Who Studies the Suburbs of Big Cities in Contemporary Russia and How?

Abstract

This article gives a brief overview of the research of suburbs in Russia. The author gives a brief exposition of the subject and notes that rapid suburbanization and urbanization are two sides of the same process, although their rates may not coincide. Noting the specifics of the rapid growth of suburbs in the post-Soviet space (“the post-socialist suburban revolution”), he cites five sources of this: deregulation in urban management, construction, the real estate market, etc.; compensation for the historical shortage of housing; the deindustrialization of cities and the infrastructure crisis of central urban neighborhoods; mass internal migration to large cities; and the arrival of foreign investment in suburban real estate.

The author then discusses the topics and studies of suburban researchers by discipline and geographical region. The main directions in the study of suburbanization are the population and migration dynamics of suburban territories, the variety of dachas, and the geography of the suburbs. The field is just beginning to develop in Russia and there are few scientists and few research cases scattered around the country which does not allow generalizations to be made about the state of the suburbs in the country in general. The current picture of the development of suburbs on a nationwide scale is formed only on the basis of demographic data.