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| How to create Muscovy from Russia without the help of Ukraine |
| 2023-06-16 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Arkady Komarov The Ukrainians have serious competitors to transform Russia into Muscovy. They do not call for these transformations, but simply silently do their job. Demographic Vacuums For more than a decade, our megacities have been growing with new microdistricts of "pencil cases" and "Chinese walls" going into the clouds. Developers, with the permission of the authorities, continue to build up all free and not free places with “humans”. Over the past 10 years, Moscow and St. Petersburg with regions and the Krasnodar Territory have become leaders in housing construction in Russia. The same regions occupy the leading lines when calculating the natural population loss in their federal districts for 2019–2021. And at the same time, over the same period, three of them are among the all-Russian leaders in terms of migration population growth. A comparison of the processes of natural decline and migration of the population, on the one hand, and housing construction, on the other hand, shows that these five regions have become all-Russian “vacuum cleaners”, sucking in a new population. One can argue at length about the causes of this social process. There are many of them: salaries, weather conditions, social sphere, etc. Much has been written and said about it. However, it is especially important that such migration greatly contributes to the “pumping out” of the population from Siberia, the Far East and other regions of the country. During the period under review, 2019–2021 alone, about 700,000 people left the Far Eastern and Siberian Federal Districts — the population of five to seven medium-sized cities. This process was slowed down by the pandemic, otherwise the numbers would have been even more impressive. At the same time, the population of megacities is not reproduced. It is clear that various factors affect the birth rate, but the fact is the fact. There are other studies that prove the detrimental effect of megacities on the population. They relate to the deterioration of the psychological state of people, their health in general, the negative impact on the environment, etc. Several years ago, a wonderful renovation program was launched to move the residents of the city of Moscow into new homes. But it fades against the backdrop of commercial housing under construction. Only 3.5 million m² (13%) of 27 ml. m² built since the start of the program is intended for the resettlement of Muscovites. The remaining 23.6 million m², it turns out, is mostly for migrants from both inside and outside, which gives a significant increase in the population of the capital regions. The construction industry, no doubt, employs tens or hundreds of thousands of people, allows you to quickly replenish city budgets with taxes. But among these thousands of builders, the proportion of those same migrants is very large. Balashikha ahead of Singapore The Moscow authorities have really done a lot of good things to create comfortable living conditions: the historical center (in which only 6% of Moscow residents live) has been repaired, walking areas, comfortable parks have been made, the service sector has been developed, convenient transport, communications, security, etc. It is true that the capital in many respects has become the best city in the world. But this beautiful "iceberg" has an invisible part. The one that they don’t want to talk about and think about is the development of sleeping areas. In Moscow, restrictions on building density and population density have been practically lifted. High-rise (20-30 floors) houses are located 20-30 meters from each other, so you can observe in detail life in the house opposite. To sweeten this pill, they create fashionable entrance groups, stylish but very small yards, instead of those Soviet ones, with dozens of trees, where children could run, play and ride a bike. The parking problem is getting worse. The increase in population density entails an increase in the load on transport. The authorities are heroically and not unsuccessfully creating a new road infrastructure, public transport works like clockwork. But right there, new microdistricts grow up around the new highways. Soon all the possibilities for the construction of transport infrastructure will be exhausted. It's like running in circles. The cities near Moscow have long been striving to become world leaders in terms of population density: Reutov, with 12,527 people per square kilometer, has already made New York with its 10,430 people per square kilometer. km. Odintsovo (9,211 people/sq. km) and Balashikha (7,552 people/sq. km) have already outstripped the island of Singapore (7,437 people/sq. km) and are catching up with the leader of the Moscow region. But we won't stop there. We love to be first, don't we? Philippine Manila has a density of 41.5 thousand people/sq. km. True, there are only islands and not a single square meter of the mainland, while we have the largest territory in the world. But can it bother us? And one more question - what will happen next when the construction begins to curtail? The problem of finding a job in a 5,000-strong single-industry town will seem like a trifle compared to the problem of finding a job in a residential area built up with skyscrapers. Concrete boxes do not create jobs, and real estate taxes are orders of magnitude less than taxes on operating enterprises. Where will all these people work? Jobs in cafes and flower shops on the ground floor of their skyscraper are not enough for everyone. And artificial intelligence is advancing so fast that very soon the question will arise - what to do with hundreds of thousands of accountants, lawyers, SMS people, etc. At the same time, the construction of these skyscrapers in itself kills jobs, because the favorite construction sites are the old industrial zones. In the shops of these industrial zones there are usually small manufacturing enterprises: furniture, metal processing, car services and others that need to be closer to the consumer. Thus, small manufacturing and partially service enterprises are squeezed out of the redistribution of megacities. We must pay tribute to Moscow - there are 42 technoparks here, but they are all geared towards high technology, IT and creativity. And where should a small car service, carpentry or glass workshop and other not burdened with innovations, but so necessary for the city residents, both the clients of these companies and the Muscovites who work in them with their hands, go? What to do? Many of these arguments in one way or another sounded from specialists in demography, urban planning, sociologists and economists. However, are there recipes for solving the described problems? Undoubtedly! First of all, it is necessary to create a systemic barrier to the “wild” development of large cities and limit the number of storeys of residential buildings under construction. To do this, it is necessary at the legislative level to return the norms of building density and population in all cities throughout the country to the standards that existed in the Soviet era. This in itself will automatically solve many of the problems described above. But perhaps more drastic measures are needed. For example, in cities with a population of over a million people, allow the construction of housing only for residents of these cities and / or only to replace the old one. Establish by law the maximum share of apartments in the total living area of cities. It may be a little more in large cities and tourist centers. Prohibit permanent residence (say, no more than 6 months a year) in the apartments of their owners. Apartments can only be for temporary residence, for rent. This will deprive developers and local authorities of the opportunity to create housing that is not provided with social infrastructure. At the site of the demolished industrial zones, approximately the same number of jobs should appear for those who work with their hands. Those who work with their hands in modern times, as it turned out, are more in demand than those who work in the office. Through regulation and incentives, direct the efforts of developers to solve problems outside the five regions mentioned. Many of our new fellow citizens have lost their homes as a result of the fighting. The state is already doing a lot for them. But everyone understands that the scale of the construction tasks in the territories returned home will require the efforts of the whole country, and the construction business in particular. And the state now has carte blanche from the people to create conditions for redirecting the construction business from the “sweet” places to those that the state and the people need. Russia's spatial development strategy must be updated to take into account the new challenges and wishes of our citizens. About 70% of Russian citizens would like to buy their own house. Among the main advantages of this type of housing, respondents name the environment and the ability to independently improve the local area. This is evidenced by the results of a joint survey conducted by the DOM. RF and VTsIOM in 2021. Supporting this desire will help solve the problem of spatial development, remove many of the problems of maintaining apartment buildings in a normal state from the authorities and, finally, make people happier with all the ensuing consequences. The worst diseases are those that are invisible to the eye. Like cancer - you don’t see it and don’t feel it until it passes into the terminal stage, when it’s too late to “drink Borjomi”. The diagnosis is already known, the terminal stage has not yet been reached, it remains only to draw the attention of doctors to the patient and begin treatment. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #1 One more time for Central Planning imposed from on high to fail ...epically. I read reviews of a book many years about how the USSR 'planned' an archipelago of model cities above the Arctic Circle stretching through Siberia to the Pacific Ocean. The thesis of the book that the support of these artificial cities was levying up to a 20% drag on the entire Soviet economy -- missed opportunity cost, higher support cost and continuing costs from investing in a 'sunk cost fallacy'. So people leaving is only rational... Now the Central Planners will build more pyramids to Progress and expect something different to happen this time. |
| Posted by: magpie 2023-06-16 16:39 |