The Post-Socialist Suburban Revolution: The Russian Context

Abstract

This article studies the factors determining suburbanization in Russia. Unlike seasonal dacha migrations, suburbanization involves permanent suburban migration. The author points to the continuing influence of Soviet urbanization on post-Soviet suburban spaces, for example, the extensive urban private sector. Another significant factor determining the formation of the suburbs is the system of land relations and the peculiarities of land turnover. The redistribution of collective farm (kolkhoz) lands among collective farm workers led to small plots of land being available on the market which were mainly involved in suburbanization and which large landowners and developers distanced themselves from. Hence the impossibility of complex development, which resulted in an almost complete lack of social infrastructure in the emerging suburbs. Other factors are dachas as the seasonal equivalent of suburbanization, the low impact of urban residential property redistribution, and interregional and intraregional differences in urbanization. The latter determine the inapplicability of linear approaches to analyzing the Russian situation.