Moscow: from Kremlin to the Russian suburbs?

The authorities of the capital announced a competition for development of the concept “Big Moscow” for the next 30-50 years. It is about building the area of more than 150 thousand hectares, which officially will be joined to the city starting from July 1 of 2012. Will Russia benefit from the growth of its capital?

1. The best for the capital

Even today Moscow is perceived as a city-monster: big, overcrowded with people and transport megalopolis, to which almost all intellectual, money and human resources go.

70 subjects of the Russian Federation out of 83 for the last 10 years have been unprofitable – including, for example, Yakutia with its diamonds, oil and gas, Orenburg region – with the largest in Russia gas condensate fields and with almost all the periodic table, with excellent yield of bread, engineering industry and defense industry. So 84% of Russian regions are unprofitable. In these regions live 74,2% of the population of the country, they cover 87% of the territory of the whole state.

At the same time Moscow budget could be compared with the size of the budgets of many middle states. For example, in 2012 revenues of Moscow budget will be 1,458 trillion rubles, expenditures – 1,711 trillion rubles. To compare: the revenues of the state budget of Ukraine for 2012 are planned to be 332821 million hryvnias (1,307 trillion rubles), expenditures –358010 million hryvnias (1,406 trillion rubles).

More than 30% of All-Russian volume of retail sales and more than 40% of the wholesale go to Moscow.

Among the most ambitious plans of the Russian government is to turn Moscow into another financial capital of the world. But for now it turns into more expensive and less convenient for life city, where money rules: for the sake of the money parks are built up, shops are restructured, architect monuments are “restored”, in a massive scale people from central regions move to suburbs. There is more money, and the prices are getting higher.  

2. The number of Muscovites is close to critical

According to calculations of the experts from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), there is economically justified limit of growth of the megalopolis – 7 million people. And then the connection between population quantity and GDP per capita, and also the quality of life, is getting negative. According to the last population census, 11,5 million people are officially registered in Moscow. Practically 12,5-13 million people live constantly in the capital, at the same time on weekdays 3-4 million people from Moscow area come to the capital for work. Even today Moscow is on the verge of anthropogenic and civilization catastrophe. City’s infrastructure can’t stand such pressure. First of all, it concerns transport and roads. Less than 17 metro stations account for 1 million people in Moscow, to compare in Paris – 111, Madrid – 99, Milan – 65, Prague – 44, London and Berlin – 50, Vienne – 60, Amsterdam – 69 stations. At the same time the mileage of Moscow metro is not enough – in the capital of Russia 28 kilometers of subway account for 1 million. In Vienne – 41, London – 49, Amsterdam – 57, Paris – 97 kilometers.  Citizens of not so distant Moscow suburbs have to do rather difficult choice: go to work 2-3 hours earlier in order to avoid traffic jams, or to sleep a little bit longer, but then to go to work in full subway cars.

We should also add here economic and demographic catastrophe. According to census of 2010, coefficient of the total population increase for 2010 was +6,7‰ against +5,1‰ for 2009 year. The growth of Moscow occurs because a lot of Russia villages are dying out and cities are becoming smaller.  For the last 8 years 8,5 thousand villages have disappeared. During the same period the quantity of the cities-millionaire reduced insignificantly: from 13 to 12. But at the same time we have to note that a lot of cities in order to maintain their “millionth” status had to join suburb territories (for example, this happened in Volgograd). Also in many regions with decreasing population the speed of this decrease has grown, in comparison with 2009. After the crisis in the beginning of the 90s attracting role of Moscow not just brought back, but also increased. Capital region, thanks to migration, is growing for 100-130 thousand people a year due to interregional migrants.

3. Muscovites are not the same

Today 8-9% of the whole population of the country live in Moscow. Maybe this number is not so outstanding. Citizens of London represent 13% of the population of England, citizens of Tokyo – 10% of the population of Japan, citizens of Paris – 4% of the population of France.  

However ethnic composition of Moscow, even according to official statistics, has changed significantly. The share of migrants increased, today they are not less than 2,5 million people – almost quarter of the population of the capital.  Of course, it affects cultural and social life of the city. The majority of migrants – low-skilled workers. They try to maintain typical for them way of living and style of their behavior. Meanwhile, sad experience of tolerant Europe reminds us about existence of the “limit of tolerance”, beyond which the possibility of interethnic conflicts is growing.

4. Larger! Further! More expensive!

Meanwhile, neither authorities of the country, nor authorities of the capital, understand that further growth of Moscow could be a catastrophe. Instead of changing the system of redistribution of income and improving the life – this could help to stop continuing outflow of population from the East of the country – new program of Moscow expansion is adopted. Its realization, by the way, according to preliminary data, will cost 11 trillion rubles (16 billion rubles for geodetic surveys on areas of new urban regions, 32 billion rubles — design and development of general plan, 1,1 trillion rubles — purchase of land for construction of objects,  9,35 trillion rubles for construction). Expenditures on public service unions, infrastructure, road and rail networks, involvement of the workforce, environmental measures and many more are not included in this sum.

The results of this initiative are controversial. Moscow continues to grow, citizens from former Moscow areas, which now fall within the borders of Moscow, risk to lose their land and houses, but at the same time they will receive compensation, the size of which is not yet determined. But the growth of land prices is expected, and also of the volume of construction and inflow of investments.

5. Will Moscow solve its problems?  

General conception of the development of new territories, proposed by the authorities of the capital, is rather doubtful. All joined zone is going to be divided into three “planning zones”. In the closest to the city zone will be governmental agencies. Previously the first candidates for removal have been the White house and presidential administration. Next planning zone is going to be dedicated to research institutes, educational and medical institutions. The purpose of the last, the furthest from Moscow Ring Road from zone is not explained in the documentation.

On this joined territories houses for 2,5 citizens will be built. So we can say that almost every fifth citizen of current Moscow will be removed there.  At the same time, the head of the commission of Moscow City Duma on long-term development and urban planning Mikhail Moskvin-Tarkhanov assures that they don’t plan to remove Muscovites in an administrative way. They plan to attract them to new places by offering them more favorable conditions for living.

Besides large-scale resettlement there is a task to reduce the number of working places inside Moscow Ring Road – by 1 million people (according to the data of the City Hall, 6,3 million people are employed in the city’s economy). At the same time not less than 1,5 million new working places should appear on these new territories.  

One more controversial initiative of Moscow authorities is construction of apartment buildings for migrants. Various developers should provide their workers with such profitable houses or communities. Their projects will be developed by summer of 2012. In the beginning about 200 thousand migrants are planned to be provided with houses. However today this initiative is disturbing.  Instead of solving the housing problem for Muscovites, the authorities decided to solve the housing problem for migrants. Unlikely, this will decrease the number of those who will live in basements or rented apartments, but this will definitely increase the inflow of new migrants. Moreover, houses for migrants will be built far away from residential neighborhood – in industrial zones – in order to avoid interethnic conflicts. However, in reality such decision will increase the risk of interethnic conflicts in future.  "While organizing affordable housing for workers it is necessary to avoid their concentration in one place, - stresses the deputy of the State Duma Oleg Kulikov.  – On the example of the West we can see what the ghetto is. It is uncontrolled territory with its own laws. It is necessary to create special police department, which will be for them “their own man”. Migrants will take their families to live in better conditions – it means that we will have to build immigrant schools in immigrant blocks. In what language these children will learn in such schools? Who will teach them? It is unclear. Historical experience shows that such enclaves tend to grow: people from closest regions prefer to move, and new migrants take their places. We don’t have to take measures which will increase the degree of racism in the society. Block for migrants is not the decision of the old problem, it is an emergence of the new problem".

But maybe, when the life in Moscow will become too unbearable, the growth of the capital will stop – so the new plan of Moscow authorities, in the end, may be beneficial. 

COMMENTS: