Polemic consolidation of the Moscow region: suburban settlements in a state of transition

Abstract

The paper justifies the need for an urgent intervention into the expansion
model and urban development process of the (not yet recognized) metropolitan area
of the city of Moscow (Russia), taking into account the evidences of a profound crisis,
such as: the disorganized consolidation of the region in conjunction with its centripetal
densification, the ongoing ecological degradation of its territory, the imbalances
and social tensions, all together with the unresolved segmentation of the housing
system between urban and suburban dwellings. The paper analyses quantitative and
qualitative data coming from different sources: reports of the Federal service of State
Statistics, the Ministry of Property relations of the Moscow Region, the Government
of the Moscow Region, etc.; outputs of sociological surveys (conducted recently by
the researchers Pomorov B. S., Soaita, A. M., Tzaninis Y.); reports and discussions
resulting from workshops organized by different institutions and groups; study visits
to the area in search of primary data, etc. A cross-scale analysis (from the regional to
the local scale) and inter-disciplinary approach (social evolution and climatic dynamics)
have been applied. After decades of State repression and of relocating the population
at the cities’ outskirts, and considering the recent absence of any settlement
strategy on a national level, it seems that a new hybrid urban planning model of spatial
balancing of the Moscow Region is required, as well as a program of revitalization
of its peripheral mid-sized cities. The complex problems of suburbanization in Russia
are analyzed as an independent and mature phenomenon, out of the range of its usual
conceptual understanding as only related to secondary recreational residences or to
the delimitation of urban agglomerations.