Shrinking cities – places which need to ‘narrow down’ the too spacious settings – pose challenges to the mainstream urban planning which naturalizes growth and direct approaches advocating it. While ...shrinking cities are located worldwide, responses to the phenomenon are place-specific depending on the knowledge and resources of decision-makers, as well as the discourses of the desired spatial development. In this sense, it is still not precisely clear why and how urban planning changes under conditions of shrinkage. Since the beginning of the 1990s, many Russian cities began to lose population. Excluding the oil and gas provinces, the Russian Arctic has become a ‘showcase’ of the country’s population exodus. Our contribution is based on empirical evidence from Vorkuta (Komi Republic, Russia) an Arctic city with around 54 thousand people which is among the fastest shrinking cities of the country. Due to the simultaneous need for improving housing conditions, dealing with negative physical effects of shrinkage, and high maintenance costs of housing and infrastructure the local stakeholders had to come up with a new approach toward planning – the so-called ‘controlled shrinkage’ that helped reduce sprawl and fragmentation.
Shrinkage since the collapse of state socialism has been evident in many Russian cities, especially in small and medium-sized (SMS) ones. The Russian state, de jure, has been promoting the idea of ...self-governance; thereby, urban municipalities ought to develop and adopt own planning decisions to cope with various challenges, including those related to depopulation. The current research focuses on planning responses to urban shrinkage. It aims at understanding how the phenomenon is conceptualized in the planning documents of Russian SMS cities and what solutions are proposed to cope with it in the conditions inherited from the Soviet times housing and infrastructural deficit. The empirical evidence for the analysis is drawn from over 70 SMS cities located in Central and Southern Russia. Results state that despite obvious and persisting urban shrinkage, most of the reviewed documents ignore or underestimate the phenomenon. Instead of suggesting flexible solutions, which would help overcome the shortage of urban infrastructure not aggravating shrinkages' effects in the cityscape, long-term spatial plans are being developed with hope for future growth proposing measures that contribute to the intensification of urban sprawl and fragmentation.
Despite a rising amount of urban shrinkage research, little attention is paid to the shrinking historic ethnic neighborhoods, where authenticity plays a vital role in maintaining local heritage, ...identity, and livability. This article concerns the historic Chinatowns in the United States that are largely confronting the evident decline of the ethnic Chinese population and authenticity dilution. Taking San Francisco’s historic Chinatown as a case study, the research portrays an alternative face of urban shrinkage at the neighborhood level with a specific integration of authenticity discourse. Through combining quantitative statistical analysis and qualitative research on the basis of interviews, the paper presents how neighborhood shrinkage and authenticity dilution are perceived and characterized and further reveals the interactive process of neighborhood shrinkage and authenticity dilution, and their impacts on social sustainability. The study also demonstrates the notable necessity and possibility to incorporate the issue of authenticity into the discourse of urban shrinkage, which enables a deepened understanding of the cumulative effects of urban shrinkage on local lives and social sustainability, and establishing a more comprehensive and targeted framework of strategies, particularly for those carrying significant social, cultural, and emotional meaning.
This paper analyses the relationship between demographic decline and economic development in Russian regions in the period 1998–2012, demonstrating how shrinking regions undertook different economic ...growth patterns. In some cases, population decline was associated with an effective restructuring of the regional economic system. Successful shrinking regions appear to have, at the beginning of the period, a higher endowment of private capital and a higher share of the young population than the other shrinking regions. In 2012, these differences were even broader, suggesting the potential occurrence of a vicious cycle for the unsuccessful shrinking regions, for which the process of depopulation did not probably stop here.
Resumen
Este artículo analiza la relación entre el declive demográfico y el desarrollo económico de las regiones rusas en el período comprendido entre 1998 y 2012, y se demuestra la forma en que las regiones en declive asumieron diferentes pautas de crecimiento económico. En algunos casos, la disminución de la población estuvo asociada a una reestructuración efectiva del sistema económico regional. Las regiones en declive exitosas parece que tuvieron, al principio del período, una mayor dotación de capital privado y una mayor proporción de población joven que las otras regiones en declive. Estas diferencias fueron aún más amplias en 2012, lo que sugiere la posible aparición de un círculo vicioso para las regiones en declive que no han tenido éxito, para las cuales el proceso de despoblación probablemente no se detuvo aquí.
抄録
本稿では、1998~2012年のロシアの地方における人口減少と経済発展の関連を分析し、縮小している地域が経済発展の異なるパターンをとることを例証する。一部の例では、人口減少が、地域の経済システムの効果的な再構築と関連していた。経済発展が成功する縮小地域では、1998年から数年は、民間資本の保有と若年人口の割合が他の縮小地域よりも多いようである。2012年には、この差はさらに拡大しており、経済発展が成功しない縮小地域では、悪循環が起こり人口減少に歯止めがかからなくなる可能性が示唆される。
This article brings attention to the diversity of urban conditions, actors, agency, and development paths in contrast to the imperatives of urban entrepreneurialism and competitiveness. Rather than ...presupposing the critical role of exogenous sources of growth, the aim of the current paper is in exploring empirically the role of local agency in achieving continuity or change through the lens of urban renewal. The data is drawn from three case studies of small, company towns (monogorods) in Russia. The paper concludes that in small towns local actors and endogenous resources play a strong role in achieving positive change. For Russian monogorods there is a tendency to 'merge' different types of agency into an all-embracing local-based leadership which despite the hierarchical power relations allows for certain decision-making autonomy from the central government. The study indicates the need to better account for diverse forms of human agency in various fields of urban development. While conventional approaches tend to prioritize formal hierarchies and derive agency from static positions of authority and economic power, we demonstrate that actors may assume different roles that do not neatly reflect their positions in a fixed and pre-defined manner or narrowly determined economic interests.
The aim of the research. To study the biomarkers of inflammation in acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) in patients of the Buryat ethnic group in comparison with Russian patients. ...Material and methods. In 109 patients with acute STEMI of Buryat (n = 43) and Russian (n = 66) nationalities, as well as in 42 healthy donors (20 Buryats and 22 Russians), serum levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, interleukin-1β (IL-1β ), interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-8 (IL-8), interleukin-10 (IL-10) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), as well as IL-6/IL-10 and IL-8/IL-10 ratios were evaluated and compared between the ethnic groups with consideration for the clinical data and STEMI severity, as well as in the groups of healthy patients and those with STEMI. Results. The study groups did not differ in gender and age. Compared to healthy subjects in the STEMI group, the concentration of all inflammation biomarkers was higher regardless of ethnicity, with the exception of IL-1β, which significantly increased in Caucasians only. According to the results of comparative analysis, patients with STEMI of the Russian group matched to that of the Buryat, had higher levels of IL-1β (1.46 0.41-3.67 and 0.02 0.01- 1.12 pg/ml, respectively), TNF-α (2.1 1.4-3.0 and 0.9 0.4-2.2 pg/ml), IL-6/IL-10 ratios (4.9 3.5-7.8 and 3.4 1.7-6.7) and IL-8/IL-10 (37.6 8.1-63.4 and 11.9 5.8-30.7), troponin T (2.5 0.19-15.5 and 0.38 0.11-2.7 ng/ml), creatine phosphokinase-MB (29.4 17.3-89 and 19.0 12-26 IU/l), and lower body mass index (24.9 22.5-28.4 and 27.3 25.1-31.0 kg/m2) and left ventricular ejection fraction (51.5% 44-57 and 55.0% 50-58). After adjustment for gender, age, and body mass index, the association with ethnicity remained significant for IL-1β (F for the general regression model was 5.28; p = 0.024) and the IL-6/IL-10 ratio (F = 4.43; p = 0.037). Conclusion. The pro-inflammatory response against the background of STEMI in the Buryat ethnic group as compared to the Russian one is characterised by lower levels of IL-1β, TNF-α as well as lower IL-6/IL-10 and IL-8/IL-10 ratios. After adjustment for gender, age, and body mass index, differences in ethnic groups remained significant for IL-1β and IL-6/IL-10, which indicates a less pronounced proinflammatory response in STEMI patients of the Buryat nationality.
This chapter explores different patterns of shrinkage and emerging responses in Russia. The aim is to foreground if and how urban shrinkage is addressed in planning and policy documents adopted by ...different governance levels. Firstly, the chapter explains the country's existing demographic situation, causes, and dynamics of national, regional, and urban population change. It also discusses policies approved at the national level that address demographic issues. Secondly, the chapter presents the methodological approach. Thirdly, it analyzes the relationship between regional and local (urban) population decline in selected cities and regions on the one hand and policies approved at the regional and local levels on the other. Finally, the chapter provides reflections on the results and concludes with a description of possible policy directions for managing urban shrinkage in Russia.
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