison of Moscow (1992) and Paris (1990)................................................ 49 Table 6: Large urban agglomerations, population as of January 1997 ................................ 54 Figure 18: Inter-regional migration to Moscow and St Petersburg, 1993–2010 ................... 56 Table 7: Russian science cities: population growth in the post-Soviet era ........................... 58 Table 8: Material living conditions of Russian households in major cities, 2006 .................. 64 Table 9: Russian net regional migration flows, 1978–88 and 1989–99 (thousand people) .. 65 Figure 19: Net inter-regional migration, 1990–95 to 2005–10 .............................................. 66 Figure 20: Russian firm entry and exit by market-access deciles ........................................ 67 Figure 21: Leningrad oblast population gradient, 1996–2010 .............................................. 73 Figure 22: Lenigradskaya oblast ........................................................................................