Central Business District of St. Petersburg 1869–2017

from a Market Economy to a Centrally Planned One and Back Again

Abstract

The city center is at the core of urban and housing economics. Many models crucially depend on it. In a market economy, the location of urban amenities, especially eating establishments, closely correlates with that of the city center and, more generally, with the Central Business District (CBD). In a centrally planned economy, the spatial distribution of those amenities is determined by the central planner and can differ significantly from a market-based distribution. Using the case of St. Petersburg (Russia), we investigate changes in the spatial distribution of eating establishments resulting from the transition from a market economy to a centrally planned one and then again to a market economy. In addition, we explore the shifts of the city center between 1895 and 2017 using eating establishments as a proxy. The spatial distribution is analyzed using a 2-D kernel density estimation. We find evidence for a substantial reduction and dispersion of eating establishments during the Soviet period. We also establish that after the October 1917 Revolution the city center of St. Petersburg moved several kilometers to the north-east.